The Monaco Grand Prix has arrived.
The so-called jewel in the crown of the Formula 1 season may have lost some of its shine in recent campaigns, but last year reminded fans exactly why it can be so special, delivering one of the most thrilling qualifying sessions of 2024 before rain arrived to shake things up in the race.
Yet once again the race itself is coming under pressure — and plenty of drivers are feeling the heat too.
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Here are all the burning questions as the F1 paddock takes to the famed principality.
CAN LECLERC FINALLY BREAK HIS HOME-RACE HOODOO?
There’s no such thing as curses in sport — except when you’re talking about Charles Leclerc and his home grand prix.
The Monegasque’s run of bad luck at the Monaco Grand Prix is colossal.
In 2018, racing for Alfa Romeo, he suffered a brake failure late in the race and was classified 18th.
In 2019, his first year with Ferrari, he topped third practice and was on course for pole when a tactical blunder saw him knocked out in Q1. He crashed out of the race in his eagerness to recover ground.
In 2021 he took pole but suffered a gearbox failure on his way to the starting grid. The non-start was linked to damage from a Q3 crash not picked up by the team in pre-race checks.
In 2022 he scored pole again, but the usually unimpeachable power of a P1 start in Monte Carlo was undone by a comical series of strategy errors that dropped him off the podium to fourth.
Last year he qualified a competitive third but was penalised three places on the grid after the team failed to prevent him impeding Lando Norris during Q3. He started and finished sixth.
But his bad luck runs even deeper than that.
Leclerc dominated the 2017 Formula 2 championship and took pole for the Monte Carlo round but was forced to retire following a botched pit stop in the feature race. Regulations meant he then started the sprint race in 17th, from which he also retired with electrical problems.
And it goes beyond competitive appearances too. In 2022 he was taking part in a demonstration parade in Niki Lauda’s 1974 Ferrari 312B3 when it suffered a brake failure and he crashed into the barriers at Rascasse.
What does fate have in store for him this year?
Leclerc returns home in fine form. He’s second in the drivers championship after collecting his fourth podium trophy at the weekend, and his Ferrari car is much improved.
In Imola the team rued that its power unit lacked the top speed to match Red Bull Racing and McLaren, perhaps its last major weakness in the frontrunning battle.
But in Monaco that won’t matter. Top speed counts for nothing here. Acceleration — a long-running strength of Ferrari’s chosen power unit configuration — is far more important.
On paper Leclerc should be one of the favourites to take pole and win this weekend.
But knowing everything you do about his run of form at home, would you even contemplate betting on it?
Reporter dragged away from Verstappen | 00:32
WILL MONACO DISAPPEAR FROM F1?
It seems that every year, debate reignites as to the future of one of Formula 1’s most historic and unique races.
Monaco is the street circuit. Forget Baku or Singapore or even the glittering new Las Vegas race down the famous Strip, Monaco still epitomises what is great about the format.
The cars simply look too big for the skinny streets — which both provides the sense of jeopardy and excitement and poses a major problem.
Overtaking is nigh on impossible, which makes qualifying this weekend statistically more important than any other race on the calendar.
Without overtaking, the races can become a procession, a straight-line march from start to finish. Start from pole, avoid the wall, and victory is about as straightforward as it gets.
But that doesn’t make for great racing, or great viewing. And so every year, as more and more races pack the calendar — and this year we’ve hit a new record with 24 grands prix — Monaco’s future becomes ever murkier.
Countries around the world are vying for hosting rights and willing to spend big for the privilege. In response, Monaco has made sacrifices — plenty of them.
When the last hosting deal came to an end in 2022 and a new three-year deal agreed, Monaco finally relented on a host of demands from F1 that race organisers had long refused.
It gave up control of TV production — it had been the only race on the calendar producing its own coverage. The result was brand-new camera angles in 2023 that greatly added to the spectacle.
Monaco also gave up control of the trackside advertising hoardings, something that probably means more to the commercial types than the average fan.
And the format of the race has long been streamlined into the F1 norm — the Thursday practice session removed and shifted to Friday to align with the rest of the season.
For all these sacrifices that could have turned Monaco into just another race, it still is a special place, particularly for the drivers.
As Verstappen said: “It is so unique. Completely different … it is always very tricky.
“Monaco is so very special and a special challenge.”
Ferrari hometown hero Leclerc said: “Monaco is so specific that we need to start a little bit from a blank page.
“Free practice is super, super important to build the pace little by little, but I am confident we will be strong.
“It’s very special for me of course, even though it hasn’t been a successful place for me.”
Despite the sacrifices the traditionalist Monaco organisers have made, F1 still wants more — and this time, it’s money.
Monaco has long paid the smallest fee for hosting rights: about US$20 million (A$30.12 million) per year on the current deal which ends in 2025. Reports this week from Fortune and Bloomberg claim that F1 owners Liberty Media are seeking a significant increase on that figure as the parties begin negotiations over a new deal for 2026 and beyond.
Thailand has publicly declared its interest in hosting a new street race in Bangkok, as Southeast Asia looks like a strong candidate for a future event.
Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei told an Autosport Business event in Monaco this week: “There’s a lot of interest across Asia, as we have interest from many cities. But in Asia, as you rightly point out: Thailand, Seoul, and we’ve had interest from Indonesia. There are lots of places which want a Formula 1 race.
