Perez ‘not looking forward to Monaco’ in new 2022 cars

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In the round-up: Sergio Perez says that reduced visibility and stability in 2022’s cars will make Monaco unenjoyable for drivers.

In brief

Visibility and bumps will be problems in Monaco

Asked on a Red Bull podcast whether there is a race he is particularly looking forward to with the new 2022 Formula 1 cars, Perez said: “I certainly know which I’m not looking forward and it’s Monaco.”

“It’s bumpy but also the visibility,” he explained.

Several drivers have commented on the visibility problems created by the partial wheel covers on the 2022 cars and larger tyres. Perez said that he hoped the organisers were “going to change some of it, the circuit itself” to reflect the reduced visibility.

Magnussen has “brought really good stuff into the team” – Schumacher

Mick Schumacher says Kevin Magnussen’s arrival at Haas has been “definitely beneficial for me and for the team.”

“He’s been part of it for four years and obviously had a one year break now,” Schumacher continued, “but everybody likes him in the team. I think the emotion and the feeling in the team is really good. And yeah, he’s a good reference. So it’s only positive for now.

“From what I see is it’s good, he’s brought really good stuff into the team.”

UK Bahrain embassy issues statement in response to F1 criticism

Following criticism from the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy that Formula 1 has suspended its Russian Grand Prix but continues to race in Bahrain, the Bahrain Embassy in the UK issued a statement defending its country’s human rights record.

“Bahrain has the region’s most robust human rights protections in place,” it said. “To attempt to single out Bahrain in the Formula 1 calendar is absurd, “lacks context, and entirely undermines the enormous strides and leadership Bahrain has shown in this area.

“Bahrain welcomes and actively supports the role Formula 1 can play in shedding light on human rights issues in all countries it operates in, now and in the future.”

The country has been criticised by multiple national and international groups for human rights abuses, before and after the violent clashes between protestors and the state that saw the race there cancelled in 2011.

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Comment of the day

After new regulations clarified F1’s safety car procedures, Owen G says drivers also need further clarity on what is allowable during close racing.

If it were me, I would involve all the drivers in drawing up a code of conduct. It will never eliminate incidents or grey areas, but it should reduce them if done right. Quite clearly last season drivers were left unsure of what was allowed and what wasn’t. It wouldn’t take away from the racing, it would improve it in my view. We must have had something similar before as I don’t recall being as confused as to what was acceptable as I was last season. “Let them race” has become the phrase used to excuse all types of overly aggressive attacking or defending manoeuvres. With penalties all over the place. I would also make this code of conduct available to fans, with a simple explainer video to be totally transparent.

On the white lines – yes, as long as you have part of your car on or inside the white line then you are classed as being within track limits. All four wheels outside that line and you are penalised in some respect – laps deleted in qualifying and number of strikes during a race. This would change during the race weekend or from track to track, corner to corner. I also think having consistency over track limits would also help with the driving code of conduct to try and standardise what is acceptable in wheel to wheel racing.
@oweng

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On this day in motorsport

  • 70 years ago today Alberto Ascari won the non-championship Grand Prix of Syracuse, leading a Ferrari sweep of the podium, though Giuseppe Farina was unimpressed at Piero Taruffi ignoring team orders to beat him to second

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35 comments on “Perez ‘not looking forward to Monaco’ in new 2022 cars”

  1. some racing fan
    16th March 2022, 0:30

    These cars are just too big for Monaco. That’s been the problem with that circuit- it was considered outdated even in the ’80s and the cars then were about 25 percent smaller than today’s cars. But for the first time it’s the cars that do not suit the track.

    1. They were saying the same about Monaco in the 1960s and those cars were tiny compared to what we have now.

      It’s just the nature of the track. You could consider it a novelty track, being so different to everywhere else F1 visits.

    2. Bottas ftw. I hope Monaco is not absolutely impractical.

    3. The cars of the eighties were actually wider. Shorter, yes, but wider. I believe Perez didn’t mention size, he’s worried about visibility (which is way worse now compared to back then) and bumps

    4. Dude, 2022 cars are smaller than 2021 cars, you know that right…

      1. Coventry Climax
        17th March 2022, 2:27

        That’s not what he claimed. It’s what you read into it.

