The Official 2016 Monaco Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**

[Dr Z]

Date(s): Thursday 26 May - Sunday 29 May 2016

UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)

All sessions are live on Sky F1, with highlights shown on Channel 4.

Session	Day	Sky F1	Channel 4	Session Start	Local Time
Practice 1	Thurs	0845	-	0900	1000
Practice 2	Thurs	1245	-	1300	1400
Practice 3	Sat	0945	-	1000	1100
Qualifying	Sat	1200	1730	1300	1400
Race	Sun	1130	1800	1300	1400

Circuit de Monaco



More detail showing the kind of speeds/gear we’re looking at for a 1m15.1s lap (this is also the 2015 pole lap):




2015 Grand Prix Results

P1	N. Rosberg	Mercedes	1:49:18.420
P2	S. Vettel	Ferrari	+4.486
P3	L. Hamilton	Mercedes	+6.053
P4	D. Kvyat	Red Bull-Renault	+11.965
P5	D. Ricciardo	Red Bull-Renault	+13.608
P6	K. Räikkönen	Ferrari	+14.345
P7	S. Perez	Force India-Mercedes	+15.013
P8	J. Button	McLaren-Honda	+16.063
P9	F. Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	+23.626
P10	C. Sainz	Torro Rosso-Renault	+25.056

Pole time: 1:15.098 (L. Hamilton, Mercedes; Avg Speed: 159.967 km/h)

Fastest Race Lap: 1:18.063 (L74; D. Ricciardo, Red Bull-Renault; Avg Speed: 153.891 km/h)

Live timing for all sessions available here:

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/f1-...


Weather forecast:

https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/15762:25:MN

Day	Comment	High/Low (℃)	Rain	Wind (direction/speed)
Thurs	Partly Cloudy	22/16	0%	E/17 kph
Sat	Sunny	24/15	0%	E/12 kph
Sun	Showers	22/14	50%	SE/18 kph

The tyre choices requested by the teams (for rdjohn's iPad sake):

---

I didn’t know whether to start this immediately or not as some testing is still going on, but here goes anyway.

The Monaco GP is a marmite track with many fans disliking the cramped nature of it, like taking your big saloon car round a karting track. Despite the low overtaking opportunities around this place, qualifying is a big spectacle here due to the bravery required in putting a fast lap in. Also, the high likelihood of somebody stuffing it up the barriers or crashing into another car during the race means that a slower car can luck into a better track position in the ensuing Safety Car period and can hold on to it with good car positioning.

I expect the Mercedes to be absolutely in its element here. Watchout for the Red Bulls, they were only a couple of tenths off the Mercedes in Barcelona Sector 3. I also wouldn’t discount Ferrari too much, as the tyres are the softest in the Pirelli range (UltraSoft making its debut), and if I remember correctly, Ferrari were able to do some impressively long stints on the Ultra Soft tyres during pre-season testing. McLaren should be thereabouts too as fuel saving should be less of an issue.

Hamilton was dominating last year’s race before gifting it to Rosberg during the Safety car period, so this will be a good place start his championship fight back. However, Rosberg will be up for it now I’m sure. It will be fascinating. Some rain is forecast, but it’s too far away from race day to say anything definitive. Hopefully, rain arrives on time for the race to spice it up a bit.

Edited by Dr Z on Tuesday 24th May 13:04

[Dr Z]

RogerExplosion said:

I should probably know but do all teams get the same wet tyre allocations in the event of rain?

Yep, all teams get 4 intermediates and 3 wets per weekend in all races and teams will have to manage with these sets in the event of rain.

[Dr Z]

@rdjohn. Great! Will do.

[Dr Z]

leglessAlex said:

I didn't really see the first half of the last thread, and the last half was just arguing about who was more at fault for the Nico/Lewis accident.

What's the deal with Red Bull then? I guess from what's been said that they have a PU upgrade and it has added a significant amount of power? Where does this put them, are they still second to Ferrari or are they more or less level with them now?

Renault and Red Bull tested the upgraded PU at Barcelona and both teams drivers were raving about it. It was scheduled for introduction at Montreal but now Renault are considering to fast track it for Monaco.

Vettel sounds bullish about Ferrari's chances too. Qualifying should give us some real answers, but as always the practice sessions can also give an indication.

[Dr Z]

Renault to debut upgraded engine at Monaco Grand Prix

Confirmed now. Competition at the front is looking good for this GP. Estimated to bring half a second in lap time improvement around a typical lap (probably 0.2-0.3s around Monaco). Only two PUs available though, so Ricciardo and Magnussen get the upgrade due to their position in the Championship for their teams.

Red Bull have tended to struggle to work the softer tyres, so it will be interesting to see how well they can put this power increase to use.

[Dr Z]

leglessAlex said:

Sounds like good news for the Renault teams. If we assume that this will bring RB almost in line with Ferrari on some tracks, where will it put* Renault?


*Obviously no one can know for sure until they run, but a best guess?

