The Official 2018 Monaco Grand Prix Thread **SPOILERS**

[Dr Z]

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.

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 fk 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

[Dr Z]

M3ax said:

The most exciting part of the race is Dr Z’s preamble.

I hope not!

521EK9 said:

You should work in ticket sales, the one race of the year I'm never bothered about watching and now because of your ramblings i dont want to miss it

Mr_Thyroid said:

Six drivers (both Red Bulls, both Renaults and both Williams') have chosen to bring only one set of each of the two harder compounds. For Red Bull in particular this seems odd - they must've realised they would have a very good chance to win here even without going aggressive on strategy so why do this?

Doesn't this paint them into a corner of using the hypers in Q2 (because they'll need to understand the harder compound to know if it's viable for Q2 which means practising on it, which means it'll be no good for Q2). So they'll start the race on hypers before going onto either a used tyre or one they haven't practised which makes them vulnerable to an over-cut.

Or they might have to stop twice - when was the last time a two stopper won in Monaco?

I think the warm up characteristics and working range of the ultra and super soft are not hugely different to the hypersoft, so the thinking behind these choices is that if they can spend the time to get the car nailed on for the hypers, the other tyres should work without any issue. The teams will have detailed models of the different compounds and their behaviour, but some teams are confident that they don't need to actually run the tyre during practice sessions to know that it will work fine, while others tend to run it to confirm it's working as well as predicted and not take that risk. Williams are odd though, they had ordered a bucket load of super softs to Spain and that was a totally useless tyre...makes you question their thinking.

With the hypers, I think they're about a second quicker than the ultra softs, so it's very likely that the top teams will not run the harder tyre to go through Q2 - too risky, as the rest of the pack will be too close here.

I do agree though, there is a sense of presumptuousness with some teams that has come back to bite them when Nature throws a curveball during the weekend. I enjoy it when this happens. Also, you would often see the teams split the running of the harder tyres between their drivers and share the data to inform set up decisions, but in the race you would expect the driver that ran the tyre to have a better feel for it, so in the race there must be a small advantage for that driver.

I think it was Merc that did this in Bahrain, when Hamilton did all the running on the medium in the practice sessions but it was Bottas that was fighting for the win on that tyre...and the first time he'd ever ran that tyre during the weekend was in the race. I can't help but feel that he'd have managed the tyre better for that long stint to be able to size up Vettel for that final attack if he'd have ran it in the practice session.

[Dr Z]

DanielSan said:

another 3 points said:

Who will crash first? Max? Gross? or Kev?

I’m going for Hartley or a Williams to be the first to crash

I sincerely hope not. If there's one guy who desperately needs a good result this year, it's him.

Must be very very tough to be top of the pile in one discipline and look all at sea at another. I mean it's not like he has been massively off pace compared to Gasly. I just hope things go his way a little this weekend, hope he gets in the groove as soon as he hits the track on Thurs and stays there!

Drivers who are yet to make their mark (in a good way) this year:

Hartley
Grosjean
Sirotkin
Ocon
Vandoorne

[Dr Z]

New tall garages (H/t @RenaultSportF1)



It has been raining today. The place is looking something else.



More pics here

[Dr Z]

And what do you know, Ferrari hasn't removed the halo mounted mirrors. But removed the little winglet above it. Your move FIA!

[Dr Z]

You are all paying attention, good!

You guys are right, the winglet was banned but the mirror was allowed. For some reason I got it in my head that the halo mounted mirror was slightly higher than the previous chassis mounted one. The slats in the Ferrari mirrors are clear aero devices.

First glimpses of a rear wing



Not big enough!

Merc have copied McLaren style vortex generators on top of the side pods.

[Dr Z]

More pics



Now that is some wing!

Also note the twin slotted t-wings



Two different Haas front wing specs



Williams





Toro Rosso



Mmm that looks like a hefty wing too **squints**



Merc front wings with larger and lesser number of main elements



It's getting crowded there...if you have to go in there you're getting scratched.



