Does F1 need to change up Monaco format after dreary race?

MONACO — The worst fears of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso came true on Sunday as the Monaco Grand Prix produced the most processional race in Formula One history. For the first time since the championship started in 1950, the top 10 finished in the same position they started.

The feel-good story of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finally winning his home race after years of heartbreak was a glorious end to what had otherwise been a dire event at the most famous race venue on this side of the Atlantic.

Emotions were contrasting. While Leclerc was fighting back tears of joy late in the race, championship leader Max Verstappen, uncharacteristically running down the order in sixth position, had been fighting back tears of a different kind.

“F— me, this is so boring,” he said in a radio message to the Red Bull pit wall in the opening stage of the race. “I should have brought my pillow!”

Ahead of the weekend, Verstappen’s old title rival Hamilton had asked the media how they stayed awake watching the Monaco Grand Prix every year. That same day, Alonso had said Monaco was the standout F1 week of the year, until race day.

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Hamilton and Alonso are in the camp of drivers who simultaneously agree that F1 would not be the same without the Monaco Grand Prix and that something might need to be done to improve the spectacle of the championship’s most famous race.

Verstappen had his own suggestions of what needed to change by Sunday evening. The championship leader spent much of his race behind Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate George Russell, both drivers operating well below the limit of their respective cars in a bid to get their tyres to the end of the race.

Russell’s radio comms were equally damning about the race that was unfolding.

“At this stage, we gain nothing from driving fast,” he told Mercedes with 68 laps still to run. Hardly something you expect to hear from someone competing in motor racing’s pinnacle series.

The narrow, twisty streets of Monte Carlo and the ever-growing size of F1 cars have bolstered the race’s reputation for monotonous races in recent years, but even by the standards of the Monaco Grand Prix, this one was horrendous in terms of quality. One extenuating circumstance turned the dullness dial up to 11.

The red flag on Lap 1, caused by a collision involving Sergio Pérez, Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg, prompted the race to be suspended. Due to a quirk of F1’s rules,…