OK, this is very speculative but I predict that Renault will be in the mix with Force India/Haas. Their performance in Barcelona Sector 3 was better than Sauber/Manor in qualifying. Palmer was actually quicker than Magnussen in that sector. However, we have two key points of differences from extrapolating Barcelona Sector 3 performance to Monaco. 1) More Asphalt abrasiveness contributing to more tyre degradation in Barcelona 2) Softer tyre compounds. Also this upgraded engine is apparently more efficient--that means better race pace.

[Dr Z]

Might be old news, but I read that Pirelli has found a solution to monitor tyre pressures during the race and will be implementing it in Monaco.

I remember noticing a weird pattern in the previous FP2 long run lap times which I thought were inability to control tyre pressures and/or overheating the tyres by playing with the pressures to test the limits...I will keep an eye out in the Monaco long runs to see if the same thing happens to the same teams I noticed...

[Dr Z]

Flooble said:

No rain forecast at all now ...

The weather link in the OP still says 50% chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms on Sunday afternoon? I'm not sure if the site I follow is very reliable though.

[Dr Z]

Flooble said:

I used http://www.metcheck.com/HOBBIES/formula1.asp for the 0% forecast, whereas using Meteoblue https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/forecast/week... I get 32% chance of rain in the 35km "square" centred on Monaco, but not actually over Monaco itself and it gives 0mm as the amount.

It looks pretty unlikely :-(

Ah, it does appear that way. I checked a few other sites and it looks like the weather is coming in a bit later...may be there is still a chance that we might have some rain in the closing stages of the race?

Some links:

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=f1;sess=

http://www.ubimet.com/company/press/press-archive/...

[Dr Z]

Force India are looking fairly handy.

At this rate, Vettel's pole lap record of 1:13.556 looks in real danger. I reckon Mercedes will beat it.

[Dr Z]

VolvoT5 said:

Are Ferrari going backwards?

They've never looked happy at this place, have they? They seem most comfortable in the high speed corners.

[Dr Z]

Interesting. Red Bull want to show that they have some pace. It's going to be a pain to read the long run data at this circuit as traffic/mistakes can have a bigger effect on lap times, but will have a go at it once I can get my hands on it later.

For qualifying, my prediction will be:

Mercedes
Red Bull
Ferrari
<gap>
McLaren
Force India
Torro Rosso
Williams/Haas/Renault
Sauber
Manor

[Dr Z]

Some Gump said:

Given that they clearly have long run pace data, why not show us all of it in a table or something?

You asked for a table? Here you go!



So, the above is my best guess at the lap times averaged by each driver in the long runs in FP2 after disregarding the stints with the charge lap/hot lap sequence.. The data is quite noisy, so barely one or two stints with 'good' data for the full length. However, there are some things to be learned.

Whilst this track is labelled as 'low degradation' there is still some deg on most cars unlike Russia so tyres will go off.

Vettel wasn't kidding when he says they've got pace, they do show good pace on the Super Softs and Softs.

Torro Rosso do look quick, but seem slower than Mercedes/Ferrari on the Ultra Soft tyres.

Red Bull seem quite a bit slower than Ferrari/Mercedes on the Ultra Soft, however was Vettel's Ultra Soft stint was prematurely cut short? If so, Ferrari are showing good race pace on that tyre in comparison to Mercedes. Noticed that the tyres take an age to switch on, on the Ferrari.

I could barely see two proper laps from Hamilton's runs, most of it were pretty rubbish. I guess he was so concentrated on finding the limit that no homework was done for the team. Still, Rosberg did some useful work I guess. Hamilton is like that annoying kid who never concentrates in class but aces the test.

McLaren are absolutely nowhere on the Ultra Softs. They show decent pace on the Super Soft but nowhere close to the podium unless rain or some miracle happens on Sunday.

Looks like Force India might do a long second stint on the Soft and therefore become a rolling road block.

Renault/Magnussen seem to have received a good boost in speed. Looks like they'll be fighting with Haas.

All this being said, great race pace doesn't count for much here, so if Red Bull can out qualify Ferrari, they can be a nice road block to Ferrari's ambitions in the race.

The practice data are intriguing, qualifying should be good.

Edited by Dr Z on Thursday 26th May 23:14

[Dr Z]

VolvoT5 said:

Dr Z said:

Vettel wasn't kidding when he says they've got pace, they do show good pace on the Super Softs and Softs.

The problem is they had 'pace' in Spain too.......... pace will be no good if they can't get the car working in qualifying and are stuck behind the Toro Rossos or Red Bulls all race.

Yep, that's my conclusion too. You know, I think Ferrari really struggled with controlling the tyre temps in Spain. With their problems with switching on the tyres I think they went with a setup that overheated them, hence their poor performance in qualifying.

Saturday practice should give us some answers as to whether they have made some progress in this area. From what I could see, Vettel can switch on the tyres better than Raikkonen --perhaps due to their driving styles.