  2. I’m surprised Perez didn’t mention Circuit Of The Americas as a potentially unfavorable race. One-third of the track have been re-paved.

    1. Because MotoGP was having trouble with it. F1 cars are not as sensitive to bad track surfaces. And if the new surface is good enough for MotoGP, it will be good enough for F1. On a related note, the new cars should be more like MotoGP in terms of which track layouts are good for them, because MotoGP prefers fast corners and avoids chicanes and slow corners. From that point of view, it’s kind of a shame that Lusail and Portimao aren’t on the calendar this year.

      1. Coventry Climax
        17th March 2022, 2:34

        With the ground effect (more) prominent on the new spec cars, smoothness of the tarmac is a huge issue. Each and every bump breaks (part of) the vacuum they’re trying to maintain underneath the car.
        That’s why Perez -and rightfully so- is worried about bumps, combined with the unforgiving narrowness at Monaco.

        Porpoising is the buzzword today, or did you miss that?

      2. Fast corners are where the problem is going to be this year. The new bigger, heaver, tyres, will really struggle without the reduction in downforce the FIA had predicted from the new regulations.

    2. some racing fan
      16th March 2022, 2:36

      COTA is built on a geologically active surface. Hard to understand, really.

  3. Re COTD…. I think the reason we didn’t hear so much about what was acceptable or not in the past was partly because racing etiquette was something that was more an agreement/understanding among the drivers rather than a set of regulations drawn up by the FIA.

    The FIA only used to get involved if somebody did something that was really dangerous, silly or intentional. In most cases if a driver felt another had acted incorrectly they would talk to the driver they felt had wronged them & if necessary also discuss it with the other drivers in the drivers briefing at the next race.

    The more involved the FIA has got in terms of regulating racecraft & the more regulations they have drawn up with penalties attached the more inconsistant, confusing & frustrating things have got.

    I’d just take things back a bit 15-20 years. Let drivers regulate themselves with stewards only getting involved & penalties only handed out when absolutely necessary if somebody does something intentional, reckless or truly ridiculous.

    1. @PeterG:
      I agree. By covering off more and more situations with rules they paint themselves in a corner. We need less rules.
      I’d like to see this applied at track limits too.

      1. If we are ging back to how it used to be, bring back the hay bales. Then they’ll stay on the designated circuits.

    2. Let drivers regulate themselves with stewards only getting involved & penalties only handed out when absolutely necessary if somebody does something intentional, reckless or truly ridiculous.

      But then you get into the murky waters of definitions of what is “intentional, reckless or truly ridiculous”. Different people will have different definitions, and consistency (something most fans have been screaming for improvements in for as long as I can remember) will reduce.

      Just look at this year: They “let them race”, let “drivers regulate themselves” much more than in previous years… And it was a complete mess, with many drivers having no idea at times where the line was, and all of them having vastly different opinions of what should be allowed and what shouldn’t. In fact, near-identical incidents were handled in completely different ways from one race to another.

      That’s what you get when you let “drivers regulate themselves”: An incomprehensible mess for all involved.

      1. @drmouse: Fair points I’d say.

        But I do feel that despite claiming “let them race” they only actually let them when the moon was in the seventh house and Jupiter lined with Mars(*). That inconsistency adds to the mess.

        Every rule has a grey area. More rules equals more grey areas equals more discussions.
        More rules and regulations equals more moaning on the track, more waiting on rulings about whether some move was legal or not, ‘can I keep this position’ or not, all the way until ‘can we finally decide on the finishing order, the race has finished 2 hours ago, I’d like to see a podium ceremony and go home please’.

        What would you propose as the way forward?

