Motor racing-F1 seeks to spice up Monaco GP with more mandatory pitstops

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

By Alan Baldwin

LONDON (Reuters) -Formula One’s governing body is planning to spice up the showcase Monaco Grand Prix by forcing teams to carry out more pitstops.

The FIA said in a statement that an F1 commission meeting in London on Tuesday, ahead of a 10-team season’s launch, had discussed “proposals for Monaco-specific regulations” to promote less processional racing at the tight and twisty circuit.

“The commission agreed to increase the numbers of mandatory pitstops in the race,” it added, without providing further details.

“These proposals will be further discussed by the sporting advisory committee in the coming weeks.”

The current mandatory minimum is one pitstop per race.

Overtaking is extremely difficult around the streets of Monaco, with qualifying and pole position even more crucial than at other races.

“You can’t change the layout of the circuit and of course, as we’ve seen previously and particularly with these cars as big as they are now, the race is very much dictated by the Saturday,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner.

“What we saw last year was if you get a red flag early on and everybody just puts another (kind of) tyre on, then it’s very static.

“So stating that you have to use potentially all three (tyre) compounds brings in another element, so it becomes a two-stop race and should it rain as well there would also be a mandatory two-stop.

“It’s unique to that race and it’s really due to the nature of the circuit.”

The FIA said there would also no longer be any restriction on the number of gearboxes teams could use during a season as the reliability of current designs had rendered the regulation obsolete.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ken Ferris)