2021 Monaco Grand Prix – Saturday

POSSIBLE RACE STRATEGIES

The 78-lap Monaco Grand Prix tends to be reasonably straightforward strategically, as a one-stop race with quite a wide pit stop window and a number of different possibilities. The two main variables governing the strategy are safety cars – a common occurrence in Monaco, with three stoppages following contacts with the wall today – and weather. Although the forecast is for a dry race tomorrow, weather conditions on the Mediterranean coast at this time of year can be extremely variable. The top 10 will all start on the soft tyre, and that choice is likely to be mirrored by most of the runners but either the medium or the hard can be used for the second stint. And there’s also just a chance that some drivers further down the grid might try the opposite strategy: running the harder tyre first, before moving onto the soft at the end.

FOCUS ON

• The P Zero Red soft tyre was the default choice for qualifying, used from the start to the finish of each session. With track position paramount, and the soft tyre worth more than half a second per lap compared to the P Zero Yellow medium, there was no point in running any other compound in qualifying.
• The margins were extremely tight in qualifying, which came to a dramatic end. Pole was taken by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on the soft tyre, but he crashed on his next lap, bringing out the red flags to end the qualifying session with just a few seconds to go.
• Despite overnight rain, conditions were similar to Thursday, because the lower track temperatures compensated for the relatively minor track evolution. At the start of Q3, there was 22 degrees ambient and 33 degrees on track – with many drivers starting their final runs early in the session to cover the slight risk of rain.

FORMULA 2 - SPRINT RACE 1 – 2

The opening Formula 2 race of the weekend took place on Friday (the only track action on the traditional ‘day off’ in the principality) with the remaining sprint race early on Saturday morning and the longer feature race after F1 qualifying. The drivers concentrated on the soft compound on Friday, for the 30-lap race with no pit stops, but overnight rain meant that all the drivers started on the wet tyre for Saturday morning’s race. Some attempted to move onto the supersoft tyre as the track dried, but the wet tyre still proved to be capable of handling these changing conditions extremely well, all the way to the race finish.

MARIO ISOLA – HEAD OF F1 AND CAR RACING

“There was some track evolution during the qualifying session, although the track was ‘reset’ after Friday’s pause followed by rain overnight. As a result, the drivers had to get to grips with track conditions that were quite different compared to Thursday, which naturally influenced tyre warm-up and behaviour as well. From start to finish the sessions were extremely tight, as is usual at Monaco with no room for error, as we saw again today. Weather conditions should be dry tomorrow, but we had the wet tyres in action this morning in Formula 2, where they showed their versatility on a drying track to deliver a thrilling conclusion to an action-packed race. We’re expecting a one-stop strategy under normal circumstances tomorrow, but Monaco remains one of the most unpredictable races of the year – as the dramatic end to qualifying demonstrated. Congratulations to Charles Leclerc for pole position at his home Monaco Grand Prix.”