        * Actually a bad example because there is consistency there…

    3. @PeterG 100% this. It needs to be done with the removal of the silly 5 and 10s penalties though. If the minimum punishment is a drive through penalty the drivers will regulate themselves much more. We have seen time and again that if the risk is only a 5s penalty the drivers will make silly/clumsy moves without it really affecting their race if/when punished for it. They don’t give positions back anymore and would rather take the 5s.

    4. There must have been a previous unwritten code that the drivers all stuck to. And there must still be in most cases – there were plenty of great and fair battles on track last season.

      But there were a few occasions last season where it came down to “back off or we crash”. No matter whether the other driver had the corner or not. That’s not been the case before, if one driver has the corner then the other one concedes or risks a crash and a penalty. After a few incidents last year, this now wasn’t always the case – in the eyes of the drivers and also for the stewards. And there were plenty of drivers openly confused about what was allowed and what wasn’t, especially after Brazil.

      Clarification doesn’t need to be a giant list of specific rules as you’ll never cover everything and there will always be subjectivity. But “Let them race” was abused last season so something needs to be done to prevent it happening again this season.

  4. It’s almost funny to see the Bahraini embassy use whataboutism in the same way you would see on social media.

    1. It’s quite something, isn’t it @husseynrazaq.

      I mean, I guess to their credit they don’t actually even try to say they have even a solid, acceptable or anywhere near good human rights record or policy, stating that

      “Bahrain has the region’s most robust human rights protections in place,”

      to me says more about how bad the region in general treats its people than conveying a positive about themselves!

  5. I love how Perez is saying the track needs to change because of the cars….
    He’s got it backwards. The cars are the things that can easily change, as the regs change every season.

    On the other hand, Monaco is not a racing track for a full-scale car – a go kart or Formula Ford is about it. Formula E was pretty good on the full layout, but that wouldn’t be a common occurrence.
    Actual ‘races’ don’t occur there and haven’t for pretty much the entire time I’ve been watching F1. The best bit about it in the past was unreliability creating uncertainty and unpredictability, along with driver error due to fatigue from driving such relatively untamed cars. It has since ‘grown’ into a fully fledged 70%-pace procession that has become exaggerated as strategy has moved from reaction, gut feeling and guesswork to computer simulations, real-time AI processing and constant driver coaching.
    It’s better to just drop the venue, since they’ve just decided what the cars will be like for the next half a decade, at least.
    Bigger and heavier than ever…

    1. I think a lot of Drivers are going to hit the walls in MOnaco as it hard to see where the tyre outer rims are. Monaco needs some longer straights so in the Future i think they will add a extra km of track in front of the tunnel lossing the iconic Fairmount hairpin.

    2. I love how Perez is saying the track needs to change because of the cars….
      He’s got it backwards. The cars are the things that can easily change, as the regs change every season.

      Firstly, the cars can’t change significantly for this season, so if anything is to be done about it this year it must be down to the track.

      Secondly, the cars are suitable for every other track on the calendar. The outlier is Monaco. It is so vastly different to every other track that, were it not for “tradition” (and enormous sums of money) the track would probably have been dropped over a decade ago. It is just not suitable for modern F1, regularly produces the most boring “races” of the season, requires special rules about track lengths that don’t apply to anywhere else… It is basically a parade on in the background while a bunch of the richest people in the world have a party, and I for one would love to see it gone.

      I know it isn’t going anywhere, but it should (especially if the same rules applied as apply to every other track on the calendar).

      1. They could remove the winglets over the front wheels if they wanted to, @drmouse. They are at the venue that least requires or benefits from them.
        As for the wheel/tyre size, car design and the track design – the track has barely changed for decades, and they’ve been designing these cars for more than two years already. They (the teams, FIA and Liberty) collectively designed the technical regs that created the cars – so if there really are issues with visibility, they were completely foreseeable and preventable.

        And yeah… Try approaching the FIA with a Monaco F1 Track proposal today if it didn’t currently exist…
        Wouldn’t even pass as a Grade 3 circuit, never mind a Grade 1.

        1. Thinking about Baku that is even worse with high and low speed corners. The wall at that cafe begin castle is going to be fun …..

