The Monaco historical Grand Prix takes place every year at the end of April, a few weeks before the F1 GP which depending on the calendar, falls sometime between late May and early June. The stands and the circuit have already been set up so everything looks the same for the historical GP, except for the paddocks which have been moved to the outer side of the harbor.
Access to the paddocks is included in the entry ticket on the historical GP weekend, meaning you can circulate freely among F1 cars from many decades back to the mid-80’s for a very modest sum indeed. On the Friday practice day, entry including the paddocks is free. On Saturday which is qualifying day, it costs you 50 EUR. And on the final race day Sunday, you’ll have to pay 100 EUR. Or in other words, roughly what two champagne glasses would cost you during the F1 weekend a few weeks later.
From this year onwards, this makes Monaco’s historical GP, and other similar events in other places, not only the cheapest, but by far the most enjoyable way to experience F1 racing as we’ve come to know it through our lives and have learned to love it. Because what goes on this year on the official F1 circuit has precious little to do traditional racing.
F1 in the Tik Tok era is very different indeed, and it seems to me that everyone is trying to put on a brave face about it. I would love to do so as well but I can’t, which of course makes me feel like the grumpy old man I am. But when races are decided not mainly by driver talent or skill, but rather how well the recuperation of your car’s battery power is set up, I’m happy to admit that they’ve lost me.
We all knew this season would be different, and I described the main differences in my post before the season started. No one was really sure how it would translate around a circuit, but big promises were made. Notably, we were told that the new rules and hybrid engine combination would lead to far more takeovers and excitement.
The pundits were right on that one – at least initially. The first two races of the season in Australia and China saw a lot of takeovers especially in the first half of the races, making the Swiss F1 commentator (who’s usually even older and grumpier than me) ecstatic, telling the audience how great this new format is.
What he failed to appreciate was that the takeovers had precious little do to with driver skill, at least in the classical sense, and a lot with vast power differences, coming about since drivers were still unsure how to best go about the battery recuperation. A type of excitement the FIA had certainly not intended occurred during the qualifying of these initial races as well, as the speed difference between two cars, one of which has a full battery and the other a depleted one, is massive. Also, that power can be a bit hard to control, as shown by a number of sudden spins around the tracks by drivers who usually have no problem at all handling their cars.
This being F1 however, teams and drivers learnt fast, and the team that from the start had shown to have the best package was of course Mercedes. Somewhat surprisingly, Kimi Antonelli showed himself more apt at handling the new car than George Russell. Young Kimi went on to win his first race in China and has since gone on to win a further two, now clearly leading the Drivers’ ranking ahead of his teammate.
If Mercedes thus dominated the first three races, Ferrari looked surprisingly good in second place and it was truly great seeing Lewis Hamilton find some good speed for the first time at Ferrari. Surprisingly, McLaren were pretty far off the pace, and Red Bull even more so. Not even Max Verstappen could make anything sensible out of the Red Bull car and as we went into the unplanned, month long break as the Iran war broke out, it looked pretty certain that Mercedes would continue to dominate the season.
The war meant that the races in Bahrain in Saudi Arabia were cancelled, but also led to the FIA reviewing the regulations following the initial races. They did so partly out of some valid security concerns, but no doubt also following more or less legitimate complaints form the teams. And then there was of course Max Verstappen who kept talking about leaving F1 if things didn’t improve.
The technical changes that came out of that give a good illustration of what this year is about. This is how Honda described them on their website; “The maximum permitted recharge per lap has been reduced from 8MJ to 7MJ. This is intended to increase full-throttle running during hot laps, with the maximum duration of energy harvesting under “super clip” conditions expected to be shortened by approximately 2–4 seconds per lap.”
Right. You’ll be forgiven for not grasping that intuitively, but at the same time, it tells you all you need to know. F1 has gone from being about driving to counting MJ’s – which by the way means mega-joules. There were some additional changes to the power package as well, but I’ll spare you the description of those.
Judging by Miami, the first race after the changes, the FIA seem to have succeeded in evening out the differences between the teams, which in their view is certainly a good thing. Kimi Antonelli still won in Miami, but he did so ahead of the two McLarens and Max Verstappen, so I guess everyone’s happy, or at least happier, now. Unfortunately however, it seems the excitement went out the window with said changes as well. Miami was one of the most boring races in the last years, with practically no racing at all after the initial laps. I guess we can only hope things improve over the coming weekends.
A qualified guess at this stage is probably still that Mercedes will take the championship, but it’s still unclear if in the end, it would then be Antonelli or Russell – remember how Oscar Piastri dipped pretty significantly last year. Together with McLaren, Ferrari will most proabably be among the top 3, unless Red Bull find a bit more speed, which they could well be on the way to. Should that happen, perhaps even Verstappen will enjoy the new rules?
I feel as old and grumpy as ever writing this, but I also realize my generation isn’t the prime target for F1 anymore. Since becoming owners of the F1 circus in 2017, Liberty Media have done a stellar job of making F1 a worldwide success, notably in the US and also attracting the younger generation.
And for them it’s a whole different thing, since they have no clue who Michele Alboreto, Niki Lauda or Gilles Villeneuve are, nor do they care. They know even how a screaming V12 sounds through the Loews’ tunnel in Monaco, and probably think it should be called the Fairmont tunnel these days. For those of us who do remember, the historical GP’s of this world are definitely a better option!
The Thrill of Driving 