Formula 1 lives on its history, Monaco more than most circuits. It isn\u2019t quite the track driven back in 1929, but there\u2019s enough retained that the original field wouldn\u2019t feel out of place on the modern circuit \u2013 and in many instances, the backdrops to pictures of Audis and Alpines hasn\u2019t changed since it was Bugattis and Delages in the frame.<\/p>\n
But an old-school circuit brings with it a range of old-school issues that drivers, strategists and race engineers have to think their way around to write their own chapter in the chronicle of this most famous of races. Let\u2019s take a look at how they might approach it in The Risk Perspective, in partnership with\u00a0Marsh<\/a>, Formula 1’s Official Risk Partner and Official Insurance Brokering Partner.<\/p>\n The Strategists\u2019 Perspective: Dave Greenwood, Racing Director, Alpine<\/p>\n Dave Greenwood has many good Monaco recollections: he was part of winning Renault and Ferrari<\/a> teams, but his fondest memories, however, are the two points scored by Jules Bianchi for Marussia, where he was chief engineer and then during his stint as Kimi Raikkonen\u2019s race engineer at Ferrari, capturing pole position in 2017.<\/p>\n Today, as Racing Director at Alpine<\/a>, he has a watching brief on both race engineering and strategy for the Enstone-based squad.<\/p>\n \u201cTrack position is key in Monaco<\/a>, and that\u2019s why we put a huge emphasis on Qualifying, with all of our running before the race primarily targeted at Qualifying,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n \u201cClearly Monaco is a one-stop race. You could stop on Lap 1, fit the hard tyre and go to the end. The tyre life is very easy here. What tends to happen, rather than us looking at the deterministic solution, or even the sort of statistical probability-based approach, is a very tactical race.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt isn\u2019t impossible to overtake in Monaco, it\u2019s just very, very difficult. So, what comes into play are other factors. If you have both cars running in close proximity, you can use team tactics to engineer a gap. And you\u2019re always thinking about Safety Cars, and around the ability to have openness in your strategy to take advantage of those.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a race, for instance, where you can quite often see the front-runners perhaps start on a harder tyre to go very, very long, creating a window to pit into without falling back into the midfield pack.\u201d<\/p>\n The Ideal Set-Up: Alex Chan, Head of Race Engineering, Audi<\/p>\n Alex Chan is formerly Valtteri Bottas\u2019<\/a> race engineer, and is now Head of Race Engineering for Audi<\/a>. Set-up in Monaco, he says, has some interesting areas of risk and reward, and all of the quirks a team might expect on a circuit that\u2019s been in business since the 1920s.<\/p>\n \u201cThe unique thing about Monaco this year is that it doesn\u2019t have any Straight Mode zones: there is no active aero,\u201d he says. \u201cIn previous years, we\u2019d have seen everyone trying to put as much wing on the cars as they could.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t really have that available for 2026 \u2013 but you will still see everyone trying to chuck on any extra downforce they do have available, because another thing to consider is, compared to the last four years of ground-effect cars, we have an overall lower level of downforce in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n The trade-off in mechanical set-up is the usual one, albeit with perhaps a bigger premium on getting it right here, as Alex explains.<\/p>\n \u201cTypically, when talking about stiffnesses and going softer with the set-up, we\u2019re trying to improve the ride of the car at the expense of potentially going away from our aerodynamic optimum. This is one of the trickiest things to get right in F1, full-stop.<\/p>\n \u201cMonaco with all the low-speed content, you would think ride is more important \u2013 but Monaco has high-speed too: up the hill at Massenet into the Casino, Tabac, the whole Swimming Pool complex \u2013 so we still need to find the right trade between high and low speed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily the case that a stiffer car is going to be a faster car: drivers go quicker with more laps, but they also go quicker with a better set-up and, for me, a fast car is also an easy car to drive. Driver confidence absolutely brings a lap-time gain.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, while set-up in Monaco tends to focus on Qualifying, teams can\u2019t simply ignore the race. And one factor on the narrow, twisting streets of the Principality is the ubiquity of cars forming into trains. Following disrupts airflow, which the cars need for cooling. This also creates a dilemma.<\/p>\n \u201cThe two main areas of the car that need cooling are the power unit and the brakes. Monaco is tricky for the brakes. It doesn\u2019t have the big, heavy high-torque events you get at other circuits, but it also doesn\u2019t have the straights between the braking events you need to cool things back down. This makes it a tricky place to manage temperatures, even without the traffic, which makes it a further step more difficult.<\/p>\n \u201cOpening up the cooling on the car comes at the cost of some downforce. How much you do this is a risk-assessment thing: how much management are you prepared to allow yourself in the race, at the cost or gain of some extra downforce? We are heavily biased in favour of Qualifying performance in Monaco \u2013 but you still need to make sure you can get to the end of the race!\u201d<\/p>\n The Drivers\u2019 Perspective: Alex Albon, Williams<\/p>\n Alex Albon<\/a> recorded an excellent eighth position on his Monaco debut for Toro Rosso in 2019, and has finished ninth in his most recent two races in the Principality with Williams<\/a>. With the 2026 cars, the Circuit de Monaco, he believes, is the track most likely to produce a race analogous to what we\u2019ve seen in recent years.<\/p>\n \u201cI think with the layout of the track, this is one of the most similar, in terms of driving the car, to last year,\u201d he says. \u201cI think, if anything, it may be better, because the cars are smaller. I\u2019d hope to see a bit of difference in the racing as a result of that.\u201d<\/p>\n A criticism of Qualifying in the early rounds of 2026 was that the cars in some situations were sacrificing speed at end-of-straight to recharge. That\u2019s changed a little now, with a lower recharge limit for Qualifying \u2013 but Alex argues the new realities of 2026 haven\u2019t particularly affected the amount of risk a driver will be willing to take around a Qualifying lap of Monaco.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re pushing flat out,\u201d he says. \u201cOur risk level is the same as last year, but the ways we achieve lap time is different. You\u2019re still trying to go as quickly as you can in the corners, with slight differences in how you get a lap time. You\u2019re still pushing pretty hard!\u201d<\/p>\n The Key Section: The Swimming Pool<\/p>\n While Monaco is the slowest track on the F1 calendar, to a trackside audience, it feels like the fastest \u2013 and nowhere is this more evident than in the Swimming Pool.<\/p>\n Screaming along the quayside, the entry is left-right, followed by a right-left exit. Straight-lining the twin chicanes as much as possible makes this a case of threading the needle, slipping between the left and right barriers on entry, and then between the inside barrier and outside kerb on exit.<\/p>\n It can go wrong in the race \u2013 Mick Schumacher spectacularly snapped his Haas in half during the 2022 event after losing control in the middle of the section \u2013 but it\u2019s a flat-out fully-committed lap in Qualifying, or a Quali sim, that usually leads to trouble, particularly at the exit.<\/p>\n There is more than a hint of bravado in the assertion that the way to be fast in Monaco is to rub the stickers off the tyres \u2013 ie get close enough to the walls to scuff the sidewalls \u2013 and teams will frequently be checking the corners of the car after the driver reports kissing the barriers, with the Swimming Pool exit one of the prime spots.<\/p>\n