After last year’s procession and this year’s team game, Ralf Schumacher says this could be the end for Monaco as fans will “no longer accept” it.

Last season’s Monaco Grand Prix concluded after 78 laps with the top ten as they were on the grid, not a single change of position as the drivers were given a free tyre change during an early red flag.

A ‘joker’ lap to save the Monaco GP?

To combat that, this season Formula 1 implemented a mandatory two-stop strategy. But it failed.

Instead of inspiring on-track action, it slowed it down even further as the likes of Racing Bulls and Williams used their second driver on the track as a rear-gunner to back up the cars behind to make a gap for their team-mate to pit.

The team-mate then returned the favour, with Racing Bulls and Williams securing double points.

It was an effective strategy for the teams, but it did not put the Monaco race in a positive light.

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Schumacher, who claimed a solitary Monaco Grand Prix during his 11 years on the Formula 1 grid, questioned how much longer the race, despite having a contract that runs through to 2031, can justify its place on the F1 calendar.

“If this continues,” he told Sky Deutschland, “at some point it will actually mean the end of the Grand Prix, because the spectators will no longer accept it.

“A race like this must not happen again.

“Of course, the best thing would be if you could build an overtaking opportunity, maybe you really have to spend a lot of money, an area needs to be drained- at some point that will change.”

However, his fellow pundit Nick Heidfeld believes there could be another way to spice up the Monaco Grand Prix with a “joker” lap.

Ruling out the idea of a minimum lap time to prevent drivers from going slow as teams would exploit that, the former F1 driver suggested a shortcut that drivers could take once or twice a race to get the jump on those ahead.

“A minimum time won’t work,” he explained. “The teams and the drivers will start to go to the limit again, maybe just stay in the limit, then hope that the first or just the second driver will be behind them. There is always a bit of a traffic jam.

“The fact that the minimum time is undercut and there is then a penalty sounds good at first glance, but you have to think it through further.

“Maybe instead of pit stops, something like a joker lap, as we have in other series. You would have to see where you can do that on the track.

“That once or twice in the race you can either take a shortcut or a part where you drive a longer distance and then be a little slower or a little faster and thus overtake.

“It was a shame that so much was held up.”

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