Ferrari floor



Merc cooling chimney (blocked off now)







Ferrari diffuser strakes & a less aggressive swish at the outboard end there

More here

[Dr Z]

Cyder said:

Aren't they turning vanes rather than vortex generators to move the airflow around the airbox?

Could simply be semantics here, but the shape of the individual bits and their arrangement (not unlike the front wing elements), leads me to believe they are shedding and energising vortices, in addition to doing a job of managing airflow on top of the sidepods. I think when McLaren took them off in Baku practice it made a negative impact on the balance of the car there.

The Williams is looking half decent, isn't it?

[Dr Z]

This is pretty special.

[Dr Z]

FP2



RB look very fast. They'll need to be this fast to have a chance with the other guys turning up their engines on Saturday.

It looks to be a fascinating contest between the RB drivers and seeing if the Ferrari/Merc drivers can do something too.

Midfield looks about the same distance away from the top 3 as last year.

[Dr Z]

Vocal Minority said:

Apparently Hamilton and Bottas think the Hyper soft will only be good for 7-8 laps

I missed that, Merc are in trouble if that's true. The RB was still putting in good laps on 20 lap old hypers. Pirelli even reckoned the cars can do the whole race on a set of those tyres!

Someone's got it terribly wrong.

Pirelli or Merc?

[Dr Z]

Derek Smith said:

Could this be an exciting Monaco GP, despite the good weather forecast?

The top six are all in with a shout. If the two RBs are on the front row then we might only have a top four, but still.

Timing of the pit stops will be critical. Does that mean that the Mercs, at least, will be shod in ultras for Q2 and struggling to get through?

I think it will be a big surprise if there is anything but a Red Bull on pole. Given there's nothing much separating the two RB drivers on 1-lap pace, it might as well be an RB front row. If Dan manages to beat Max on Saturday and manages to lead into T1 then we could see some fireworks. I don't think these two guys have ever started on the front row before.

A lot will depend on how close the midfield is on race pace. From the long runs, it seemed that the midfield is around 1 sec per lap slower, which means, the leading car will most likely drive at a pace that would open up a pit stop gap of 20 seconds around their planned pit stop window.

If the leading midfield car is embroiled in an under/overcut fight with another midfield car, or they can't look after the hypersofts as much as the lead cars, they will pit out of the way of the lead cars much sooner and thus open up an opportunity for Merc/Ferrari cars to try an undercut. The RB cars have the pace to win but it's not easy as driving off into the distance around Monaco. If anything, the guy who is leading has the most difficult job as he doesn't have as much time to react to others' strategies as the race evolves.

Obviously an untimely safety car that allows some cars to lose less time on a pit stop could also turn the race on its head.

[Dr Z]

Danny Ric be like...



What a way to drop the ball!

Anyway, hope they fix it in time.

FP3

Edited by Dr Z on Saturday 26th May 12:15

[Dr Z]

So, what do we think Ricciardo's game plan will be for tomorrow?

Vet and Ham will fancy this now since Ric is without a wingman.

I don't fancy Ricciardo's job tomorrow if he manages to keep the lead out of the first corner.

However, Merc weren't sure of the hypers in Q2 and I think I saw the deg on Ferrari was a bit high too.

If it were me, I'd just go hell for leather at the start of the race, wait for the Ferrari/Merc tyres to drop off and cover them when they pit. Easier said than done.

[Dr Z]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

Amazed that more has not been made of Ocon basically stopping to get out of the way of Hamilton when fighting for position.

What was that all about???

If Ferrari had done this we'll never hear the end of it here, so I'll make some noise about it.

Oi Merc, stop messing with your customers, you silly buggers!

If it were Williams, I wonder what would be the reply if as [on Sunday] Toto had tried to 'exercise' his powers.

I was certain Merc had made an error pitting Ham when Ocon was still within their pit window. Ocon lost some time letting Hamilton past too, too bad Alonso was a bit far away to capitalise.

