Why Alonso and Hamilton were wrong about Monaco

The Monaco Grand Prix may not have been an in-your-face thriller, but I don't buy Fernando Alonso's and Lewis Hamilton's assessment that it was probably the most "boring" race of all time.

Daniel Ricciardo's performance as he brilliantly battled a car that was 161bhp down on his pursuers - especially after the 2016 victory at Monaco was so cruelly snatched from him - was edge of the seat stuff.

It seemed almost impossible that he would to be able to manage the speed, the tyres and the rising brake temperatures - all the while knowing that he had Sebastian Vettel in close pursuit.

They way the Australian managed to pull it off - and how his race engineer Simon Rennie reacted afterwards as if it was his first win - was something to celebrate and admire. Comparisons with Michael Schumacher's runner-up spot in Spain 1994 when he got home stuck in fifth gear were more than justified.

There was a brilliance about this victory. And, sorry to say it, but suggestions that fans deserved a refund after the race are laughable. When has Monaco ever guaranteed a overtaking-fest? Everyone knows what this race is like and that's why people love it or hate it. Nothing has changed since it first appeared on the calendar.

This is not to say that last Sunday's race was entirely perfect, and indeed if you were not a committed hardcore fan - understanding the drama Ricciardo faced, the anguish he must have been feeling, and the tyre strategy variations at play - then it would have looked like a totally dull procession.

From inside the cockpit - as long as you weren't Ricciardo at the front or Max Verstappen charging from the back - equally it probably did play out in quite a dull way as you toured around with little ability to push to the maximum.

With the pace being dictated by tyre management, and drivers lapping up to five seconds off what was possible in qualifying, it was clearly far from a thrilling balls-out spectacle of 78 flying laps.

But would Alonso and Hamilton have been so critical if such tyre management and go-slow tactics had left them with a win? And isn't F1 all about getting the result at the slowest possible pace?

While Senna's crash at Portier in 1988 was dramatic, up until that point there was not much to get excited about

It was unfortunate that Monaco threw up what was a perfect storm of a hobbled leader and tyre degradation issues forcing drivers into conservation mode, at a track where overtaking is already nigh on impossible. It meant no incentive to pit like there would be at other tracks where passing is easier.

This conservative pace contributed a further element too. As the drivers managed their speed so much - Ricciardo talked about "cruising" at certain phases - it meant that there was much less chance of anyone getting it wrong and hitting the barriers.

The only incident of note was Charles Leclerc's smash with Brendon Hartley, which was caused not by driver error but by brake failure.

No crashes meant no safety cars; and it's well known that safety cars often breed more safety cars, and some crazy strategies then ensue because of the way they throw off calculations and upturn the teams' best-laid plans.

But a one-stop race, run at a pace to avoid multiple pit stops, is not something out of the ordinary. It has happened before in F1, and it will happen again. Not every race can make it into the top 10 best ever.

F1's appeal comes from the fact that you should not be able to predict just how a race is going to pan out - just as you never know if a football match is going to be a 0-0 yawn-a-thon or a 7-6 extra time thriller.

You need boring races to appreciate the really good ones, and it does not automatically follow that some of the most celebrated grands prix have been overtaking flat-out thrillers.

Last weekend, there was a tremendous feeling of nostalgia as McLaren reflected on the 30th anniversary of the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix - an event that is viewed as a classic.

But while Ayrton Senna's faux pas at Portier was dramatic and a famous chapter in his rivalry with Alain Prost, up until that point there was not much to get excited about.

Senna had brilliantly taken on pole by 1.4 seconds, and was 50 seconds clear of the recovering Prost when the Frenchman finally found his way around Gerhard Berger's Ferrari.

Complaining about a lack of overtaking in Monaco is nothing new, and it's been the story for decades that it's the one race each year where what a driver does on Saturday is perhaps more important than what they do on Sunday.

Would we want that at every venue? No. Is it acceptable as a one off? Absolutely.

Monaco has often given us drama rather than racing - and there is nothing wrong with that. The event is perhaps bigger than the racing it delivers.

The 2014 battle between Nico Rosberg and Hamilton was dull on Sunday, but had an intensity about it because of what had happened in qualifying. It was the same story in '07 when Alonso and Hamilton's battle for the win was played out amidst great intra-team tension over team orders.

Nothing we saw on Sunday offers any evidence that Monaco has now become an unnecessary part of the calendar and should be dropped

Remember too Michael Schumacher's parking at Rascasse in 2006 - which was all about everyone understanding that Saturday is what really matters.

But Monaco has thrown up some good races over the years. Rewatch the final laps of the 1982 race as it became a struggle to find anyone who seemed able to win it. Olivier Panis's triumph for Ligier in '96 was memorable, and Jarno Trulli's brilliant victory in '04 came on a weekend of superb high drama.

If overtaking was straightforward at Monaco, we would lose some of the magic and uniqueness of the place. In 1992, Nigel Mansell would have breezed past Senna and the quickest car would have taken his sixth straight win of that season. Instead, that year we got a finish that has gone down in F1 folklore.

Last Sunday, if passing was easy, then Ricciardo not have won. Vettel would have blasted past him swiftly and pulled away in a dull procession from the chasing pack. It would have been a less dramatic outcome.

F1 must take the rough with the smooth - and accept that at some places, in some years, it is going to be boring and other years are going to be great.

Don't forget how terrible the inaugural Baku Grand Prix was as the drivers went into it with a similar preservation mindset that they had in Monaco last weekend. That was a dull race. A year later, on the same track, Baku showed exactly why it is a great venue for F1.

There are lessons that can be taken on board from Monaco 2018, and F1 really needs to do a bit more to better balance what it wants Pirelli to do. Bouncing around each year between tyres that go too hard because drivers want to push without degradation and then pulling it back to going too soft because no degradation means boring one stop races is far from ideal.

But this is not a problem unique to Monaco, and nothing we saw on Sunday offers any evidence that Monaco has now become an unnecessary part of the calendar and should be dropped.

Indeed, as time goes on, I guarantee that we will find some rose-tinted glasses and view Daniel Ricciardo's 'Apollo 13' moment of redemption as a race we remember for all the right reasons.