Monaco Grand Prix Two-Stop Mandate Exposes Formula 1’s Stubborn Stagnation

The Monaco Grand Prix, Formula 1’s most glamorous spectacle, has long been celebrated for its iconic backdrop of million-dollar yachts, sparkling harbors, and the shimmering Mediterranean sun. But for a sport obsessed with “the show,” the race on the tight streets of Monte Carlo has become equally notorious for its lack of wheel-to-wheel action—where a parade of multi-million dollar machines circle for two hours with little real racing. With a mandatory two-stop strategy introduced this year—heralded by the FIA and F1 organizers as the solution to years of processional monotony—there was hope that change was finally coming to the Principality. Yet, the much-hyped “shakeup” proved to be another example of how Formula 1 continues to flounder when innovation is most desperately needed.

The Hype and the Reality of the Two-Stop Rule

The two-stop mandate was intended to force teams into bold, aggressive tire choices, thereby creating on-track drama as strategies diverged and tire performance ebbed and flowed. The logic: with drivers needing to stop more, there would be increased opportunities for overtaking and unpredictability, forcing drivers out of their strategic comfort zones and into combat.

In reality, however, the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix delivered none of this promised excitement. Instead, teams manipulated the rule, creating deliberate gaps as they nursed their tires at glacial pace, only pushing for the briefest of moments post-pitstop. Overtaking remained a near-impossibility: the top four at the chequered flag finished exactly as their pace and qualifying positions dictated. Not a single significant on-track pass occurred.

The Cage Has Grown Too Small

The problem is straightforward. Modern Formula 1 cars, now wider and longer than ever, have simply outgrown the Monaco circuit. Driving a McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull nose-to-tail for 70-odd laps, only meters apart and unable to make a move, viewers—and perhaps the drivers themselves—are left wondering: is Monaco even worth saving?

Lando Norris took the win in impressive fashion, slashing Oscar Piastri’s early season championship lead to just three points. Charles Leclerc once more delivered a strong but ultimately futile drive in front of his home crowd. Max Verstappen, known for transforming limited opportunities into victory, tried an audacious late-pitstop gamble: he stayed out until the penultimate lap, hoping for chaos that never materialized.

Yet no driver, no matter his talent, could break the stranglehold of the narrow streets and the impassable dimensions of the current F1 car. “Unless drastic changes are made, Monaco will remain little more than a parade with championship points attached,” commented Sky Sports’ Martin Brundle. “This is about the highest point of motorsport and I don’t like to see so many drivers going slowly.”

Racing by Loophole

If the front runners were imprisoned by the circuit, the midfield was equally hobbled by cynical interpretations of the rules. Teams like Racing Bulls and Williams gamed the regulations to perfection. Liam Lawson drove deliberately slowly to help teammate Isaac Hajar stop early and secure a career-best sixth. Mercedes found themselves in an absurd standoff: George Russell and rookie Kimi Antonelli played cat-and-mouse at the chicane, with Russell eventually taking a penalty rather than giving up position.

Verstappen’s extended stint—Red Bull’s desperate attempt at a last-minute shakeup—was a testament to just how extreme teams had to be in their search for unpredictability. When the dust settled, nothing had changed but the tire marks.

The Artificial Midfield, The Forgotten Front

Further back, chaos reigned—with little effect. Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon executed a choreographed ballet of pit stops. Antonelli and Russell performed synchronized chicane run-offs as deliberate shield tactics. Even the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) period, triggered by Gabriel Bortoleto’s accident, produced only a cluster of pit stops and minor collisions, with no impact on the competitive order.

Meanwhile, on paper a major shake-up occurred at the front: Norris’s victory, the narrowing McLaren rivalry, Verstappen’s fading dominance. But these subplots, the kind motorsport thrives on, felt hollow—engineered not by brilliance on the track, but by pitwall calculators and an unchanging pecking order.

Is There a Fix? Or Is Monaco a Lost Cause?

What is to be done with a race that provides such spectacle for the cameras and so little for the sport? Radical solutions are needed. Some suggest circuit modifications—longer straights, new chicanes, or even alternate layouts entirely. Others call for smaller cars, minimum lap times per stint to prevent slow-trains, or the removal of street circuits unable to accommodate modern F1.

Yet these solutions remain unpalatable to Monaco’s traditionalists—and possibly unworkable, given safety constraints and the city’s geography. As Brundle said, “I don’t want to see drivers all the way through the field playing a game.” Nor should any F1 fan.

What stood out during the event’s pre-race discussion was the insistence that a four-second pace delta is now required to overtake—an assertion that might have been true in decades past, but is nonsensical in an era where drivers circulated five seconds off the pace and still couldn’t execute a pass. The chasm between intent and reality has never felt greater.

The Enduring Pageant—But Where Is the Sport?

The Monaco Grand Prix remains a global television event, an eye-catching pageant that imitates racing without delivering it. If nothing changes, it will be condemned to serve as a glitzy photo opportunity—where the names of drivers on the podium matter less and less, and the actual racing becomes irrelevant.

Lando Norris’s assured victory and the brewing intra-McLaren title fight are storylines the series sorely needs. But after this latest demonstration of how easily teams can neuter even well-intentioned rules, it’s clear that only real, structural change—whether in the cars, the rules, or the circuit itself—can return Monaco to its once-hallowed place in the motorsport pantheon.

Until then, Monaco is the F1 race that everyone wants to win, but no one wants to watch.