Topic: Push Square Formula 1 thread - F1

Time for find out who is going to win tomorrow. Being serious I'm very curious to see what if anything the new mandatory 2-stop does for the race.
@themightyant Someone getting blocked at some point in qualifying seems almost inevitable at this point. Like you say it could be very dangerous here. How are they going to cope with 2 more cars to squeeze in next year.

@BearsEatBeets absolutely. I watched that Hamilton replay again and it’s terrifying, he’s heading up the hill full throttle and there’s no car in sight at the top of the hill, he turns the corner and immediately there’s two cars running super slow right in front. He tried to brake ans adjust but had a twitch and ends up in the wall. If it wasn’t the wall it might have been the back of the car in front. Feels like an accident waiting to happen. Max had a similar complaint on Friday. Hate to see it.

Back in quali - the Mercs who were nowhere in FP1, 2 or 3 have perked up again. Williams seems competitive. Who’s going to miss out.

Update: commentators curse as Kimi puts it in the barrier. lol

@themightyant I take it the Hamilton incident was in 3rd Practice this morning? I've not seen that but did notice them saying Hamilton was thanking his engineers for getting the car fixed at the start of qualifying.

This is my favourite part of a Monoco grand prix. The race is usually a procession....
Be interesting to see how this unfolds...

@BearsEatBeets yes right at the very end of FP3, only a couple of hours to fix the car. They probably had to replace suspension, gearbox and more just in case. Great effort from the mechanics.

In FP1 Max almost ran into the back of a car coming round a corner and only cat-like reflexes stopped something nasty. Dozy Lance Stroll has twice driven across the racing line with a car coming through. Lewis just got told Max was slowing and so didn’t get out of the way… communication error. There have been others… it just feels really sketchy.

Q3 all to play for. Both Mercedes out, Tsunoda and Sainz out. Both Racing Bulls ahead of Yuki in the Red Bull. Alonso with a stonking lap. Exciting 15 mins ahead. 🤞

Mercesdes strategists going to be hard at work already trying to think up something different to try and get something from the race tomorrow. Curious to find out whether it was Carlos' choice to do his final run on mediums because it didn't work. Hopefully Albon can repeat his result for Q3.

EDIT: Seems the graphic was wrong as James Vowles just said Carlos was on softs for final run not mediums.

@BearsEatBeets yes both Ferrari and Williams abandoned their medium plan after the red flag, I believe they needed longer to heat the tires up and that window went. But they now have one less new set for the race.

Nice lap Lando, new lap record. Bit gutted for Albon though, if the graphics were right this time it looks like he stuck with only running the mediums.
Good battle for the pole though.

That was thrilling. I thought McLaren had blown it going early but they did 2 fast laps back to back. Well done Lando.

McLaren, Ferrari, Mclaren, Ferrari, Max. Could be tasty with 2 pit stops, tactics may come into play.

@BearsEatBeets yes Albon was 0.5s off his Q2 time on the mediums. Took a risk, didn’t pay off.

Hope the race isnt a snorefest. Qualy was good, congrats to lando...

@themightyant Seems like an odd choice by Williams considering how it worked out in Q2 but maybe it was about saving certain tyres for the race itself or maybe they had already used up all their new softs.

Certainly very curious to see how the new rules play out tomorrow. Not going to get my hopes up as I still doubt we see a single overtake for position on track but strategic position swaps might make it entertaining enough.

I just saw Hamilton got penalised 3 grid places. Was he the only one? Yes he 100% blocked Max but it was the least dangerous of all of them.

Either way a shame as it makes it harder for Ferrari to make a strategic pit stop.

@themightyant As far as I know he was the only one during qualifying though wasn't he?

The timings on the side are going to be very important this race. The gps dots on the track will be very handy too.

@BearsEatBeets I honestly don’t remember. I thought Stroll had done it too.

Either way it’s both dull and thrilling this race. So many permutations depending on what happens on track. A lottery in that regard.

Intrigued by Racing Bulls strategy. Used Lawson as a blocker and Hadjar now stopped twice and in clean air. And on the opposite end Williams and Mercedes yet to pit.

@themightyant yeah I'm not sure about this yet. I will try and hold off judgment until the end.

EDIT: Seems crazy that Albon has done 2 stops and is one place ahead of his teammate that has done none! Mercedes has really got this all wrong.

Its slightly better than the normal procession, but not by much. The inability of cars to pass on the track always makes this race a bore.
I wish it were a timed stage, like you get in the tour de france, each driver gets 5 laps, fastest time wins.
Driver vs track is what the very essence of Monoco is, the race itself is always a farce..

@Titntin I agree, more going on to make it more 'interesting' but it's clearly just not a race. Your probably right, if they want to keep Monaco on the calendar just make it a special weekend 'event'. Just do a qualifying session again on a Sunday and maybe give out Sprint level points for each day maybe.

The experiment didn’t really work, but I’m still glad they tried something. We had one change in the top 10 - Lewis with a double undercut before Fernando retired - but other than that it was a procession, sometimes a super slow procession, with team shenanigans. (This was only really possible as they qualified next to each other)

While the experiment didn’t really work it was kinda interesting as a novelty, but I wouldn’t want to see it again without changes. But Monaco’s not really about racing on Sunday, hasn’t been forever.