Pirelli could try and create a special tire compound specific to Monaco but says it would be hampered by a lack of opportunity to test at the venue.
This year’s Monaco Grand Prix was particularly devoid of action because of a first-lap red flag that allowed all drivers to complete their mandatory tire change, with the majority running to the end of the race on the hard compound and George Russell managing to do so on mediums. That’s despite Pirelli bringing its softest three compounds to Monaco each year, and head of motorsport Mario Isola says it’s a challenge to create a product just for the iconic track.
“It’s not unrealistic [to create],” Isola told RACER. “The only problem is to find a track that is similar to Monaco for testing, because to validate our compounds we always test them on different-severity circuits and obviously Monaco is so unique that we don’t have any other circuit that is comparable.
“And we cannot ask the city to close the track and the roads for us for testing, it’s impossible. So it’s impossible to test here and it’s very difficult to find something that is representative of Monaco.”
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Isola doesn’t think a specific compound would make a major difference anyway, as teams would still just run slowly to make them last because overtaking is so difficult.
“The problem here is to overtake, and obviously if you cannot overtake then you have to look at track position over the number of pit stops or any other element,” he said. “Clearly they are limited by the width of the road — they cannot increase it, but the cars are so big… For example we had a very good race with Formula 3, with smaller cars, with lots of overtaking and action, but Formula 3 are smaller and they can do that. With Formula 1 it’s very difficult.
“We know from experience that in this case teams are just managing the pace to extend the run and reduce the number of pit stops. Or you have to oblige them to make a higher number of pit stops but I believe the result could be that they’re going to stop on the same lap and it not really making a difference.”