Poll: Official 2025 Monaco Grand Prix Race Thread - Circuit de Monaco - Race 8/24

[Mesai]

He didn't need to overtake on track, he needed to be within a pitstop of Max to take a position. As he exited his pitstop that was very achievable but he fell back a long way instead.

At one point he was losing 0.5-1sec per lap to Max, while Max's tyres were EOL. Lewis did seem to improve and catch-up for a few laps, but then fell back again, which is also possibly down to traffic.

He should've had more pace though. Charles was in dirty air for a lot longer but managed better times.

 

[t2na]

I read some of the transcripts of Lewis' and the pitwall's radio messages (https://www.racefans.net/2025/05/26...l-radio-from-hamiltons-frustrating-monaco-gp/) and it really does seem like he was completely left in the dark at some points. After he gets out of the pits close to Max and they both got through traffic, he asks for what lap time he should be looking at and is just met with silence.

Lap 56 is especially great after he pits for the second time:

Hamilton: 'Yeah mate, just been a little bit lost out there, just you know, good. It’s very sporadic your info.'
Adami: 'Understood. We are in free air now until the end.'

Surely at this point you'd think they'd say to push on and close into Max's pit window?? Nope! He asks where he is, where everyone else and then they just confirm he can bring the tyres in slow and to target same time as leaders.

Hamilton	Okay, where is everyone so I know. Don’t need to know where Verstappen is, like, who’s ahead of me, who’s behind? And what position am I in?
Adami	We are a net P5. Piastri is 30 seconds ahead.
Hamilton	Has he stopped twice?
Adami	Yeah, correct. And no threat from behind.
Hamilton	So I can bring these tyres in slow?
Adami	Yes, you can. When you cross the line, 20 laps to go.

I think he was slower than he should have been this race - but if Ferrari had just said after that second stop he could get potentially get ahead of Verstappen with targeting a certain lap time he'd have been able to do that. It just seemed like he ended up matching the leaders times so never gained - and then lost time in traffic.

 

[GravyMonster]

What the actual F? Anyone with half a brain could see that Verstappen needed to pit and that they had a chance of getting 4th. Both the Ferrari driver race engineers need replacing. I'm amazed that Hamilton hadn't identified that as a huge weakness within the team and demanded changes when he joined - let alone the strategy department.

 

[Jono8]

Yeh I didn't really understand Hamilton's race. I know he isn't up to speed with Leclerc yet, and may never be at his age now, but he's not that far off their pace. Not sure he really knew what lap times he should be doing or what any sort of plan was.

I read that he did lose a massive amount of time in traffic that the others didn't. Maybe he was being too cautious.

If he kept pace with the rest, or even close , he might of got 4th. However if he did, RB probably would have reacted and pitted Max before the last lap . But seen as there was such a gap, it made sense to see if there was a red flag.

 

[wildman]

@CaptainRAVE I'd like to know what substances you're on to vote a 10. I'll have to get some in for next year.

saw a few hotties in not a lot of clothing so it gets a 10 for that.

 

[t2na]

I wonder if they could some inspiration from a track like Bathurst and potentially look at slightly reworking the circuit. The entire top of the hill section at Bathurst is incredibly tight and close with really no opportunity to overtake (unless your Matt Campbell in 2019) - but it then had the 3 straights (one with a little kink) that meant cars could close up and overtake into either the final corner (or if you were feeling it early into Chase) and also into turn 1 and 2 as well.

If they could make Monaco retain the tight and twisty sections in the middle but also have some genuine places to race at pace and overtake on then it might be worth keeping on the calendar still. You then would get the nice balance of teams tweaking their cars to be good in the long straights or rapid through the tight and twisty bits - much like Bathurst.

 

[GravyMonster]

Monaco improvement Plan Z: build 2 half mile long straights stretching in to the Mediterranean, one going out, one going back in. Hairpin at the end. Codename 'Avus mk2'.