We are finally back in Monaco again! One of the oldest and most prestigious race tracks in the F1 calendar. This race is a very interesting one, as the elite of Formula comes together to watch the race on this narrow street circuit. It is also called the most boring race of the calendar as the track is just too narrow to overtake and the only real possibility is to gain places is trough clever strategy and pit stops. This will probably not change this weekend. But for me the most important question this weekend is: Can Charles Leclerc finally break his bad luck streak on his home circuit?
Qualifying – No Surprises
The qualifying had little to no surprises. The teams have delivered what they can and the starting positions do not bring any surprises either. The last 5 places are given to the disappointed Zhou, Latifi, Stroll Gasly and Albon. The next 5 drivers went out in Q2. Amongst them were Schumacher, Ricciardo, Magnussen Bottas and Tsunoda. It is yet again another horrible weekend for the McLaren pilot who is also surrounded by rumors about his contract at McLaren. It is really a shame to see such a talented driver performing so poor. The most painful thing to see is that his teammate, Lando Norris, is able to perform in this car, as he managed to take a solid P5!
The Last Qualifying round was ended by Perez who crashed into a wall, taking the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz with him. This lead to the stop of the session and the freeze of the current qualifying positions. Charles Leclerc will be starting from pole which means that he has the best cards to finally take this Monaco trophy home. In P2 is his teammate, Carlos Sainz. It looks like Ferrari found a better set up than Red Bull for this weekend as both Red Bulls are only in P3 and P4. Max, who will start in P4, will hope for a rainy Sunday afternoon as he is known to perform best in rain. It will be interesting to see whether Red Bull will switch cars yet again to give Max a better chance for the World title, or if they will let Perez have a fair fight against the reigning world champion. Further down the grid I am also expecting a great fight between George Russel, Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton as they will probably all try to show who the best British driver is.
Race – Water Fest
The race began with a lot of water. After a few rounds of safety car we finally saw some racing and finally some interesting pit stops. The first one risking something was actually Pierre Gasly as he had nothing to lose anymore in the back of the field. Accordingly the race leaders went into the pits as well. The first one to go into the pits was Perez. This was too surprising for Ferrari which resulted in a far too late pit stop for Leclerc. This made Charles fall back behind the Mexican driver who seemed to do everything right this afternoon. After another horrendous decision by Ferrari we saw the four racing leaders in the following constellation. In first place was Perez, followed by Sainz, followed by Max and then Leclerc. All of them were now on slicks.
The race did not continue for too long as Mich Schumacher provoked another Red Flag period as he crashed his car into the barriers. This was also the reason why the race could not go over its full length. There is a rule that the race is not allowed to go longer than 3 hours and after this crash happened it was clear that the race will not go full distance. With this constellation the race continued and the race also finished like that. Perez did an amazing job to stay calm in these conditions and secure very important points for himself and his team. It would have been interesting what Red Bull would have done if not Sainz but Max would have been behind Perez. Nevertheless, I am very happy for the Mexican as he got a little bit of justice back for the Barcelona GP.
As for Charles, it seems like he has the curse of the home race on his shoulders. I don’t think he made a terrible race this weekend. His problem this time was the strategy by his engineers. I think it is safe to say that he was screwed by Ferrari once again. It will be interesting to see how he will recover from all the push backs that he got lately. The only positive note for him was that Max “only” got third place which kept the dealt damage to the championship race low.
Behind the four racing leaders, nothing major changed in the positioning. This was expected as Monaco is a track that is very hard for overtaking, as mentioned before. It is still very nice to see George Russel to outplace Lewis Hamilton in every race. Furthermore, he has yet again managed to finish in the Top 5 positions! What is also very nice to see, is that Lando Norris manages to bring some good poijts home for McLaren as well as Sebastian Vettel who was able to finish in P10!
Conclusion
In conclusion, this race probably did not give us much information about the current state of the teams. I think that the championship will be decided in one of the last few races and that it is still going to be a hard ride. What is not very surprising but will play a major role in the future is that Perez is now only 15 point behind his teammate Max Verstappen! Suddenly we have a fight between three drivers for the championship! This excites me, as we saw several times that Sergio Perez is an excellent driver. I predict that Red Bull will have to decide for one of the drivers and it will be without a doubt Max but I hope that Perez will get his fair shot.
Published by ga38jem on
Sports Talk Social
On 29th May 2022