The 2022 Monaco GP is the seventh round of the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship and will driven at the Circuit de Monaco. After a successful day in the Spanish Grand Prix, Max Verstappen and Red Bull get into the weekend leading the World Drivers’ Championship and the World Constructors’ Championship, respectively.
Red Bull tops the championship now
Red Bull has hit back at Ferrari strongly in the last few races and took a 1-2 at Barcelona after then championship leader Charles Leclerc had to retire with a turbo failure in the back of his Ferrari. Then, Red Bull made sure that Max Verstappen finished ahead of his teammate, Sergio Pérez, and got the desired result on a track where Leclerc looked comfortable in the first part of the race.
Mercedes made its move to solve the bouncing of its W13 car, and the drivers, Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, were happy with the overall feel of the car. Russell fought with the Red Bulls briefly and managed to keep them behind for some laps, before settling with third place.
For Monaco, the German team is expected to bring more performance updates to the car, and the team’s drivers could be competing with Ferrari and Red Bull for the win. Hamilton had tremendous pace in the Spanish Grand Prix while recovering from a first-lap crash with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen and probably could’ve been fighting at the front without the mistake from the Danish driver.
Close midfield battle again this season
Behind the Top 3, it will be interesting to see which cars manage to be highly competitive around the principality, which has a track that has different characteristics than any other circuit in the calendar and could give advantages to some ‘outsiders’.
Midfield battle at turn 1 in Spain (Photo Florent Gooden / DPPI)
McLaren (Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo) remains fourth in the championship despite the Australian not scoring points in the last three races. At Monaco, Norris finished on the podium in the 2021 event.
Valtteri Bottas has been one of the best drivers in 2022 and was sixth at Spain, which keeps his team fifth in the WCC with 39 points. Bottas’ teammate, rookie Guanyu Zhou, hasn’t finished the last two races and has one point in 2022.
Alpine (Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso) sits sixth in the standings and scored with both drivers at Spain for the first time since the first race of the year.
AlphaTauri (Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda), Haas (Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher), Aston Martin (Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel), and Williams (Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi) round out the positions of the World Constructors’ Championship.
Among the bottom four teams, AlphaTauri scored in Barcelona with Tsunoda finishing 10th, while Haas, Aston Martin, and Williams didn’t score.
2022 Monaco GP Facts & Figures
This will be the 79th Monaco Grand Prix in racing history, and the 68th celebrated under the World Drivers’ Championship format, since 1950.
The first Monaco Grand Prix was held in 1929, and William Grover-Williams took the victory for Bugatti, while Juan Manuel Fangio won the first Monaco race that was part of the World Championship, in 1950, in what was the first of his 24 Grand Prix wins.
The race was not part of the World Championship from 1951 to 1954, while one non-championship race took place in that span (1952). In 2020, the race did not take place, and it put an end to a run of 65 official Monaco Grands Prix in a row, since 1955, but it returned successfully in 2021.
The Monaco round is the most prestigious in Formula 1, and it is also one of the biggest motor races in the world, as it is a part of the motorsport ‘Triple Crown’ with the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
1984 Monaco F1 GP Senna driving the Toleman TG184 Hart
A win at Monaco often means something similar to a World Championship for a driver, and only 34 racers have won at the prestigious street circuit in Formula 1 history. Out of those 34, only 16 have more than one victory at Monaco, and the legendary Ayrton Senna leads the all-time table with six wins at the principality and some iconic performances. In 1984, Senna finished second in a wet race and had the pace to win on a Toleman car that was not the most competitive on the grid.
Two-time champion Graham Hill was another Monaco master in his prime, winning five times around the streets, a tally surpassed by Senna and matched by Michael Schumacher. Four-time champion Alain Prost is the only other driver with at least four wins at Monaco, followed by Stirling Moss, Jackie Stewart, Nico Rosberg, and Lewis Hamilton (leader among active racers) with three wins each.
In terms of the highly important Pole Position at Monaco, Senna also leads the table with five, followed by five-time champion and two-time winner at Monaco, Juan Manuel Fangio, two-time champion Jim Clark, three-time champion Stewart (three-time winner) and Prost with four poles at the track.
Senna also had the most podiums at Monaco, with eight. He is followed by Graham Hill, Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel with seven podiums each.
Among teams, McLaren has the most wins at Monaco with 15, achieved by seven drivers.
The Pole Position will be hugely essential for the results of Sunday’s race, as 46% of the Monaco GPs have been won from first on the grid (31 out of 67 – Verstappen won in 2021 from first on the grid, as pole-sitter Leclerc didn’t start the race). Overall, 85% of the Monaco races were won from the Top 3 places (57 out of 67) which makes qualifying surely one of the most important of the entire season, if not the most important.
In 1996, Frenchman Olivier Panis won a crazy race after starting from 14th place on the grid (lowest grid position for a Monaco winner in F1 history), but changeable weather conditions and many mistakes from seemingly every driver helped Panis and Ligier.
Circuit de Monaco track info
A twisty, challenging track that allows no mistakes from the drivers, the iconic Circuit de Monaco will make drivers pay for any issue throughout the entire weekend. The track, which has not had major changes throughout its history, beyond some corners added or reshaped, is currently 3,337 km long and has 19 corners.
In Formula 1, the track layout has had some changes throughout its history to increase safety a bit, and the most notable change in Monaco history is the shape of the chicane at the tunnel exit, which was super fast in the early days and until the early 1980s. Now, the chicane forces the cars to enter at slower speeds, but it offers a slight chance of overtaking.
