2018 Monaco GP : Preview

After three races on relatively recent additions, FF1M returns to a staple feature of the calendar, the claustrophobic Monaco Grand Prix. The most challenging race of the season has a nasty habit of throwing up some unusual race winners such as JJ Lehto in 1993, Gianni Morbidelli in 1994, and more recently, Cooper Lee’s only FF1M win in 2016. In fact, only Fernando Alonso has won this race on three occasions with Pedersen and Tornado sharing four wins each. Furthermore, 15 separate teams have won the Monaco Grand Prix, a joint record with the Belgian Grand Prix.

Gojira AutoSport build on their commanding lead

The previous race at Aragon produced a somewhat similar outcome compared to Mugello with Sebastian Vettel starting on pole position and conking out before the end of the race, and Alessandro Farina progressing his way to the top step of the podium, setting the fastest lap in the process. It wasn’t a simple win for Farina as he faced threats from Charles Leclerc and Nolan Bryant, who had bravely attempted a one-stop strategy which didn’t exactly pay off as he ended up finishing 4th having started on the front row, but it may have been that the race pace of the Gojira and Tornado was so good that Bryant was destined not to finish on the podium whatever strategy he took.

The other threat that faced Farina came from his own teammate, who from 15th on the grid, had an excellent first lap to move up to 9th before continuing his steady rise through the field to challenge Farina. At one point, James Clark overtook Farina going into the hairpin at the end of the lap before Farina stamped his authority on the following lap. From there, Farina looked to have the measure over his teammate, although a lapped Romain Grosjean nearly did something about it in the final few corners. Talking of Willows, they came back down to earth in the race as Max Verstappen, who had qualified an impressive 5th, was bullied off the road by Leclerc in the opening stages before an engine failure finished him off just before half distance. In fact, Judd’s reliability as a whole took a dip with three other failures including both CBA Racing drivers, and falling behind Ajay Motorsports means they will be in Group B with the rest of the Friday runners being as follows:

Qualifying set-up vs race set-up

The conundrum facing the 13 teams heading into this meeting is how to approach the set-up. With overtaking almost impossible at Monaco, track position is king, although rather strangely since the race’s return to the calendar in 2012, only once has the race been won from pole position. The previous two races here have seen Kevin Magnussen start from pole position but lose the lead off the line. Nevertheless, FJR have a good qualifying record here with seven pole positions and if they make it an eighth, they’ll match Gojira’s record of most pole positions at a grand prix (Set at the Italian Grand Prix).

Support Races

No support races this weekend, although FFeM and FF3M visited Monaco last week with Kamui Kobayashi taking Thrust ‘n’ Bust’s first win in FFeM and Sarah Hollister continuing her impressive start to the season in FF3M with another win.

Coverage Details

Race highlights will be broadcast on Sunday at 16:00 BST with FJR’s James Brickles and Gojira AutoSport’s Gui Cramer in the commentary box.

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