Also, I noticed both the Mercedes cars had graining of the Ultra Soft but Red Bull did not.

[Dr Z]

Some Gump said:

Obviously the top 10 will need to be on the ss, but could p11 make med-soft work in the race?

Correct me if wrong, but it is my understanding that teams who run their non-qualifying tyre in the practice long runs are trying to simulate their 2nd/3rd stints, so naturally times will be quicker relative to the pace advantage offered by the faster tyre as they'll also reduce the fuel loads for that run.

For this track, I think Soft/Super Soft would work fine. Here are some deg rates I observed from the FP2 times:

For the Ultra Soft tyre, the lap time loss was:
Button: ~1s after 8 laps
Gutierrez: ~1.5s after 10 laps
Sainz: ~1.5s after 11 laps
Verstappen: ~1.5s after 8 laps
Ricciardo: ~0.9s after 15 laps
Massa: ~1s after 10 laps

It looked like Red Bull were evaluating two different deg rates for strategy purposes with both their drivers as Ricciardo put in a very long stint on the Ultra Soft, very much hoping to run at the front controlling the pace. This is why there was such a big difference in the average lap times on the Ultra Soft between Ricciardo and Verstappen.

During Vettel's run on the Super Soft, lap time loss was 1 second after 10 laps, and in contrast Sainz lost around 2 seconds during a similar run. Kvyat's run on the Soft showed very little degradation and good pace for the longevity offered.

However, again during practice the teams are learning about the deg rates so they can make an intelligent decision on strategy, so I wouldn't take much from the fact that the TR seemed particularly hard on the Super Soft. They can always dial back the pace a bit to get more life out of them in the race.

It also looked like the Soft tyre could last forever on the Ferrari, in the hands of Raikkonen atleast. In contrast, Perez lost around 0.9s of lap time after 10 laps on the Softs.

[Dr Z]

VolvoT5 said:

allegerita said:

I have never heard of a "low energy input" driving style before. What does that mean?

No idea but I've heard it said (or variations of such) several times on SKY commentary over the last few years. I think it means he is a bit dainty at the wheel (like Button) and isn't aggressive enough to heat up the tyres quickly.

I follow Peter Windsor on YouTube and he has some videos explaining this with Rob Wilson who is a big Kimi advocate:

Rob Wilson on Kimi Raikkonen and other driver's styles

They talk about keeping the car flat/taking a corner in a 'V' shape/reducing lateral load on the tyres.

Peter Windsor's notes:

Notes on Kimi’s driving – 2012

More observations by Peter:

Driving styles through Bahrain's Turn 9

[Dr Z]

VolvoT5 said:

Anyone else watched FP3? I think Merc have more pace than they have been able to show (traffic and errors). Red Bull are looking very strong though. Raikkonen really struggling compared to Vettel which is the first time we have seen that happen this year (seem to be more closely matched so far in 2016).

I wouldn't be surprised if both Merc & Red Bull cars out qualify Ferrari and Raikkonen struggles to get into Q3.

Was watching. We've seen this script before. I wouldn't be surprised if Mercedes have at least another second in hand. I wouldn't be surprised if Hamilton goes on to break Vettel's pole lap record of 1:13.5. But it won't be a walk in the park for Mercedes. Red Bull/Ricciardo will be very very close. Ferrari looking better, but I would be surprised if they can keep up with Mercedes/Red Bull as pace ramps up in Qualifying. Looking forward to Quali.

ETA: Track temp and Ambient temp during qualifying expected to be highest for the weekend which might help Ferrari just a little bit.

Edited by Dr Z on Saturday 28th May 11:47

[Dr Z]

Very interesting tactics by Red Bull there.

[Dr Z]

Mega lap from Ricciardo. Very pleased for him. Hamilton was also looking good but Ric was mega in S3.

Great performance from Hulk too, splitting the Ferraris.

Rain tomorrow might throw a spanner in the works for Red Bull's strategy on the Super Softs. I honestly don't think the grip levels on the Super Soft vs Ultra Soft off the line will make much of a difference. Ricciardo to win the race!

Alonso has dragged the McLaren in to Q3. Nice to see, but no magic chassis here, which is not good to see.

[Dr Z]

hairyben said:

Dr Z said:

Mega lap from Ricciardo. Very pleased for him. Hamilton was also looking good but Ric was mega in S3.

Both were looking 10/10's, hamilton seemed to lose it in S3, I wonder if it was just ric/RB being better there, or if hamilton made an error, or his tyres were showing their age after his unusual several warmup lamp strat.

Don't think several lap 'warm up' makes much of a difference, if the free practice was anything to go by. The Ultra Soft is not such a fragile tyre, as you might think. If he'd have matched Ricciardo's last sector, he'd have got pole and beaten the record as he was a tenth (?) up in S1/S2 from Ricciardo. The Q3 drama with the car might have dented the confidence a bit I think. Clearly, the fact that he was up on Ricciardo till S3 suggests his car was working well and Ricciardo came out on top for this one.