The Official 2018 Monaco Grand Prix Thread **SPOILERS**
Discussion
Date(s): Thursday 24 May 2018 - Sunday 27 May 2018
UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)
All sessions are live on Sky F1 and Channel 4.
Monte Carlo
Live timing for all sessions available here:
https://www.formula1.com/en/f1-live.html
Lap times, PU component use, technical reports and Stewards' decisions for the weekend will appear here:
https://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-one-world-c...
Weather forecast:
http://www.myweather2.com/Motor-Racing/Monaco/Mona...
The tyre choices:
2017 Qualifying
2017 Race
Fastest Race Lap: 1:14.820 (L76, S. Pérez; Force India; Lap Record)
This one’s early. Because Monaco.
Bit of a long post, hence the spoiler tag.
Glitz and glamour - these words shall henceforth be banned during any broadcast of this event. This race seems to split opinion among the fans, but of course, most of us love the qualifying sessions where wall skimming skill, speed and bravery is exhibited in its purest form during the weekend.
Lots of variables that applied to the Spanish GP weekend will not apply here and it would be good to see how the pecking order changes. The course is the shortest on the calendar with the least full throttle % per lap which means teams with lesser engines come here optimistic of having a chance to fight with better endowed teams. The presence of lots of low speed corners will mean how well a car can work its tyres over a qualifying lap is of paramount importance.
We will hopefully see some big f
k off wings being bolted on to the cars (I’m a sucker for this), as there is little or no penalty for that extra drag. A faster ‘hypersoft’ tyre compound is making its debut for this GP, but it is unlikely that we will see the kind of performance increase we saw in the Spanish GP compared to last year. This tyre should be the easiest to switch on, but also the easiest to overheat in the Pirelli range. Cars that are generally easier on the tyres should extract more out of this tyre.
While the sector 3 times in Barcelona are not a real indicator of Monaco performance due to the different car setup and tyres, Ricciardo and Vettel were the fastest there, suggesting that the Ferrari car is now as good as Merc and RB in generating mechanical grip.
A reasonably well driven car can hold up a faster car around these streets as there are very little opportunities to overtake, even for a car that is 3 seconds a lap faster, therefore a sharp pitwall and pit crew executing a good race strategy is important.
Due to the smoothness of the course and the low degradation, we did see the ‘overcut’ come into play in the race last year, so teams will carefully study this over the thursday practice and the race strategy will likely be a difficult balancing act in not allowing the opponent clear air behind to be able to pit into and maintaining a fast enough pace to not allow the overcut to work. The race strategy of the leading teams will also be more heavily influenced by the pace of the backmarkers and how close the midfield teams are in pace to the front.
Young Leclerc will be in his home race, coming off the back of some remarkable performances, I hope he has a clean weekend. Kimi displayed great speed in qualifying last year to grab pole position, will he able to repeat this feat? Fernando has never driven these new cars around here, as he was off to do Indy last year, remember? It will be interesting to see how he goes here.
Will Ferrari be able to repeat their 1-2 in qualifying and race, given all the scrutiny their car is going to be under?
Will the infamous spirit of the diva come to possess the W09? Or will they have successfully exorcised it?
Will RB finally be able to fight for pole position and will Dan or Max have the upper hand?
And what about the midfield...Toro Rosso were best of the rest last year, with Sainz delivering a well composed 6th in the race. They would hope to repeat this here to get back on track after the form their car showed in Bahrain.
We will also be venturing out into uncharted territory with engine life on these cars, so we will continue to see unreliability pop up. A lot of cars will have new engines after this race (at Canada). Over to you.
How did I manage to ramble on so much about a boring race?!
UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)
All sessions are live on Sky F1 and Channel 4.
| Session | Day | Sky F1 | Channel 4 | Session Start | Local Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practice 1 | Thu | 0945 | 0955 | 1000 | 1100 |
| Practice 2 | Thu | 1345 | 1355 | 1400 | 1500 |
| Practice 3 | Sat | 1045 | 1055 | 1100 | 1200 |
| Qualifying | Sat | 1300 | 1255 | 1400 | 1500 |
| Race | Sun | 1230 | 1300 | 1410 | 1510 |
Monte Carlo
Live timing for all sessions available here:
https://www.formula1.com/en/f1-live.html
Lap times, PU component use, technical reports and Stewards' decisions for the weekend will appear here:
https://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-one-world-c...
