Formula 1 drivers have voiced concerns about the risks posed by this year’s expanded grid in Monaco.
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At only 3.3 kilometres, Monaco is the shortest and one of the narrowest circuits on the F1 calendar. The championship’s grid has increased to 22 cars this year — the largest number since 2016, when the cars were slightly narrower.
Charles Leclerc warned that the greater traffic at the start of qualifying, before any drivers are eliminated, will create problems.
“I mean, 22 cars on such a short track I think will be quite tricky,” he said. “Especially because with these cars, [although it’s] a bit less now, still whenever you are three or four seconds [apart] on tracks like this, you lose a bit of time.
“So it’s going to be tricky. It’s the same for everybody and we’ll have to adapt to it but it’s not ideal for Q1, I think.”
Traffic in qualifying was already a concern for some drivers before Cadillac’s arrival expanded the field. Grand Prix Drivers Association director Carlos Sainz Jnr has repeatedly urged F1 to consider the split qualifying format used by Formula 2 and Formula 3 at Monaco.
However Lando Norris argues that split sessions would inevitably disadvantage one group of drivers and create fresh complaints.
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“The thing is, when you do split it up into other sessions, and have two sessions, someone’s always going to be unhappy because you’re either going to be the first group and complain about the second group, or vice versa,” he said. “So I think you get more people complaining in some essence if you split it up into two different sessions.
“At the same time, if people just actually look in the mirrors and use the radio for the reasons it should be used for, which is to give the drivers information about people on quick laps, I think it should be fine.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be terrible,” he added, “but only if people get out of the way in the correct places and things like that. As soon as people try and take the mick with things, then it starts to become a big problem.”
Rookie Gabriel Bortoleto noted that junior series often manage larger fields on the same streets during practice sessions. “Lando said it all for me,” he said. “If people look at the mirrors and listen to the radio and good communication, you can get away with 22 cars on track.
“In F3 it’s 30 cars, [Formula Regional European Championship] a few years ago it was 37 in [practice], so it was much worse in other series. I think we can get away with it.”
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