Grand Prix 2023 Monaco Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Assuming there is no more rain of biblical proportions, this weekend see's the annual F1 parade around the streets of Monaco. As a test of the ability of the driver I suspect there is no race which is more challenging. As a spectacle to watch on the medium of television, which most of us will do, there are few races which are less interesting.

Today's F1 cars are even less suitable for racing round Monaco than, perhaps, ever in the history of F1. At around 5.5 metres long (that's 18 feet in old money and longer than a Range Rover) and 2 metres wide, not only do the cars struggle to go round some of the tight corners of the principality there is also little room on the narrow streets to even pretend to be able to over take. To put this in context, there is a "requirement" to leave a cars width should a driver throw their machine down the inside at a corner. The width of the track at Monaco is 8 metres at its narrowest and 11 metres at its widest. It doesn't take an engineer to work out how easy it is keep another car behind should you really want to. The only track which is narrower at any point is Baku, with that stupid bit which goes through the castle.

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Last year we saw Sergio Perez take third on the grid and go on to win the race. Since then there have been lots of dark mutterings about how Sergio deliberately binned it when the cars went out for their final qualifying laps to ensure that Max started behind him. The race itself started wet and then dried out, and featured the excitement of Mick Schumacher managing to break his Haas in half at the swimming pool complex. The red flag and subsequent delay nearly saw the race end under the two hour rule, but Perez nipped home in 1 hour 56 minutes and 30 seconds. That's an average speed of just over 68 mph, or 110 kmh. The Formula E race at Monaco a few weeks ago had an average speed of 115 kmh. I know, I'm not comparing apples with apples, but it does give some perspective on just how unsuitable Monaco is in 2023 to host an F1 race.

For those in the UK watching live, this is the Sky schedule

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I wanted to include all detail about the reports Ted Kravitz will be providing as I know SOOO many of you on this forum love what he does. Console yourself with this thought though Kravitz's skeptics, Louise Goodman is still wheeled out to cover the BTCC on ITV, complete with her jingle jangle bracelets and the single "what happened out there?" question.

I hope it rains in Monaco, just to spice things up a little. Although the risk there is that Fernando Alonso might win, which would mean building a chimney the size of those Fred Dibner use to knock down to cope with the amount of smoke the Sky F1 team would blow up his a@#e.

The Indy 500 takes place afterwards, so there is something to look forward to on Sunday.
 
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I wanted to include all detail about the reports Ted Kravitz will be providing as I know SOOO many of you on this forum love what he does
i know this is a opinion only i have on here, ted kravitz is brilliant, love his antics, as his notebook is more like a sitcom than a review of the action
 
but i think you summed it up very well in that its the toughest driving challenge all season & for me its the best qualifying session all year. but the race is often a letdown either because they cant pass or cant race last year because its too wet for intermediates & pirelli extreme wet tyres are unusable

for me im not going to say this race is amazing & the best. but i dont think monaco in previous years has even been in worst 3 races of the year. in previous years. Spain, Abu Dhabi, Miami, Zandvoort, have all been arguably worse. Formula E showed how good the racing can be at monaco some great overtakes into mirabeau or the hairpin. there not that much difference 1.7m wide compared to 2m & 760kg compared to 796kg & found a graph that shows the difference between the current formula E & F1 cars through the year. without going bit carry on & innuendo. is the length the problem

temp 1.jpg
 
The view of the cars going through the swimming pool complex is in my opinion one of the single best views of how fast these cars are.

The race on the other hand is without doubt one of the most dull sporting spectacles.

The size of the cars is a big factor, but passing at Monaco has always been challenging, certainly in the last 30 years or so, with the tight slow speed corners, limited straights and nowhere for alternative lines to be effective. With limited scope for any changes to be made, it will likely ever be this. A spectacle for the rich and famous to show off their mega yachts, while 20 drivers parade around with commentators trying to make it sound like something interesting is happening!
 
Apparently F1.com take over responsibility for the TV coverage this year so there is the possibility of new camera angles to show just how crazy fast these cars are as they go through, for example, Casino square. I suspect, having got the rights, they will sub-contract it back to Tele Monte Carlo and we will have the same old crap.

 
Seeing as F1.com TV coverage doesn't have the best angles to show speed at other circuits I won't hold my breath
 
In all my years of watching the Monaco GP, I never knew what the layout of Casino square looked like until I actually visited Monaco and walked the circuit. Because of the low angle of the camera and the high sides of the fences you don't notice the square at all.
 
The words "review of the action" are doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
i didnt know what to call it LOL,

because it supposed to be a where he goes up & down the paddock & chats about every driver in detail. but certainly veers away from that in a entertaining way. & i would say now i watch it to see him wandering Around the paddock, congaing in mexico, getting a selfie with russell in this machine, or going down an up escalator in miami, riding a rollercoaster in japan. than for F1 content which i see why that would annoy some people.
 
The only glimmer of entertaining hope is thst over the last 30 years (couldn't be arsed to check any further back) the eventual championship winner had had a bad time at Monaco.
 
The only glimmer of entertaining hope is thst over the last 30 years (couldn't be arsed to check any further back) the eventual championship winner had had a bad time at Monaco.
of the 31 monaco gps since 1992. only 10 has winning driver gone on to be crowned world champion & as you see below only twice in the last decade 2019 & 2021

schumacher 94, 95, 01
Hakkinen 98
alonso 06
hamilton 08, 19
button 09
Vettel 11
verstappen 21
 
here we go ive sorted it only 23 times of the 68 runnings since 1950 has the winner of monaco gp gone on to be crowned world champion to add to post 1992 records this is pre 1992 records

Fangio 1957
Brabham 1959
Hulme 1967
G Hill 1968
Rindt 1970
Stewart 1971 & 1973
Lauda 1975
Scheckter 1979
Prost 1985 & 1986
Senna 1990 & 1991
 
it really pains me to give any credit to them. in the same way it pained me to be impressed by my city rivals impressed comeback. but there is case that only red bull have gone forward as everyone bar aston martin have gone backwards. & only the genius adrian newey understood ground effect ran the car high enough

so red bull domination is about others failures while ferrari self destructed, mercedes kept deluding themselves that this wrong road would pay off & mclaren have fallen apart.

 
Regardless of who has done well and who has done badly the sport is suffering due to the dominance of one car and one driver. This has happened numerous times in the past, this image of some of the issues of Autocourse I have on the shelf in my office demonstrates just such a time. I could have photographed two other recent eras where Vettel in the Red Bull and Hamilton in the Mercedes similarly crushed all before them.

Autocourse Schumacher.jpg


The issue is that those that run the sport either can't or won't do anything about it. It is perfectly reasonable for those who control a sport to want to bring back some some sort of competition, and if the rules they have set don't achieve that they should be able to review and revise them. Taking WEC racing as an example, and the issues with Toyota dominating the LMP1h category. The regulators of the sport stepped in and made some rule changes which didn't mean Toyota got beaten every race, but brought the Porsche and Audi cars closer so that there was some competition.

The fundamental problem with F1 is the teams having any say in the rule making as as soon as one team starts to dominate they simply refuse to allow any changes. Rules for a sport are a man made, abstract construct, not immutable laws such gravity or thermodynamics. To simple say, "well we can't change the rules" is churlish and juvenile. This is sport, which is a branch of entertainment, and supposed to contain an element of competition and jeopardy. Formula One today contains none of these.
 
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