Strategy is Strategy

Among all the races on the F1 calendar, Monaco Grand Prix would be one of the most attractive racing events of the year. Monaco was one of the wealthiest places in the world. The country consists of 38682 population and it is the second smallest sovereign country in the world. Every year, June first week and the second week would be a delightful, sophisticated experience for every citizen who lived in Monaco. Because Monaco Grand Prix coming to Monte Carlo. The beautiful ocean and well-matched environmental attributes give such a mind-blowing thought to every F1 lover. Oh!!1 don’t swipe the article, I’m not going to explain anything about Monaco’s geographical significance. I’m here to stand up with the 2022 Monaco grand Prix summary. At the end of the race, rain happened and race time was regulated to certain laps. Despite all these obstacles, a driver who came from Mexico,Sergio Perez won his first Monaco Grand Prix and It was his third all-time victory. He drove with the same passion he had in massive ages and in the end, there was nothing left for the Red bull race team other than to trust him. Max Verstappen made a huge mistake in qualifying at the Q3 . Unfortunately, there was unavoidable debris on the track, therefore he has to settle with P4 in the starting grid. According to the Saturday qualifying, “Monaco Boy” Charles Leclerc goes for the P1, and respectively Sainz,Sergio and Max booked the rest of the places for the Sunday race. Considering Monaco grand prix 2022 , There were three main points that should be discussed, some of them can be interpreted as controversial incidents, and some experts in motorsport defined those terms as a racing incident. Below, I have mentioned three main causes, which happened in Monaco.

 •Race Time regulating

 •Why max Verstappen not penalized for his pit lane exit drama

 •Ferrari’s the wrong strategy Let’s move on to in detail one by one. 

  Race Time

Following FIA rules and regulations, Race time would be the most crucial thing in F1 racing . Basically Race director devotes 3 hours to race. In Monaco scheduled race time was 15:00 PM and there was no rain at 14:45 PM . But after 3 PM, light rain started, and Immediately inexperienced, the fresh race director announced the race will start at 3:15 PM . So All the cars went out from their pit lanes and at 3:16PM , the formation lap started behind the safety car. But as the rain started again all the cars were sent to the Monaco Pit lane and notice has sent for racing that the principal race won’t start till the rain stopped. The race started again at 4:07 PM, behind the safety car. When the Safety car moved away and race controllers were waving the green flag. Then Charles Leclerc starts pushing. Due to these factors, about an hour was wasted in the race. But if the race director had been brave enough to start the race at 3:40 PM ,he would be able to reduce the wasted time. Due to this reason, the complete race has changed from lap number 77 to 64. In addition, this race was further delayed due to Mick Schumacher’s high-speed crash. The race director had to go back to the red flag due to an accident on lap 27. In line with the ideas of the fan, If rain wasn’t here race might be boring because in Monaco there aren’t so many overtaking rooms and straight lines. But the rain has changed the full context of the race and it has moved on to the strategic game plan. 

  Why Max Verstappen not penalized for his pit lane exit drama

Every circuit has a dividing line between the main track and pit lane. If the driver comes from the pit, he cannot enter the main road until he crosses the dividing line. In a nutshell, no driver has the right to cross the dividing line and reach the main road. If he wants to enter the main road, he must drive his car end of the dividing line, and then he can pull out his car into the main circuit. This law is being severely scrutinized by the FIA.  In the 2020 season, Alfa Tari driver Yuki Tsunoda has penalized for the same error in SPA.

New rules and regulations in FIA

But in Monaco, On lap 23 when Max pitted and thereafter leave the pit lane, clearly his left-wing and front tire touched the yellow line. This incident was seen when viewed from Charles’s onboard. Therefore, It is time for Scurdia Ferrari to issue a penalty mark against Max Verstappen without hesitation. At a first glance, this may seem like a reasonable request, but a race director with just only two weeks of professional experience did not give any single penalty for Max. Here’s the reason!!! Yes !! According to the FIA rules, Crossing the dividing yellow line is prohibited under any circumstances. But new rules have been renovated after 2021, According to the updated laws, when the driver crosses the yellow line his entire tire should be crossed the line or beyond the line. Partial crossing won’t be considered a fault. (Article 5 of Appendix L of the ISC) So staying on that plus point, the Red bull racing team was argued back. Because few parts of Verstappen’s tire crossed the line and 9 cm of his left-wing was located beyond the line.   At the end of the investigation,  FIA warned Max and the team sternly but non of the penalty has  taken against Max. So defending champion Verstappen could keep his podium place without any burden. 

