20/05/2021
NEWS STORY
Lewis Hamilton renews his call for changes to be made at Monaco to promote better racing.
Despite being the "jewel in F1's crown', the fact is - as even the briefest glimpse at the teams' previews for the weekend confirm - that due to the lack of opportunities for overtaking the event is often processional.
As Ferrari helpfully confirms: "The lowest grid position from which the Monaco race has been won" is 14th, that being "the crazy 1996 race won by Olivier Panis in the Ligier".
"Up until then," the Italian team points out, "out of 66 races, the winner had started from the front row 45 times and 30 times from pole position."
Indeed, the winner has started from pole 11 times since 2005.
Speaking as the Monaco GP got underway, Lewis Hamilton once again called on organisers to make changes that might facilitate overtaking, the Briton having previously called for change back in 2018.
"Now we have much bigger cars, much faster, (there is) almost zero opportunity to overtake in a race," said the seven-time world champion, "but that has been the case for some time.
"It needs to change," he continued, "we have had the same format for years. Now it's a one-stop race with these hard, long stints that we get to do.
"On the list of difficult places to overtake it's off the scale, highly unlikely you would get the opportunity and I don't think fans enjoy that.
"It is the best venue, the most beautiful place we get to race at but you know it is never exciting for fans.
"I don't know what the solution is," he admitted, "but I hope when we look forward it can be a more exciting race."
Check out our Thursday gallery from Monaco, here.