Monaco Review:

 

Best driver:

Worst driver:

Best team:

Worst team:

Best overtake:

Worst overtake:

Best moment:

Worst moment:

Best thing about the race:

Worst thing about the race:

 

And the race in a sentence

Best driver: Verstappen (but shout out to Ocon)

Worst driver: Perez had a mare

Best team: Alpine (although they ballsed up for Gasly)

Worst team: Conspired to throw it away to Mercedes

Best overtake: Nothing of note

Worst overtake: Hulkenberg ramming Sargeant

Best moment: Rain

Worst moment: Russell showing no situational awareness yet again

Best thing about the race: Intriguing enough

Worst thing about the race: Perez not in the frame

 

And the race in a sentence Max joins the elite club of multiple Monaco winners

Best driver: Ocon

Worst driver: Stroll (Perez a very close second)

Best team: Alpine

Worst team: Haas

Best overtake: Magnussen on Sargeant

Worst overtake: Hulkenberg on Sargeant

Best moment: The rain arriving

Worst moment: Aston pitting Alonso for mediums

Best thing about the race: The TV direction was 1000x better than previous years when clowns were in charge

Worst thing about the race: No close battle for the win despite rain shaking things up

 

And the race in a sentence: Verstappen holds his nerve in the Monaco rain, will he face a sterner challenge next week in Spain

Such an interesting race from a team mate comparison perspective. Verstappen and Alonso showing pure class and Perez/Stroll struggling.

 

I’m unsure what to think about Stroll. He seems to have improved but was beaten by Vettel and is now being left behind by Alonso.

 

The pics of Ocon have been adorable and inspiring. Great result for him

 

Worst moment for me was actually Haas leaving Magnussen out on dry tyres - he lost sooo much time and it ultimately caused his retirement. Hulkenberg then being left on wet tyres when they stopped being faster was silly, but I suppose his position was not going to change

Stroll is decent in a midfield car but everyone knew as soon as he'd be at the sharp end he'd drown and so it's proving. Last 2 races have been an embarrassment but as long as daddy is in charge he's going nowhere.

Ferrari's results are "far away from expectation" so far this season, says team principal Frederic Vasseur.

 

Ferrari's target this year was to fight for the world title and improve on their performance in 2022, when they were Red Bull's closest challenger.

 

But although competitive in qualifying, they have only scored one podium finish.

 

Vasseur said he "hopes we will do a step forward" as a result of a car upgrade being introduced in Spain.

McLaren have recruited senior Red Bull designer Rob Marshall as part of their restructure aimed at turning around their fortunes in Formula 1.

 

Marshall has been a key member of Red Bull's design team for 17 years, most recently as chief engineering officer.

 

Team principal Andrea Stella said securing Marshall, 55, was a "fundamental step to aid the team's journey back to winning ways".

 

Marshall will join McLaren at the start of 2024.

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko says Nyck de Vries' performance at the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix "is what I want to see from him" at AlphaTauri.

Stroll is decent in a midfield car but everyone knew as soon as he'd be at the sharp end he'd drown and so it's proving. Last 2 races have been an embarrassment but as long as daddy is in charge he's going nowhere.

He is and always has been mediocre in any car he has driven. He doesn’t get the best out of any car he drives because he just doesn’t have the natural talents. Like look at Alonso, that man takes a car and wrings the neck out of it and gets it into positions it just doesn’t deserve to be in. Stroll has never done that to a midfielder

 

Stroll, like Palmer and Mazepin in the past, are only on the grid because of their wealthy fathers. Without daddy stroll bankrolling what is now Aston Martin, Stroll would never ever have made the F1 grid.

I actually thought he'd turned a corner in 2020, that first half of the season he was genuinely best of the rest. And he was able to give Vettel a run for his money on occasion at Aston. Even this season he started off acceptably given his injuries but if AM want to be serious about challenging for titles, he shouldn't be anywhere near the seat.

Stroll did very well in F3 in 2016 where he comfortably beat George Russell, among other future F1 drivers but he skipped F2 completely which I think was a mistake as he would've developed his racecraft there. He learned F1 'on the job' if you like so it wasn't that much of a surprise he struggled to impress.

