Monaco Grand Prix Review: The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same

Cha-cha-cha changes, the more things change the more they stay the same. For Ferrari and the Monaco Grand Prix, that couldn’t be more true. Coming into the weekend, Ferrari was looking to make up for a disastrous Spanish Grand Prix, and what better place to do that then Leclerc's home race. Monaco itself was looking to prove it is still a crown jewel event in the F1 season. By the end of the weekend, we learned Ferrari will always Ferrari, and Monaco will always Monaco.

For those new to the sport of F1, Ferrari has a reputation for making head scathingly poor strategy decisions. [Much like our own ITZ Formula 1, I mean a Stroll pick this weekend 🥴] Ferrari brought in Mattia Binotto largely to shed this reputation and right the ship. Well despite Leclerc starting on pole, on a track that allows almost zero overtaking possibilities, the home town hero from Monte Carlo went from 1st to 4th! As usual Ferrari Ferraried with a horrendous strategy call. Thankfully for many of our pool participants, Sainz a wily vet, made sure to call his own strategy, resulting in a 2nd place finish for the Spaniard. I guess when there is no gravel Sainz doesn’t feel the need to take a beach day and can actually finish a race.

While new cars provided some exciting heading into the weekend, it ended up being more of the same. A poor strategy call from Ferrari and another Schumacher shunt where the main highlights. The city is beautiful and the yacht watching is fun, but the race is a little bit of a snooze. Lucky for us, the same cannot be said for the pool.

Change was the name of the game come the pickem pool. Fitting Fyshing choose Leclerc, they both saw there title dreams take a hit this weekend. Who gained from this quagmire? Just look for the man with the Christine Horner size grin on his face, Jimbo! His 47 points was enough to vault him into first place for the first time in his career. A miniscule 2 point separates Jimbo from Fyshing.

Leah and Meg continue to be in hot pursuit of our leader. While defending champion Meg made a very Ferrari like strategy decision this week, picking Verstappen and Leclerc, Leah made a more Mercedes call, choosen both Sainz and Perez and walking away with 52 points. Marstar joined Leah in the secret genius club, besting Leah by one point to take the title for the weekend winner. Mahkatz continues to be the George Russel of the group, not doing anything really amazing, but not doing anything stupid either. Her 37 points keeps her sticking around the leaders a mere 6 points back.

Now as for the mid pack, its S.M.A who continue to lead the best of the rest race. 16 points back still has him in contention, but as most participants this week, an ill timed Leclerc and Verstappen pick has them wondering what could have been. If we look a little further back we can find the Daniel Riccardo of our group Jafyshe, an experienced participant who's pace has completely fallen off. His sector times are far behind his mother, sister and fiancé. The rest of the mid field is a jumble for relevance. We have our Alpha Romero's, in the Matty G's, Cam-ando-Alsonso's and Cargo V. Roum. They sometimes show pace but other times looked loss. You also have your HAAS's in ITZ Formula One and Louanne. If they aren't showing surprising pace, they are crashing out in fantastic fashion.

The back markers, these poor souls are channeling there inner Williams and Aston Martin. The season seemed so bright but now, they are just fighting for survival. Trying to stay out of contention for the Williams trophy of poor performance. Everyone in this group is over 100 points back of our leader, Fast Cars Dive Bars is staking claim to the Williams Title. Another rough week saw them bring home only 13 points.

Its on too Azerbaijan in 2 weeks time for the Baku City Circuit. This track never fails to bring the excitement, so everyone take a break, recharge, but be ready, Baku tends to be a season defining race.