There was a nice window that opened up when Hulk was holding up the midfield pack between laps 40 and 50 twice for Merc to convert their race into a 2-stop with Bottas. That would have opened up strategy options for Ferrari to bolt on a set of hypers and go hunt down Danny Ric. I'm certain Ric would have lost the race win in that case. But Merc were only interested in playing percentages [on Sunday], and Ferrari were never going to surrender track position.

Oh well, at least Max was enjoying himself.

The Surveyor said:

Why did Bottas run on the red-wall soft tyre for his second stint when everybody went onto the super-soft yellow-wall tyre?

If the plan was for a different strategy hoping that he could keep track position over the leaders if there was a safety car incident and the leaders pitted for another set of hypersofts, why did they not use that strategy on Hamilton who had 2 sets of the red-wall soft tyres available rather than Bottas who only had one set allocated?

I don't think Merc had a clear idea which of the harder tyres would work best, so they split it between their drivers. Plus, if you're going for an undercut as they did with Hamilton, the last thing you want is a tyre that's likely to be slower to warm up and slower in ultimate pace. That would neutralise the point of an undercut.

But the thing with Hamilton's tyres were that they weren't brand new ultra softs. They were used ones. I simply don't know where Merc were going with that.

ETA: Long weekend messed up my days

Edited by Dr Z on Tuesday 29th May 11:38

[Dr Z]

KevinCamaroSS said:

ELUSIVEJIM said:

thegreenhell said:

Honestly this sort of thing goes on all the time, and not just between the works and their customer teams. It could just as easily been a Sauber jumping out of the Merc's way so as not to ruin their own race by not trying to 'race' someone in a faster car or on a different strategy, and that they won't be ahead of at the end of the race no matter what they do. Sometimes they've just got to know which fights to pick and which to concede. I don't know why you're trying to make such a big thing out of it.

Sorry but without Ocon getting out of the way the Mercedes would have struggled to pass.

Yes at different circuits it is a waste of time trying to stop a Ferrari or a Mercedes as the performance difference is too great especially with new tyres.

I never thought I would see the day that fan's think it's fine for another team to allow a driver to pass.

That just goes against the whole ethos of the sport.

I see that you are so much a Hamilton-hater that facts do not make an impact. It is simple, Ocon's race time overall would have been longer if he fought Hamilton as his lap times would get slower. He knew he had to stop for tyres and that Hamilton would always finish in front because he had already stopped. His race was not with Hamilton, but with Hulkenburg and the other cars around him who had not yet stopped. It is knowing what fights to pick on track, and to fight a car that will inevitably finish in front of you due to the fact that it has already pitted is not a wise move. You need to look at the big picture, not focus on Hamilton.

This is funny, but please stop making it personal. It's Monaco! Cars that are 3 seconds a lap faster will struggle to pass. Hamilton wasn't 3 secs a lap faster than Ocon and Ocon didn't need to fight Hamilton, just need to keep it clean and Hamilton wasn't getting by. If a top team makes a "mistake" like that around Monaco, you make 'em pay, not roll out the fking red carpet.

[Dr Z]

VladD said:

Dr Z said:

This is funny, but please stop making it personal. It's Monaco! Cars that are 3 seconds a lap faster will struggle to pass. Hamilton wasn't 3 secs a lap faster than Ocon and Ocon didn't need to fight Hamilton, just need to keep it clean and Hamilton wasn't getting by. If a top team makes a "mistake" like that around Monaco, you make 'em pay, not roll out the fking red carpet.

But Ocon still needed to pit whereas Hamilton had already done so. There was no material benefit to Ocon holding up Hamilton, Hamilton would have passed him when Ocon pitted anyway.

You could say the same about Hulkenberg holding up Ocon/Alonso but was yet to pit. These stuff go out of the window around Monaco. You never know what might happen, perhaps Verstappen stuffs it into the wall or something that causes a red flag. Then you get a free tyre change and a straight run to the flag and will have gained a position. You never, ever give track position away easily at Monaco.