F1TV pundit slams Monaco mandatory pit stops: 'It's a gimmick'
F1 News
The FIA has officialised the decision: Teams will have to do two mandatory pit stops and sport a minimum of two different tyre compounds during the Monaco race, if it's dry. F1TV expert, Jolyon Palmer, thinks that the governing body's decision is wrong.
Discussing the recently announced decision during the afternoon session of the first day of winter testing at Bahrain, Palmer questioned the FIA's decision to mandate teams do two pit stops during the race in Monaco. "It’s a bit gimmicky. Isn't it?," said Palmer during F1TV's live broadcast. In 2023 the Qatar Grand Prix also saw teams having to do three pitstops due to the tyres' integrity being put in danger because of the nature of the kerbs at the Losail International Circuit, however, Palmer sees the caveats in the comparison.
"The thing is with Monaco compared to Qatar, I don't think that's gonna necessarily lead to everyone being able to push on the ragged edge of the whole race because it's just so traffic dependent." And the problems with this were already seen during last year's race. "So all the pit stops are gonna be cagey. All the pace is gonna be measured as it was last year based on strategy and gaps to everyone else. It may well be we get more sort of manufactured gaps."
F1 teams and drivers are always looking at the strategy aspect of the various situations in order to maximise results, leading to not the most exciting races. It happened at the Principality last year and it may happen again. "[In Monaco 2024] various people [were] trying to stay within a pit stop of the car ahead or dropping back to allow their teammate a free pit stop to come out ahead and change the race."
That last year's race was not the best, the F1TV analyst is aware of. "It was a really bad Grand Prix," but it had nothing to due with a situation regarding the pitstops per se, but rather, "Because the red flag came. And maybe the red flag rules need tweaking rather than the two pit stop rules."
2024 Monaco GP was an outlier, it usually is very different
In recent history the Monaco Grand Prix has treated fans to much excitement, according to Palmer. "If you think back to previous races, 2023, Verstappen won. Alonso was second in the Aston Martin. You had Esteban Ocon third in Alpine. The rain came down in the second half. It was chaotic, and it was brilliant seeing them all dancing on the edge. 2022, Sergio Perez won. Carlos Sainz was right sniffing all around him in the last dozen laps trying to fight through for a win."
The race in Monaco has the excitement, but also the histoy, despite it being not the most action packed race in the calendar. "Somehow, we've not had the overtaking, but I've been gripped by the Grand Prix. And I don't know if adding this second pit stop is gonna make it feel more gimmicky than, and admittedly, really difficult to pass. Sometimes, it is just a bit of a showpiece event, but it's got a history and still feels like a normal Grand Prix," concluded Palmer.
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