How strategy proved key in F1’s Monaco midfield battle

Saturday Night Live’s satirical takes on the United States’ presidential debates are oft-viewed television - and often clipped into bitesize chunks to disseminate into the world of social media. For the highly controversial 2000 race between Al Gore and George W. Bush, SNL handed Will Ferrell – known for his rib-splitting impersonation of baseball sportscaster Harry Caray – the Bush role.

The most infamous moment is thus; Ferrell's Bush is asked to sum up in a single word the best argument for his candidacy. Ferrell, lips drawn back at the corners in an evocation of Bush’s idiosyncratic facial posture, utters a deliberate malapropism: “strategery”. Some 21 years later, if one was to ask someone to sum up the merits of the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix, it’s not unrealistic that the answer would be somewhat similar.

After Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari SF21 was left incapacitated in the garage with a dodgy driveshaft – which may or may not have been a legacy of the Monegasque’s crash in qualifying – and Valtteri Bottas’ race was scuppered by a wheel failing to come off during his pitstop, Max Verstappen had an easy run to victory.

PLUS: The seven reasons why Monaco 2021 wasn’t a better F1 race

The battle for the lead within the Monte-Carlo streets became pretty much non-existent when Bottas’ car was given the roll of shame back into the Mercedes garage, and Carlos Sainz Jr’s charge to close up to Verstappen was put on ice by graining tyres. Thus, the front trio was left too spaced out to provide any real threat for Verstappen’s win, and even the pressure third-placed Lando Norris sustained from Sergio Perez towards the end of the race eventually fizzled out.

Every Monaco Grand Prix is delivered with a warning label reading “may contain few traces of overtakes”, but it’s even more of a problem with the current wide-bodied F1 cars.

What got Perez from a disappointing ninth on the grid to fourth was a wonderful strategy play. Strong strategies also bestowed good fortune on Aston Martin pair Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll, while Lewis Hamilton’s attempts to undercut Pierre Gasly proved to be increasingly futile after being jumped by both Perez and Vettel.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Thus, the overcut strategy was the strongest option. Ironically, it almost wouldn’t have been possible without Hamilton breaking the pit deadlock. The Mercedes team, suffering from slightly higher tyre degradation on the softs compared to their rivals, saw a gap between Perez and Antonio Giovinazzi that Hamilton could be dropped into. Having struggled to catch and pass Gasly’s AlphaTauri, Mercedes felt that plonking the hard tyres onto Hamilton’s car and getting out just ahead of Giovinazzi could be enough to claim a place.

Thing is, tyre warm-up in Monaco is usually quite the challenge. The surface isn’t particularly abrasive and the corners are slow, which doesn’t give the tyre too much chance to deform elastically and develop that heat. The hard tyres will undoubtedly have proved the biggest challenge to get up to temperature, and thus Mercedes gave Hamilton a lot to do.

Nonetheless, the team's engineers projected that his out-lap would give him a net-1.5s edge over Gasly – enough to perform the undercut. But when Gasly pulled in immediately after, AlphaTauri got its man out again ahead of Hamilton.

Finding space on the track at Monaco is a key part of the F1 strategy game; pit too early and there will be few spaces available, pit too late and run the risk of finding lapped traffic or getting caught out by a safety car

Here are the lap times among Gasly, Hamilton, Vettel and Perez at the time Hamilton opened up the pit window, along with the gaps between each driver:

By pulling the trigger and pitting, Hamilton and Mercedes hoisted themselves upon their own petard. Gasly’s in-lap was not particularly special, conceding half a second to Hamilton overall, but his previous two tours of the circuit were strong 1m16.7s lap times.

Hamilton logged a 1m18.7s on his return lap, which suggests that Mercedes managed to get the tyre fired up surprisingly well in comparison to other out-laps, which ranged from 1m18s-1m22s across the field. Hamilton’s problem was that Gasly actually extended his advantage on him, meaning the AlphaTauri driver could rejoin the track ahead. It didn’t matter that Gasly’s out-lap was 3s slower than Hamilton’s, as the French driver had track position.

Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri AT02

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Here’s where Vettel then jumped both. When Hamilton pitted, Vettel had been eating away at the Mercedes’ advantage, and immediately dipped into the low 1m16s at the same time Hamilton made his in-lap. Aston Martin then did the work in the pits to find Vettel an extra two-tenths to play with, and the time Hamilton subsequently spent behind Gasly was enough for Vettel to return to the track ahead of him – and side-by-side with the AlphaTauri. Vettel made that move stick and tucked fifth place into his pocket, then embarking on a bid to gap the pair.

One can imagine that Hamilton’s race engineer, the indefatigable Pete Bonnington, grimaced and drew a heavy sigh when he had to deliver the news that his driver was also at risk of being overcut by Perez. In laps 32, 33 and 34, the three before Perez came in to stop, Hamilton logged a 1m18.966, a 1m17.702s and a 1:16.420. Perez, by comparison, did a 1m14.552s, a 1m14.670s and a 1m15.062s on the laps preceding his pit-call. That was more than enough to overturn his deficit to Hamilton, leapfrog Gasly and emerge ahead of Vettel to boot.

Finding space on the track at Monaco to try and drop their drivers into is a key part of the F1 strategy game; pit too early, and there will be few spaces available and teams run the risk of haemorrhaging positions. Pit too late, and you run the risk of either finding lapped traffic or getting caught out by a safety car. Red Bull and Aston Martin got the balance just about right with their pit calls.

Although Vettel got up to fifth, Aston Martin strategist Bernadette Collins also helped the team play a blinder with Lance Stroll to get both cars in the points. Stroll missed the Q3 cut and qualified only 13th, but made a good start to clear Daniel Ricciardo – and was then immediately challenging Esteban Ocon for 10th.

Ocon, starting on the soft tyre, then found his race inextricably entwined with Stroll’s. Alpine opted to pit Ocon quite late in the pit cycle, on lap 37, and put him on the medium tyre to close the gap to Stroll – who'd kicked off on the hard tyre. For a time, it had worked; the French driver homed in and got the deficit down to around 13-14s, which meant that Aston Martin had to exercise patience. But after Ocon had taken the best from his tyres, the flurry of laps in the low-1m15s that he was able to extract in the laps following his stop soon became 1m16s – meaning Stroll could lap faster.

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR21, makes a stop

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Stroll was then able to crack the gap open wider, bringing it up to around 22s to give him a chance to pit and stay out ahead - which he duly did at the end of lap 58. On fresh softs, the Canadian was well over a second a lap faster than Ocon – and, perversely, could have stopped again by the end of the race for ‘free’ after he’d built a massive break over the Alpine.

Hamilton, meanwhile, was left to rue Mercedes’ eagerness to get him in the pits – one that was more ‘strategery’ than strategy. Had a safety car played a role, the race could have told a very different story – but strategists perched upon the pitwall can only play the hand they are dealt.

And in Monaco, of all places, playing with the cards one has can yield very lucrative rewards - if played correctly.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, arrives in Parc Ferme

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images