Red Bull continued to march on at the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo as Sergio Perez won his first race of the season in a chaotic race around the principality that featured rain, massive crashes and some strange strategy calls. Perez became the most successful Mexican driver in F1 with his third career win, finishing ahead of Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen on the podium, while Charles Leclerc trundled home in fourth after another Ferrari tactical blunder.
Here are the four things we learned from the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix.
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While Charles Leclerc finished the first race of his career at his home Grand Prix in Monaco in 2022, the Monegasque’s bad fortune around the principality continued as the Ferrari driver was on the receiving end of another strategy mishap from the prancing horse. Having spectacularly taken pole on Saturday, Leclerc looked to be the fastest man on the circuit in the opening stint on the wets. However, Ferrari muddled up their strategy once again as they forced him to come into the pits for intermediates before making a wrong call on the double-stack with Sainz, resulting in him dropping from first to fourth and losing precious ground to Verstappen in the championship.
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Ferrari’s poor strategy calls were a prominent feature during their 2017 and 2018 championship battles with Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes, and these under-par decisions have returned to haunt the team again in 2022.
On paper, the last two circuits were perfectly suited for Ferrari to restore their lead in the championship, with the low-speed corners in Barcelona and Monaco favouring the scarlet car’s high-downforce package. However, Leclerc’s engine gave way from the lead of the race in Spain before they threw away another race win in Monte Carlo due to their poor strategy calls.
They dawdled on deciding on whether to pit or keep Leclerc on track before mistiming the double-stack pitstops for dry tires, costing the team what should have been a 1-2 finish on a track that suited their car. With the F1 calendar now moving on to tracks like Baku and Canada that will favour the straight-line speed of the Red Bull Honda engine, Ferrari are now facing an upward battle in the championship.
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Ahead of the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix, there have been plenty of question marks surrounding the future of the race in the F1 calendar. The longer, wider cars have made overtaking impossible on the narrow streets of the principality, resulting in situations we saw at the weekend, with Fernando Alonso holding up a pack of 10+ cars as Hamilton couldn’t pass the Alpine.
However, Sunday’s Grand Prix was still one of the most entertaining races this season, with the atmospherics throwing a curveball to the teams and causing plenty of chaos in the paddock. Although overtaking was still not feasible, the strategy calls of when to switch over from the wet to the dry tires made for an entertaining opening half of the race.
While most of the excitement was understandably caused by the rain, Monaco still has a place in F1. There is room for both light and shade in the calendar, and not every race has to be solely focused on overtaking, with the incredible car control around the narrow streets showing the unimaginable skill level of the 20 drivers.
If the commercial agreement between the track and the FIA can be re-worked on more favourable terms, there is no reason why F1 shouldn’t continue to return to the most iconic spot on the calendar every summer.
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While Lando Norris came home in sixth place to go along with the fastest lap of the race, Daniel Ricciardo finished in 13th in the sister McLaren, struggling to match the Englishman’s pace throughout the weekend after his Friday shunt.
Zak Brown publicly admitted that the Australian has failed to live up to expectations at McLaren, and there are some doubts about whether he will stay with the team next season. Barring his sensational win in Monza in 2021, Ricciardo has been completely out-performed by Norris, and after seven races this season, he has only managed 11 points, a whopping 37 fewer than his team-mate.
[Featured Image Credit: F1]
Shivaan Shah