There are those in the F1 paddock who feel that the move is a contrivance, a knee-jerk reaction to a specific set of circumstances that happened to unfold last year.
In 2024, a crash up the hill after the first corner led to a safety car and pretty much all the field pitting at the end of the first lap, and fitting hard tyres to go to the end.
Because the life of the tyres was marginal, pole-sitter and leader Charles Leclerc controlled the pace in his Ferrari, and basically nothing happened for the final 77 laps.
When the rule change was introduced, some pointed out that one only had to look back a year for an exciting race, when a mid-grand prix rain shower introduced major jeopardy, and Aston Martin fumbled a chance to leapfrog Fernando Alonso ahead of Verstappen’s Red Bull into the lead.
Verstappen had yet to stop as the rain started, and Alonso came in behind him. Instead of fitting wet-weather tyres to Alonso’s car as he pitted with the track half-wet, half-dry, they fitted slicks. But the rain became harder and he had to come back in the following lap for wets, the chance to get Verstappen now lost.
It was also pointed out that, in reality, not much has changed for decades. Overtaking has been pretty much impossible at Monaco for at least 40-50 years.
But, having explored the possibility of modifying the track layout to introduce an overtaking spot and discovered it was not possible, it was felt that it was time for a change.
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton said: “If you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again, you get the same result. And so I think it’s cool that they’re trying something different. Whether or not it’s the answer, we’ll find out this weekend.”
The new rule throws up all sorts of interesting possibilities, given the differing durability of the three sets of tyres.
As Mercedes driver George Russell says: “If you start on the hard, that’s clearly the best tyre, and there’s a red flag at the beginning of the race, when do you then throw on the soft tyre?
“If somebody starts on the soft and there is a red flag or safety car in the first five laps, they have a massive advantage.
“So it isn’t clear cut, and because there is such an advantage, if there is a timely safety car for certain people, you will have to put your foot on the gas at some point. Whereas in the past like last year you just saw Charles managing the gap to me so Lando [Norris] and co didn’t pit, which was not the most exciting race we’ve ever seen.
“So I’m excited to see how that pans out.”
www.bbc.com
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