Other changes were the addition of the Piscine ‘S’ and La Rascasse for the 1973 race and the new shapes of the Sainte Devote and Anthony Noghes corners from 1976. The chicane at the tunnel exit was a simple left-right, fast chicane ever since the race was part of the World Championship, but it was changed for the 1986 race and it has maintained a similar feel since.
Small changes have been made since 1986, but the track has maintained its essence.
Though overtaking is highly difficult at Monaco, the circuit has seen some extraordinary battles in the modern era of Formula 1, especially in the 1992 race between Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell, or Max Verstappen’s hot pursuit of Lewis Hamilton in the 2019 edition.
The lap records for the track are held by Lewis Hamilton (1:10.166 in the 2019 qualifying – outright record) and 1:12.909 for the Fastest Lap during a race (2021).
Because the Monaco circuit is off course a street circuit, the tarmac is very smooth and the used asphalt has compared to closed circuits a very low abrasion and grip. Because of the low grip the tyres can last a long time around Monaco. The low grip and tight and twisty track ask a lot of the drivers and cars. You can imagine the teams will put on as much downforce as they can on the cars, otherwise the tyres won’t even get into their optimal operating temperature window.
2022 Monaco GP – Tyre Compounds
The dry tyres for the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix will be the C3 as P Zero White hard, C4 as P Zero Yellow Medium, and C5 as P Zero Red soft.
Pirelli explained their choice with a statement in a press release: “Just one weekend after the hardest tyres in the Pirelli Formula 1 range were selected for the Spanish Grand Prix, the softest compounds make an appearance for the most glamorous track of them all: Monaco.
Like Barcelona, Monaco is extremely well-known to the teams: just one of three circuits still on the calendar that originally appeared in the inaugural 1950 Formula 1 season. Unlike the other two (Spa and Silverstone) it hasn’t changed shape significantly since then, which means that it has the lowest average speed of any track and very little run-off, making it notoriously difficult to overtake on.
The slippery street asphalt (which is opened up to traffic each evening) and slow speeds mean that the energy going through the tyres is low, with minimal wear and degradation, but quite a high degree of track evolution each day. All this means that a one-stopper is the norm in Monaco, but there’s quite a wide pit stop window and the timing of the stops can be influenced by safety cars, which are very likely around the tight confines of the circuit.
The cars run a special high-downforce configuration for Monaco in order to maximise grip at low speeds, with combined grip generated both mechanically from tyres and aerodynamically from downforce.
This is obviously the first time that the new generation of 18-inch Formula 1 cars has raced at Monaco though, so the teams will have a lot to learn about how they react in these unique conditions, with the weather on the Mediterranean coast sometimes hard to predict at this time of year..”
Mario Isola, Pirelli’s head of motorsport, further explained Pirelli’s tyre choice for the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix:
“Monaco is often described as one of the most unpredictable races of the year, but the truth is that qualifying takes on a particular significance as track position is key here. As a result of that, understanding how to maximise the softest C5 compound – which has only raced at one event so far this year, in Australia – will be a vital part of free practice.
With the previous rule requiring drivers to start the race on their fastest Q2 tyre now abolished, we might see some different strategies this year, with some drivers picking harder compounds to begin the race to target running a long first stint, given the difficultly of overtaking. Others may choose a more traditional approach by starting on the softest compound, at a race where strategy can make a real difference.”
The minimum starting pressures for the tyres will be 21.0 PSI (front) and 17.0 PSI (rear).
2022 Monaco GP Weather Forecast
The action in Monaco will start on Friday this year, as opposed to the usual schedule in past years, which had the first two practice sessions on Thursday.
Friday, May 27th – FP1 & FP2
Conditions: Partly sunny
Max. temperature: 28°C
Chance of rain: 4%
2022 Monaco GP Weather Forecast
Saturday, May 28th – FP3 & Qualifying
Conditions: Partly sunny
Max. temperature: 26°C
Chance of rain: 34%
Sunday, May 29th – Race
Conditions: Rain showers
Max. temperature: 21°C
Chance of rain: 80%
Who will be on the 2022 Monaco GP F1 Podium?
Qualifying will definitely be huge for every team and their chances to reach big goals on the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix. The Monaco round has often been a quiet race if ran under dry conditions, with mostly unchanged position from qualifying, unless there are crashes or bad pitstops.
2021 Monaco race winner Max Verstappen, second placed Carlos Sainz and third placed Lando Norris celebrate on the podium
However, the 2022 Monaco GP could totally different from what we see in qualifying, given that there are chances of rain falling down on Sunday, which would certainly change the entire complexion of the event.
Red Bull and Ferrari will surely be competitive at Monaco, given their balanced cars. It will be interesting to see which other teams manage to be fast around the slow Monaco corners, and Mercedes will probably be contending for podium places, maybe even a victory.
With rain, anything could happen, while the event would be totally dramatic to watch in such a narrow circuit with the walls being maybe too close. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will be competing at home for the fourth time in his Formula 1 career and he hasn’t finished a race at Monaco. He grabbed Pole Position despite (and possibly because of) a late crash in Q3, but that damaged his car and Leclerc could not start the race.
In 2022, Leclerc might be in front of his greatest chance to win the Monaco Grand Prix for the first time, and it would be huge for his World Drivers’ Championship quest.
The prediction for the top three of the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix is 1. Charles Leclerc, 2. Lewis Hamilton, 3. George Russell.
Let us know your prediction in the comments below!
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