 

I agree he looked to have turned a corner a couple of years back and there's clearly capability in wet or changeable conditions but he sometimes lacks situational awareness (although George Russell is arguably worse for this).

 

There have definitely been worse drivers in recent memory - Mazepin, Latifi, Sirotkin, Kubica 2.0 and he probably sits in a group alongside Giovinazzi, Schumacher jr, Ericsson, Kvyat, etc where they're good enough to make F1 but not capable of leading a team.

 

However, Lawrence Stroll's plan is solid. Give him a decent car, let him learn from multiple title winning teammates and allow him the time to develop his potential. Lance is still only 24 so has age on his side and may one day be good enough to make a decent mark if the cards fall right. There's a lot of ifs in that and I don't see him ever winning a title but a race or two I can picture it IF daddy doesn't get bored.

 

Worse drivers have won races

For a Grand Chelem race this wasn't a bad watch, plenty of action throughout the field. Glad they FINALLY got rid of that terrible chicane at the end.

 

Best driver: Hamilton

Worst driver: Norris

Best team: Mercedes

Worst team: Ferrari

Best overtake: Hulkenberg on Tsunoda & Zhou

Worst overtake: Can't think of any

Best moment: Russell thinking his sweat was rain

Worst moment: The bullshit penalty given to Tsunoda

Best thing about the race: No last chicane, racing was decent, new regs looking good again

Worst thing about the race: As always, no fight for the win

 

And the race in a sentence: Merc take a leap, Ferrari take a tumble, Max is always ready to rumble

Best driver: Hard to pick a clear winner here. Vertsappen got a comfortable Grand Chelem so I guess him, even with the track limits issue

Worst driver: Leclerc

Best team: Mercedes

Worst team: Ferrari

Best overtake: Alonso on Ocon

Worst overtake: Russell on Piastri (lucky to get away with that)

Best moment: Three way fight between Tsunoda, Zhou and Hulkenberg

Worst moment: Nothing egregious

Best thing about the race: Close racing through the field

Worst thing about the race: Perez and Leclerc's poor qualifying

 

And the race in a sentence: Mercedes take their car from arguably 3rd to clearly 2nd best and hopefully they'll stop moaning now

Edited June 5, 20232 yr by Severin

Great to see Russell get onto the podium - it was a fun race to see quicker drivers having to make their way through the field

 

Was a bit gutted to see the Mclaren’s and Hulkenberg just fall backwards though. They both need better race cars

F1 has apparently terminated its interest in agreeing a deal for South Africa to host a GP in the near future. The reasons are believed to be political, with accusations that the country has supplied arms to Russia being suggested as the reason.

 

Belgium has been granted a one year extension for 2024.

 

 

Feel free to comment on the hypocrisy of F1 and its choice of host countries.

Ahh taking away the politics I was really hoping (and thinking was likely) we were gonna see a return to Kyalami.

Fernando Alonso has entered into exactly one third of all World Championship Grand Prix ever run.

 

 

362/1086

 

 

The 2023 season was scheduled to be 23 races.

 

At 19/23 Verstappen has won 82.6% of the last 23 races.

 

 

Edited June 6, 20232 yr by Severin

Alfa Romeo have moved to secure the signing of former McLaren technical director James Key with an eye cast to the Audi-shaped future.

 

The British engineer held the executive technical director role at McLaren from 2018-23, before a major overhaul of the team’s technical staff saw Key’s head being the one that rolled as he exited McLaren with immediate effect.

 

 

https://www.planetf1.com/news/alfa-romeo-sign-james-key/

To be clear this is James moving to Sauber rather than Haas. Alfa Romeo will end their partnership with Sauber at the end of the year and are said to be signing a deal with Haas

The Canadian Grand Prix is "not at risk" despite wildfires causing air-quality issues across much of North America, Formula 1 has said.

 

Quebec, the province in which the Montreal race will be held next weekend, is the origin of much of the smoke.

 

F1 said it had been "assured the situation in Montreal is different to other parts of the country and US".

 

It added: "The risk remains low and the air quality is good in Montreal."