Weather forecast:
http://www.myweather2.com/Motor-Racing/Monaco/Mona...
The tyre choices:
2017 Qualifying
2017 Race
Fastest Race Lap: 1:14.820 (L76, S. Pérez; Force India; Lap Record)
This one’s early. Because Monaco.
Bit of a long post, hence the spoiler tag.
Glitz and glamour - these words shall henceforth be banned during any broadcast of this event. This race seems to split opinion among the fans, but of course, most of us love the qualifying sessions where wall skimming skill, speed and bravery is exhibited in its purest form during the weekend.
Lots of variables that applied to the Spanish GP weekend will not apply here and it would be good to see how the pecking order changes. The course is the shortest on the calendar with the least full throttle % per lap which means teams with lesser engines come here optimistic of having a chance to fight with better endowed teams. The presence of lots of low speed corners will mean how well a car can work its tyres over a qualifying lap is of paramount importance.
We will hopefully see some big f
k off wings being bolted on to the cars (I’m a sucker for this), as there is little or no penalty for that extra drag. A faster ‘hypersoft’ tyre compound is making its debut for this GP, but it is unlikely that we will see the kind of performance increase we saw in the Spanish GP compared to last year. This tyre should be the easiest to switch on, but also the easiest to overheat in the Pirelli range. Cars that are generally easier on the tyres should extract more out of this tyre.While the sector 3 times in Barcelona are not a real indicator of Monaco performance due to the different car setup and tyres, Ricciardo and Vettel were the fastest there, suggesting that the Ferrari car is now as good as Merc and RB in generating mechanical grip.
A reasonably well driven car can hold up a faster car around these streets as there are very little opportunities to overtake, even for a car that is 3 seconds a lap faster, therefore a sharp pitwall and pit crew executing a good race strategy is important.
Due to the smoothness of the course and the low degradation, we did see the ‘overcut’ come into play in the race last year, so teams will carefully study this over the thursday practice and the race strategy will likely be a difficult balancing act in not allowing the opponent clear air behind to be able to pit into and maintaining a fast enough pace to not allow the overcut to work. The race strategy of the leading teams will also be more heavily influenced by the pace of the backmarkers and how close the midfield teams are in pace to the front.
Young Leclerc will be in his home race, coming off the back of some remarkable performances, I hope he has a clean weekend. Kimi displayed great speed in qualifying last year to grab pole position, will he able to repeat this feat? Fernando has never driven these new cars around here, as he was off to do Indy last year, remember? It will be interesting to see how he goes here.
Will Ferrari be able to repeat their 1-2 in qualifying and race, given all the scrutiny their car is going to be under?
Will the infamous spirit of the diva come to possess the W09? Or will they have successfully exorcised it?
Will RB finally be able to fight for pole position and will Dan or Max have the upper hand?
And what about the midfield...Toro Rosso were best of the rest last year, with Sainz delivering a well composed 6th in the race. They would hope to repeat this here to get back on track after the form their car showed in Bahrain.
We will also be venturing out into uncharted territory with engine life on these cars, so we will continue to see unreliability pop up. A lot of cars will have new engines after this race (at Canada). Over to you.
How did I manage to ramble on so much about a boring race?!
Edited by Dr Z on Tuesday 22 May 11:12
Gaz. said:
RBR have the sharpest pitwall so I think DR will win.
Ok i'll bitehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7xbq9w7nl8
slipstream 1985 said:
Gaz. said:
RBR have the sharpest pitwall so I think DR will win.
Ok i'll bitehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7xbq9w7nl8
cgt2 said:
Monaco '96 was a wet race and it was fantastic. Schumacher out at Mirabeau on the first lap and Olivier Panis won. Confusingly David Coulthard in the McLaren was also wearing a Schumacher helmet! 
What was that about, did he lose a bet?I'll go with the first three round the first corner to end the race that way, excluding Max who will bin it on lap 26 trying an overtake on the last corner befor the start/finish straight.
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