Every year, on the Sunday before Memorial Day, motorsports fans are treated to a tripleheader of iconic races: the Monaco Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600. And every year, F1 fans have to stomach the Monaco race and pretend it has any intrigue. And racing fans who don't usually watch formula racing are given a reason to not tune in again thanks to their new pit stop rules.
The 2025 Monaco Grand Prix, the apparent final to happen on Memorial Day Weekend before it moves to June in 2026, came with new rules this year -- two pit stops were mandatory.
You can't fault the governing body for trying something, but it absolutely did not work. If anything, it might've made it worse.
F1 isn't helping its case with new pit stop rule
The two-stop rule does give you the hope that something different could happen, but in terms of this year's race with no safety cars, it amounted to cars driving three to four seconds off the pace. Driving slow at Monaco isn't new, but it was notably worse this time around.
This is before you even remember that overtaking is nearly impossible. The only chance of this is a car massively off the pace in front of a car on new tires or a mistake on the opening lap. So any fights up front are not even fights: you can be severely off the pace and still not lose position.
So with that reality in place, teams every year have to use and abuse the situation they're placed in. And that means one thing: driving incredibly off max pace in order to build gaps and preserve tires. So if you thought no-overtaking racing was bad, it got much worse.
Monaco was exposed thanks to F1's pit stop rule
On Sunday, Racing Bulls and Williams employed a strategy to subvert the pain of taking two stops: have one driver go so slow, that the first driver can pit twice without losing their space in line. You can't fault them for trying, but it is truly awful to watch.
In the end, Racing Bulls and Williams netted double points. It worked. But it is an embarrassing thing to see play out as George Russell is so sick of being slotted in behind Alex Albon braking and driving so slow, that he just cut a turn to get around him (and ended up with a drive-through for it, but hey, he tried).
The off-pace racing meant this is what you saw on the leaderboard in the closing laps: Isack Hadjar an entire lap behind Lewis Hamilton, who was 45 seconds behind Oscar Piastri in fourth. Alex Albon was about 30 seconds behind Liam Lawson in eighth.
Point blank: this is not racing. This isn't a new take. But it seems as though there is no way to save this race that only still exists because of its historical meaning. At least there's no way to do it without going further into the bag of gimmicks. (Author's note: I'm fully behind a go-kart race)
F1's best choice is moving Monaco off of this weekend from 2026. You have to commend them for understanding how this time slot is big for the sport, and they cannot keep trotting out the worst race of the year in it.
But whether May or June, one stops or two, Monaco cannot be saved. Smaller cars will help, but realistically even then, the racing still won't be good.
At least now F1 can try and attract fans instead of repel them on Memorial Day Weekend, and hide Monaco somewhere else.