  Ferrari’s wrong strategy

F1 has a special saying .It’s a common thing all the time . No matter how advanced the technology is ,this saying is timeless. “If you want to win a F1 grand prix  , 50% about driver and other 50% about car. But apart from that percentage,  100% is all about strategy” It implies that Strategy is a big cheese in F1. A skillful strategical crew can turn over any format of the game. In anyhow last 10 years, Ferrari is the oldest and most prominent racing team. It has been very difficult to find the cream of the cream tactical team. This caused severe injustice to skillful drivers like Sebastian Vettel. So ..If we jump into Monaco, Ferrari was done the same mistake again and again. After the controversial restart,  according to the race director’s message at 3:45 PM , “wet tire is mandatory for cars” due to the wet condition of the track. When a race has started, drivers like Piere  Gasly go to the pit soon as possible and change their tires from Wet to Intermediate. Because weather forecasting has announced there’ll be no rain anymore. So Gasly did a tremendous job with his intermediate tires and made a few impressive overtakes. Piere did that, mainly because he has a really bad qualifying session on Saturday and he hasn’t anything to loos. But when considering front row mayhem, the racing strategy was completely different. Perez pits on lap 15 much earlier than all the other three drivers. Here Red bull did that gamble because they do need to win the race and mitigate the championship lead with Ferrari. On Sunday Charles drove a very solid race. So Perez came to the pit and Max came to third place second place was already taken Sainz . But here very crucial and unexpected incident happened.

Time difference between race leader and other drivers

 The impact of this incident will change the whole context of the race. Honestly, If Perez stuck behind the Lando Norris in Monaco. Perez never won this race. Because Monaco is too hard to overtake and Norris will defend using his maximum effort to hold Perez behind. But fortunately, Norris has pitted in the very next lap and then Perez has enough room to push. If you consider the above graph carefully You’ll see that, When Perez pits, All three drivers(Max,Leclerc,Sainz) have gained substantial distance. But due to Lando Norris pitting advantage, Perez regained his track position and start his hunting with an Intermediate tire. Ferrari has taken their decision to pit Leclerc in Lap 17, the same well as Verstappen. Now Perez came to second place and Sainz leads Monaco Grand Prix. At this moment  Ferrari made a huge mistake Because Sainz drove with wet tires and Perez drove with high grip intermediate tires. Ferrari the strategical team thought Leclerc will regain his track position with intermediate tires when he returns to the circuit. But “Mexican Ministry of Defense “Sergio Perez was a hell of the fast Lap 16-21 and in this period Leclerc lost more than 12 seconds.   In my mind, Ferrari might not think Sergio won’t be fast like that.

Top 3 driver's pace with Sergio Perez

 But actually, he is ….. Meanwhile, Ferrari made their second mistake on Lap 20. They called Leclerc to pit for the hard tire.(At this moment rain has stopped permanently )  At the same time, they called for Sainz to change his tire from Wet to Hard (It was his first pit stop for the entire race).  When Leclerc pitted, he lost another five-second and his Monaco dream will go away. 

Frankly, Ferrari’s Strategical team made huge damage to his championship lead. On lap 21, both red bull drivers pitted and Carlos Sainz overtook Verstappen when he left the pit stop. But Prancing's horsepower couldn’t help to stop Perez’s Monaco victory. The below graph shows Sergio Perez and other drivers’ time differences. When Perez pits at lap 16 ,he lost 15 seconds . But with his intermediate tire he gained 6 seconds to sainz , 22 seconds to Verstappen and 25 seconds to Leclerc. But most crucial point in entire race was   lap 21 , When Leclerc called for a second time for hard tires . He lost 16 seconds to Perez and then his pace not good enough for match the pace. When all drivers move onto the hard compound tires , time differences won’t be vary much as we predicted. Conclusion of this race was , Ferrari’s underestimate Checo’s (Sergio Perez) pace . Leclerc’s both pit stops were utter wrong and consequences  was he missed his home race victory again. But Checo will deserve this victory .