Lando Norris makes Formula 1 exciting again
Smoking heads, numerous pit stops-and in the end the big comeback from Lando Norris in the title fight of Formula 1: The McLaren pilot won the Grand Prix of Monaco, the feared strategy chaos survived harmless and finally cut back in the team duel with Oscar Piatri. The new two-stop rule for the usually sluggish race in the principality brought excitement-but no unusual result.
Norris drove from the pole position to victory on Sunday, he relegated the local hero Charles Leclerc in Ferrari and Piatri in second and third place. This was followed by world champion Max Verstappen in the Red Bull and Ferrari star Lewis Hamilton. Due to his second win of the season, the first one since the start in Australia, Norris is now very close to Piatri: only three points are separated by the two rivals at the traditional team.
Because so little is overhauled in the narrow streets of the principality, Formula 1 was committed to the new pit stop rule in order to provoke more position changes. And at least in the run -up to the race, everything was different due to the new requirement. Usually the greatest excitement is survived on a Monaco weekend after qualifying on Saturday.
This time everything really broke up about what would come out by the compulsion to change two tire. Many, very early stops? This may wait long for a safety car phase? Everything made sense somehow – depending on what happens in the race, what does the competition, where your own car is in the field.
« If a strategy engineer is able to predict all unknown elements, he is a genius, not a strategy engineer, » said Mario Isola, head of sports at Pirelli. The tire supplier also had no universal solution for the race.
Different strategies
And the start phase provided a lot to ponder: Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull), Pierre Gasly (Alpine) and Oliver Bearman (Haas) came in in the first round, and Gabriel Bortoleto (cleanly) slipped into the gang and also had to go to the box for a new front.
A little later, Gasly then drove off the left front wheel – but the two incidents only led to yellow flags and a virtual safety car, this was not enough for any of the others.
Some pilots from the back field had already completed their two compulsory stops in the first third and had started to catch up. It remained confusing, but the tip met with a conventional plan: gradually the top drivers came to their first stop, it shifted little at the top.
Max Verstappen’s strategy did not work. He had to go to the pit late. Photo: AFP
The pace was clearly higher than usual in the principality, the pilots had to defend themselves against the more aggressive strategies of the competition and have left distances for their stops. However, the race settled around halftime, at least at the top there was now a rather ordinary Monaco Grand Prix.
Rule change should ensure more tension in Monaco
Norris, Leclerc, Piatri, Verstappen and Hamilton had each stopped and raced away, the speed difference was blatant. A more than 70-second gap opened up behind Hamilton. 20 laps before the end had not yet completed his second stop from the top quintet, so he temporarily led the field and hoped for a safety car. In the end, Leclerc put great pressure on Norris, but overtaking is difficult in Monaco.
