Pirelli: "It was well worth trying something different" at Monaco

Following the introduction of the mandatory two-stop strategy at last Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix, Pirelli's motorsport director Mario Isola conceded that it "was well worth trying something different" at the unique venue.

Having given McLaren its first Monaco pole position in 18 years on Saturday, Lando Norris added its first win at Monaco after a 17 year break for his team. The last time a car built in Woking had won in the Principality dates back to 2008, when Lewis Hamilton, who finished fifth for Ferrari on Sunday was first past the flag.

Norris had a perfect weekend in Monaco: win, pole position and the fastest race lap for the Englishman, which was his third career hattrick after last year's race at Zandvoort and this year's round in Melbourne. Overall, this was Norris’ sixth Formula 1 victory, the second this year after the one at the opening round in Australia.

The shape of the race was conditioned by the rule stating that all drivers had to use three sets of tyres, one of them being from the obligatory specified compounds, the Medium and Hard. With the tweak to the sporting regulation, Formula One had tried to spice things up on a track where overtaking is nearly impossible.

Reflecting on the strategy, Pirelli's motorsport director Mario Isola conceded that while the new rule did not help to increase overtaking opportunities, it was "well worth trying something different" on a track where qualifying usually dictated the end result.

“It’s not easy to give a verdict in the heat of the moment on the race that’s just ended, but I believe it’s fair to say that it was well worth trying something different in such a unique Grand Prix as this one.

"One has to say that the new regulation introduced for this event certainly got people talking about what might happen in the race, both those inside the sport and also the fans.

"While it’s true that the first four past the flag finished in grid order, it is also true that there were five changes of leader, with three different drivers involved, while behind them there was plenty of action, certainly more than usual, and more than we saw last year for example.

"Honestly, I think that overall, the spectators at the track and those watching on television, even if they were not majorly entertained, were certainly not bored, which has often been the case in races that haven’t been enlivened by unusual circumstances such as rain or safety cars.

"In the end, this is Monaco, take it or leave it: qualifying that leaves you with your heart in your mouth and a race where overtaking is almost impossible. Only after a careful analysis of the race, can everyone involved deliver an accurate verdict on this experiment.
All the drivers conformed to the rule, while Bortoleto actually stopped three times, as he had to make an additional stop after crashing into the guardrail on the opening lap.

As for the strategy, the majority of drivers went for a combination of medium and hard for their first stint, with only Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda elected to start on the red-walled C6 compound.

There was a very wide variety of stint lengths. Four drivers opted to pit on the first lap, with Tsunoda, Ollie Bearman, Gabriel Bortoleto and Pierre Gasly all exploiting the benefit of the brief virtual safety car to complete their first of two mandatory pit stop at the end of the opening lap.

Thereafter, Tsunoda did 72 laps on a set of Hards, before finishing with three laps on the Mediums. On the other hand, Mercedes drivers George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli waited with their first pit stop until Lap 62 and 69 respectively, with both of them hoping for a VSC or VC to complete a "cheap" pit stop.

While Tsunoda led the group of the early stoppers and the Mercedes drivers extended their first stint almost until the end of the race, the majority of the field, including the three drivers on the podium, split their race into more equal length stints.

Norris did 19 laps on his first set of Mediums and then used two sets of Hards (31 and 28 laps); his closest rival Charles Leclerc did the first 22 laps on the Medium before doing 27 on the Hard and then finishing with 29 on Mediums.

Championship leader Oscar Piastri did almost the same as his team-mate (20-28-30) while Max Verstappen, who finished fourth, made his second stint on Mediums as long as possible (49 laps) before having to pit again on the penultimate lap when he was leading.

Signing off with a word for the strategy, Isola noted: "On the tyre front, as expected the Medium and Hard were the most used compounds: both proved capable of being able to cover almost the entire race distance without the need to pit.

"It’s possible the Medium required a bit more management, but overall, its level of degradation was more than acceptable. This weekend the C6 proved to be a good qualifying tyre, but above all, it played a tactical role, obviously pushing the teams to use the Medium more and, let’s not forget that this tyre was the Soft last year.

"That was exactly our goal and we await with keen interest to see how it will perform in Montreal, another type of track," concluded Isola.