Did F1’s Monaco GP two-pitstop rule work? Our writers have their say

The mandatory two tyre changes at this year’s Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix was the talking point of the race – but did it work?

Our writers give their take on the first use of F1’s rule to force each driver to make two changes of tyre sets, or the two-pitstop rule, which debuted at the Monaco GP that was won by polesitter Lando Norris for McLaren.

Two pitstops stopped the race being boring, but it wasn’t racing – Filip Cleeren

I am quite conflicted about the FIA’s Monaco intervention. On one hand this race definitely needed something. And having been on race report duties, I absolutely appreciated having various permutations to think about, rather than sitting through a dull procession to the finish. I have to admit I wasn’t bored for a single second, and teams who nailed their strategy like Racing Bulls were rewarded.

At the same time, the three-set mandate also caused some very awkward strategies that further highlighted that Monaco may be a brilliant qualifying challenge, but it doesn’t work as a race track. Backing people up at a rate of four seconds per laps prompted some intriguing games of chess. But it didn’t have a lot to do with motor racing, did it?

Monaco pitstop rule rewarded teams that played it smart – Ronald Vording

Has the new pitstop rule made the Monaco Grand Prix a modern classic, or even a race to remember? No. But what is has done, is avoiding a repetition of last year – when the race became a procession. This year’s Monaco Grand Prix delivered at least a bit more excitement, both before and during the race.

Walking through the paddock the new rule was talk of the town for days, with teams unsure and even nervous about the potential outcome. The word ‘lottery’ was used a lot, but in hindsight that was not completely accurate. Yes, the timing of a virtual safety car, safety car or red flag was an element of luck, but the first attempt of this new rule has shown that it’s much more than that.

The change has rewarded teams who played it smart. Racing Bulls was the first to understand this game, by Liam Lawson slowing down to create a gap for team-mate Isack Hadjar. Williams followed and took it up a notch by changing positions to benefit with both cars. Agreed, driving deliberately slow is maybe not sportsmanlike or what F1 should be, but it favoured the smart.

On the other hand, it punished teams – Mercedes – that didn’t try anything and completely missed the boat. With no overtaking opportunities, this offers at least some variables and makes the challenge considerably bigger for teams. Yes, it’s artificial, but better than watching a ‘race’ without any excitement.

The real problem is that modern F1 cars are way too big for Monaco, but this wasn’t too bad as a temporary solution.

New rule worth a go but teams will figure it out so cannot be used again – Jake Boxall-Legge

I honestly didn’t hate this year’s Monaco Grand Prix. At the front of the pack, the need to make a second stop created two drastically different approaches. Verstappen and Red Bull decided to goal-hang at the front and hope for the divine intervention of a red flag to conduct the final tyre change, while Norris and Leclerc pressed on with ‘normal’ strategies, hoping for no interruptions. The latter worked but, given Monaco’s proclivity for generating errors, Verstappen’s strategy was not without merit.

At the back, what we all thought would happen…well, it didn’t. The decisions to stop Tsunoda, Bearman, Gasly and Bortoleto early looked like they’d reach some kind of pay-off as they caught the back of the field, but Racing Bulls had come into the race with a plan and valiantly stuck to it. Stretching the midfield gaps killed off any chances of making the early-stop strategy work.

It was thus quite a different Monaco Grand Prix to what I’ve seen before. Would I want another? No, because everyone’s sussed out that strategy – surely, you’d just start gap-stretching from the get-go. The parameters thus would need to change if you’re sticking with the two-stopper, but then you enter the grounds of making the race too prescriptive; you might as well just draw numbers out of a bowl if you want randomness.

It’s difficult, isn’t it? I’m not of the opinion we should get rid of Monaco, but I’m starting to think Bernie Ecclestone’s sprinkler system is a more attractive idea day by day…

A successful introduction of the new tyre rule for Monaco – Ben Vinel

I believe the new tyre rule has been a success.

It provided some strategic variance, and therefore some uncertainty, even though it eventually failed to drastically change the picture of the race for frontrunners – despite Max Verstappen delaying his last stop to gamble on a potential red flag, which could have vaulted him from fourth position to a race win.

It was fascinating to see some midfield teams – Racing Bulls and Williams – exploit the rules to the limit, with one driver slowing down and bunching up the pack while the sister car escaped to get a ‘free’ pitstop.

These tactics admittedly are debatable from a sportsmanlike point of view, and those racers can count themselves lucky not to have been penalised for ‘driving unnecessarily slowly’. Still, F1 very much is a team game as much as an individual one, and from that standpoint, they nailed it.

Another less noticeable benefit from the rule has been much quicker lap times. Last year, the fastest lap was a 1m14.165s by Lewis Hamilton, with race winner Charles Leclerc’s average pace in green-flag conditions an 1m18.4s.

This time around, Lando Norris set the fastest lap in 1m13.221s, but most importantly, his average pace was much faster: 1m17.4s (which provisionally includes VSC-impacted laps). And that’s what everyone wants.

New rule provided spice but nowhere near enough – Owen Bellwood

During last year’s Monaco Grand Prix, effectively all racers got a free tyre change after an early red flag allowed them to swap compounds without losing any positions in the race. The result was a dull procession around the Principality that forced a rethink from F1.

This year, however, I wish a red flag had offered some drivers a free chance to change their tyres.

New rules brought in ahead of the 2025 race mandated two stops for all drivers, and the result wasn’t a race full of mixed-up strategies and passes in the pits. Instead, it felt like not a lap went by without a car rolling through the pits, and dirty tricks played out on track while teams used their drivers to back up the pack and create safe spaces for pitstops.

Sure, the new rules meant that more stops happened in the race and there was more for the commentary teams to keep track of, but it didn’t feel like the kind of chaos that F1 had envisaged with the rule change. So while the two-stop rule might have meant that more actually happened in the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix compared with last year, it didn’t do much to turn the race into the must-see event that it is always billed as.