Episode 17
Monaco Grand Prix Review || F1 2023
Hello everyone and welcome back to The Steward's Office. F1 came back after Imola with the jewel in the crown which is, of course, The Monaco Grand Prix. This week, I'm sitting down to talk about Mercedes' brand new upgrades, McLaren spending so much time in the garage, the lesson Logan Sargeant has learnt, the surprise rain and that absolutely brilliant podium from Esteban Ocon. So, get ready, because you've been summoned to The Steward's Office.
Transcript
00:00:26 I can't lie, this is a Grand Pirx I normally have pretty mixed feelings about, I know the race itself isn't going to be the most exciting one on the calendar, but I do live all the pomp that surrounds Monaco.
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::00:07:05 Mercedes after having a fairly good FP1 session seemed to sort of slip down the order again. And that seems to be the tale with Mercedes in a couple of the practice sessions, in a couple of the race weekends. FP1 and tends to go well for them. And they do tend to just not be able to keep that up during the other practice sessions.
::00:07:42 And the last couple of minutes of the session, Lewis ended up going into a barrier and causing a red flag. Thankfully, no damage to anything super, super important. So, nothing to the front suspension, nothing to the gearbox, the engine, the floor, any of the new sort of upgrades that they'd bought in. Thankfully there was no damage to that, which is always good news.
::00:08:24 But it was so high up in the air and I'm taling a minimum of six or seven floors up in the air. I don't know why it had to be that high up. I don't know why a recovery truck wasn't able to get the car and bring it back to the garage just from the track. But this was genuinely one of the strangest sights. And probably one of the worst things that could have happened to Mercedes this weekend. And that's simply because, while that car was dangling in the air everyone in the world managed to get a free picture of the floor of the Mercedes car. Most of the teams this year and last year, since the new regulations came in, have been trying to keep the floor of their car completely undercover, under wraps, no photos of it.
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::00:16:11 But that wasn't meant to be and Max Verstappen did manage to take pole position. To be fair though, it wasn't an easy pole position for him to take. He was down on time in sector one and sector two. I mean, he wasn't even getting personal bests in those sectors. It was during that last sector, which is also the shortest sector, that he managed to pull out a mammoth lead and get pole position.
:: :: :: :: :: ::00:19:10 But after the first lap of the race they'd bought him in and swapped him over to the hard tyres. I'm not really sure if they were just hoping he could go very long on those hard tyres, but they definitely weren't going to be lasting until the end of the race. It was just a bit of an odd choice, but I'm not entirely sure why they opted to do that.
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::00:30:54 Max Verstappen did go on to win his second Monaco Grand Prix. Fernando took his first P2 of the season and Esteban Ocon took his first podium of the season. And his phenomenal drive meant that you guys had ended up voting him and driver of the day. And I could not agree with you guys anymore.
:: ::00:32:33 The highlight of the race for me though, hands down, Esteban Ocon getting that podium. Just to see a different team up on the podium, taking P3 was such a welcome sight to see. And like I said, I think it's definitely something that Alpine needed.
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