“We have really looked at the intersection of where our fans are, where they could be, who could run a great race, and who can frankly afford a race – and all those sorts of intersections of those three circles.”
He added: “I think you could very easily see a second one in Southeast Asia [alongside China].”
If Monaco doesn’t shell up — adding to its long list of sacrifices in recent years — then it might just be condemned to the scrap heap.
Norris causes late scare for Verstappen | 01:24
CAN PIASTRI STRIKE BACK WITH MCLAREN IN FINE FORM?
In a parallel universe not dramatically removed from our one, Oscar Piastri has a couple of podiums and perhaps even a first grand prix win to his name from the last two rounds.
His Miami Grand Prix performances was deeply underestimated. He was equipped with only half the upgrades enjoyed by Lando Norris, which the team said put him at a 0.2-second deficit to the sister car, but he was outqualified by his teammate by just 0.081 seconds.
Piastri was the lead McLaren in the grand prix, running second behind Max Verstappen, but lost out at the safety car, after which his race unravelled.
In Imola he was more obviously impressive. He qualified second to Verstappen by only 0.074 seconds, a margin largely accounted for by the Dutchman getting a slipstream for pole his lap.
Had it not been for a three-place grid penalty — copped for impeding Kevin Magnussen in qualifying because the team failed to inform him of the Dane’s approach — it would’ve been Piastri, not Norris, who challenged Verstappen in the final laps of the race.
Given Piastri appeared to be marginally faster that weekend, perhaps he would’ve had a better chance of making a move too.
Instead Norris has put himself — deservedly — at the centre of the F1 universe for the last fortnight, leaving Piastri out of the limelight.
But the Melburnian sees the bigger picture. Enjoying good form and with McLaren in the ascendancy, it’s surely only a matter of time this year before Piastri mounts the top step.
“I’m feeling confident,” he told Sky Sports. “I feel like we should be confident enough to say wherever we can go we can try and fight for a win.
“Of course we’ve got very stiff competition in Red Bull and Ferrari, but we’re well and truly in the mix, and I think we can definitely take the fight to them.”
On paper Monaco shouldn’t suit the McLaren car, for which slow corners — every corner in Monaco — is the biggest weakness.
But Norris doesn’t see that as an impediment to the team getting another strong result this weekend.
“I think when we can set the car up just for slow speed, we’re better,” he said. “When you have to set it up for high speed, medium speed, and slow speed, that’s when we make the most of our strengths — which is high and medium — and we take the hit in slow speed.
“We have some little things, and even the upgrade we had last weekend helped us a little bit move in the right direction.”
McLaren clearly expects to be among the contenders this weekend — and therefore so should Piastri.
McLeod’s MONSTER rollover crash | 00:19
CAN PÉREZ DEFLECT THE PRESSURE?
If you’re only as good as your last race in Formula 1, Sergio Pérez must be feeling the heat.
Before Imola he was on average qualifying less than three places and less than 0.3 seconds behind Verstappen, starting the season in exactly the sort of form he needed to justify a contract extension.
Imola, however, looked like a worrying return to the 2023-spec Pérez that had Red Bull Racing considering its options.
Pérez was knocked out of Q2 in 11th, more than half a second behind Verstappen. He recovered to eighth in the race.
In the process he dropped from second to third in the drivers championship and prevented Red Bull Racing from meaningfully extending its lead in the constructors standings.
To be fair to Pérez, the entire team struggled to find a workable set-up for the RB20 all weekend. It was only just before qualifying that Verstappen found a functional configuration that allowed him to pinch pole and just eke out victory, and even then it was largely down to individual brilliance.
But by that same token Pérez’s underperformance only underlines his relative weakness.
If Ferrari and McLaren really have caught up to Red Bull Racing, can he be counted on to secure the podiums required for the team, or will he spend his time scrapping for points in sixth place?
Team principal Christian Horner has described the race as a blip in an otherwise strong start to the year — something he presumably really believes, with Mexican media reporting that the team has already offered Pérez a one-year contract extension.
However, those same reports suggest negotiations are still ongoing, and the team might decide it’s safer to bide its time to assess how close the field really is and whether Pérez really can support its credentials in the constructors standings.
Monaco will be an interesting test.
Two years ago Pérez won in Monte Carlo — somewhat controversially, according to some in the Verstappen camp — but last year he slumped to his first stinker of the year, crashing out of Q1, starting last and finishing 16th. It precipitated a major collapse in form.
Which Pérez will turn up this year?
WET WEATHER, CRASHES… OR BOTH?
If there’s one thing that can spice up what can turn into a straightforward race around the opulent streets of Monaco, it’s the weather. Last year a wild storm struck late in the race, causing plenty of drama. And the incredibly tight and tricky track means crashes are pretty much guaranteed too.
In fact there’s been a safety car (virtual or the four-wheel kind) in seven of the last nine races.
Seven rounds into this season, we haven’t yet seen a wet race. But the weather forecast this weekend is intriguing — a 40 per cent chance of rain for Friday practice and Saturday qualifying (the latter including possible heavy showers), dropping to a 20 per cent chance of rain come race day.
Given the all-important nature of qualifying and the importance of drivers getting comfortable on the circuit in practice — and getting their set-ups right on the unique track — rain on those two days could cause a proper shake-up.
Source Agencies
