Bernie Collins was unimpressed with a new rule change announced for the Monaco Grand Prix in May – with former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer labelling the alteration a “gimmick.”
The FIA announced on Wednesday plans to make the Monaco GP a two-stop race, with a minimum of three different tyre sets to be used by each car in an unprecedented change of race regulations.
The famous race on the streets of the principality is regularly criticised for its lack of overtaking opportunities, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen labelling last year’s race as “boring” – with the top-10 not changing order at all from the start of the race to the end.
Yet former Aston Martin engineer and current Sky F1 pundit Collins immediately dissected the news with a theory which could undermine the rule change.
“Last year was a special case, a one-off outlier,” she said, on coverage of this week’s pre-season test in Bahrain. “In my opinion, we shouldn’t overreact to that. Often, theoretically, a two-stop is the quickest way to do Monaco.
“My initial thought upon reading it is: if I was last, I’d stop lap one, stop lap two, have no more pit stops to do, close up to the back of the pack and hope to overtake when they go in.
“What stops someone doing their two pit stops then [at the start] and no stops going forward? We’re trying to solve a very specific situation we saw last year in Monaco, it’s not what we always see.”
Meanwhile, Palmer insisted the sport “can do better than that” while pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz also labelled the alteration a “gimmick.”
“It does feel a bit gimmicky doesn’t it,” Palmer said.
“It’s so traffic dependent, all the pit stops will be cagey and pace measured. We may get more manufactured gaps.
“Last year was a bad race, but maybe the red flag rules need tweaking instead of two pit-stop rules.”
Alex Brundle, commentator and son of ex-F1 racer Martin Brundle, added: “Monaco is a special race, it doesn’t need a special regulation.”
Charles Leclerc won his home race last year but due to an early red flag – allowing all the drivers to switch tyres and make their mandatory tyre switch – the order of the top-10 did not change.
With just one DRS zone on the main straight, overtaking is near-impossible around the tight twists and turns of Monaco.
Verstappen, who finished sixth and could not squeeze his Red Bull past George Russell ahead, said over the radio: “F*** me, this is really boring… I should’ve brought my pillow”.
He added afterwards: “Overall the weekend is really cool, just the Sunday is a little bit boring unfortunately, but the scenery is still great,” Verstappen said.
“If we can find a way to race a bit better, why not? That would be my preferred solution.”
Lewis Hamilton also said of last year’s race: “It was non-eventful. Everyone drove so slow. So it didn’t matter what tyre you were on. We were driving seconds off the pace.
“I don’t know what it was like watching, but I am sure people were falling asleep.”
This year’s Monaco GP will take place on 23-25 May.
