May 25th 2025: Monaco Grand Prix

The Monaco Grand Prix We Expected vs. The One We Got

When Formula 1 fans picture the Monaco Grand Prix, they envision a spectacle of glamour, history, and precision driving against the stunning backdrop of the French Riviera. It’s a race defined by its unforgiving barriers and the high-stakes drama of qualifying, where pole position is often a ticket to victory on a track where overtaking is nearly impossible.

For 2025, F1 decided to shake things up. An experimental mandatory two-stop rule was introduced, a noble attempt to inject strategic chaos into what can often be a predictable procession. The goal was to force teams off the simple one-stop strategy and create more on-track action.

Instead, the race became one of the strangest and most revealing events in recent memory. Rather than delivering straightforward wheel-to-wheel battles, the new rule opened up a Pandora’s box of strategic loopholes and controversial team tactics. The 2025 Monaco Grand Prix was a bizarre, often frustrating, but ultimately fascinating case study in how the sharpest minds in motorsport will always find a way to game the system. Here are the five biggest takeaways from F1’s weirdest experiment.

The Rule Designed to Create Action Did the Opposite

The intention behind the mandatory two-stop rule was simple: force strategic variance and prevent a high-speed parade. The reality was a spectacular backfire. Teams immediately found ways to exploit the regulation, leading to what Williams driver Alex Albon called a “messy, messy race.”

The primary tactic was as counter-intuitive as it was effective. Multiple teams used one of their cars to intentionally drive at incredibly slow speeds, backing up the entire midfield. This created a massive time gap on the track, allowing their teammate to make two full pit stops and rejoin the race without losing significant position. It was a tactic used to great effect by Racing Bulls and Williams, and even attempted by Mercedes, turning large portions of the race into a crawl as “shield” cars became slow-moving roadblocks.

The drivers themselves were acutely aware of the poor spectacle they were forced to create. Alex Albon offered a candid apology to the fans after the race.

“It’s not how we want to go racing. I know we put on a bad show for everyone and made a few angry drivers behind us… Apologies to everyone who watched that because it wasn’t very pretty.”

In a stunning display of unintended consequences, a rule designed to make drivers race harder ended up encouraging them to drive slower than ever before, all in the name of strategy.

Lando Norris Didn’t Just Win, He Leveled Up

Amid the tactical chaos, Lando Norris delivered a masterful performance that was much more than just another victory. After facing plenty of criticism as team-mate Oscar Piastri looked like the most convincing of the McLaren drivers and took the championship lead, this was Norris’s “most convincing” and “strongest” weekend of the year.

He executed a perfect weekend when it mattered most. First, he secured the all-important pole position with a stunning qualifying lap. Then, he controlled the race with supreme composure, managing a significant lock-up into the first corner and calmly handling sustained pressure from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. The victory was a crucial boost for his championship campaign, closing the gap to Piastri to just three points.

For Norris, the win held deep personal significance, fulfilling a lifelong ambition.

“We won Monaco which has been a dream of mine since I was a kid it’s one race that everyone wants to win”

This wasn’t just a win; it felt like a statement. It showcased a smarter, more mature driver who has evolved into a legitimate title contender, capable of handling the immense pressure that comes with leading from the front at Formula 1’s most demanding circuit.

The Pinnacle of Motorsport Became “Mario Kart”

As teams in the midfield engaged in their slow-motion tactical games, the pace became excruciatingly slow, leading to immense frustration among the drivers trapped behind. The spectacle was so far removed from the high-speed thrill of Formula 1 that it drew some colorful comparisons.

Max Verstappen, who finished fourth, perfectly captured the absurdity of the situation with a now-famous analogy.

“You can’t race here. It doesn’t matter what you do. One stop, 10 stops… We were almost doing Mario Kart. Then we have to install bits on the car and maybe you can throw bananas around.”

The race became a crawl due to a combination of factors: modern F1 cars are widely considered too large to race effectively on Monaco’s narrow streets, a problem compounded by a rule that incentivized extreme pace management. The sentiment was perfectly captured by Williams’s Alex Albon, who was forced to create one of the roadblocks and later joked you “could have brought a pillow in the car and a coffee.” In a final irony, Verstappen himself, after criticizing the pace, was forced to back up the leaders late in the race while running on an alternate strategy, proving just how pervasive the strategic games had become.

Ferrari’s Strongest Weekend Might Be a False Dawn

On paper, a second-place finish for Charles Leclerc at his home Grand Prix was a fantastic result for Ferrari. Leclerc was lightning-fast all weekend, topping the practice sessions and pushing Norris for the win throughout the race. It was, by a clear margin, the team’s strongest showing of the season.

However, sources within the paddock suggest this performance may have been a case of a track flattering the car. Monaco’s unique low-speed, high-downforce layout played to the Ferrari’s strengths, allowing the team to forget about its problems with having to set up its car higher than its rivals. This specific advantage masked underlying weaknesses that will likely reappear on more conventional, high-speed circuits like the upcoming race in Barcelona.

Leclerc himself acknowledged that the race was effectively lost before it even started, highlighting the critical importance of qualifying at Monaco.

“I cannot be infinitely disappointed with yesterday yesterday was a big disappointment and I think eventually we lose the race of today by missing pole yesterday”

While the podium was a welcome boost for the Scuderia and its fans, it’s wise to be cautious. The Monaco result may have been a one-off performance on a unique circuit rather than a sign of a major championship turnaround.

“Team Play” Took on a New, Controversial Meaning

No team exemplified the strategic manipulation of the two-stop rule better than the Racing Bulls. Their execution of the “shield” tactic was a masterclass in exploiting a loophole, even if it came at the expense of the racing spectacle.

In the opening phase of the race, Liam Lawson deliberately drove at a snail’s pace, acting as a “shield” for his teammate, Isack Hadjar. By backing up the entire field behind him, Lawson at one point created a “strangely 15 seconds” gap to the car in front, generating a massive pit-stop window. This allowed Hadjar to complete both of his mandatory stops and rejoin the track in clear air, without losing significant time or track position to his rivals.

The strategy worked to perfection, allowing Hadjar to secure a very strong P6 finish in his first F1 race at Monaco. From a purely tactical standpoint, it was a stroke of genius. However, it also exposed a fundamental flaw in the experimental rule and contributed to a race that many felt was unsporting and farcical.

A Flawed Experiment?

The 2025 Monaco Grand Prix will be remembered as a bizarre but fascinating event where strategic manipulation completely overshadowed actual racing. It was a weekend that laid bare the tension between creating an exciting show and the competitive instinct of teams to win at all costs, by any means necessary within the rules.

The race leaves Formula 1 with a difficult question. As the sport continues to experiment with ways to manufacture excitement, did the strange race in Monaco prove that some things are better left alone, or is this just the messy beginning of a necessary evolution for the sport?