  6. My thought is about the fact these new cars are understeery in nature, how many of them will crash in Monaco?

    1. A lot and what of Baku castle part ….I think a lot of Drivers are going to visit that cafe :)

  7. Fans have not looked forward to Monaco GP for 30 years Checo.

    1. I don’t think that is true as in all of the various fan polls/surveys over the past 2 decades Monaco has consistently appeared towards the top of the list when it comes to fan favourite circuits and circuits considered important to fans.

      Monaco was in the top 4 fan favourite circuits in the big fan survey F1 did last year (Spa, Silverstone & Suzuka been the other 3).

      I myself love Monaco, Always have because its something different & unique on a calendar that has become very samey. It offers a different type of challenge which is for me a big part of what the sport is about.

      The only problem with Monaco is how much of that challenge has been taken away as they have moved barriers and opened up corners over the past 20 years.

    2. Coventry Climax
      17th March 2022, 3:00

      I consider myself to be a fan for over 40 years now, and I’ve always looked forward to Monaco. I agree that the current generation of cars is to way too big and heavy, but they are like that on all of the other circuits too.
      As PeterG says, Monaco’s different, as opposed to most of the Tilke-dromes that are more or less clones of eachother.
      The accent is on different things in Monaco. That in itself makes it interesting to me. I remember the Senna-Mansell last laps battle vividly. I know that that was maybe more of an exception than rule, but a lot of other races being boring are the rule as well.
      Perez not looking forward to it, is exactly why I am. Perez sees potential trouble ahead, and so do I. But not just for Perez; it’s the same trouble for everyone, and I am very curiuos as to who deals with it best.

  8. Nothing really doable with the circuit itself, but I agree that Monaco will be among the worst for the new generation cars, likewise Singapore, Mexico, & Baku for the most part.

    Re COTD, I get the points, but for track limits specifically, yes, consistency is better than inconsistency (like with everything generally), although leaving isn’t always advantageous nor everywhere, so again only wherever an off-track excursion can realistically be faster than staying on track.
    I’m slightly opposite in that I still hope curbs would be the reference wherever possible, i.e., everywhere but (ex-)Parabolica as that corner exit only has a white line, so no other alternative for limit reference.

  9. So do we call this the ‘Hamilton Rule’?

    https://twitter.com/brocedes/status/1504041786787958795/photo/1

    Just what you need after a a two hour race in the desert or Singapore.

  10. Whilst completely agreeing with the COTD in principle, as an amateur kart racer I know that a rulebook on the rules of engagement is not as simple as agreeing to the track limits. For instance, there is a huge difference between leaving the track (whatever agreed limits) because you are pushed wide (see Max vs Lewis in Brazil) or because you choose to, in order to overtake there etc. These are the nuances that must be dealt with and this requires a rather detailed and sophisticated set of rules – but this is by no means impossible.

    1. @nordmann: I feel a physical deterrent could solve a lot of these issues. Most of the time you see a car leaving the track because… it’s possible.

      Want to try a ridiculous torpedo overshooting a corner? Sure, go ahead. Worst case scenario you queue behind the car you were dive bombing anyway. From a defending point of view as well, are you being pushed wide? Just stay right next to the other car and start moaning on the radio. Looks like football, roll on the ground, cry to the ref for a card yada yada.

      With a physical deterrent (wall, kerb, 1m astro turf strip, gravel: different solutions for different corners), as attacker you risk losing more than you could gain overshooting a corner. As a defender, what do you do when you are pushed outward? You bail out. Like you should. Look, I’m not the biggest fan of “the squeeze” but the current situation is worse. Don’t like being squeezed on the corner exit? Well, start defending properly and don’t give the inside of the corner away on a platter…

      The added bonus is that with a proper track design you don’t need policing. No 3 strikes. No warnings. No endless discussions. No “is he going to get a 5 second penalty or not? we’ll find out in 25 laps”-nonsense…

  11. I wonder if they could make those partial wheel covers transparent? I shouldn’t think they’d be structural parts are they?

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