How Williams and Mercedes caused chaos at Monaco GP

In an attempt to make the most of the new two-stop rule and put their drivers in a better position, Williams and Mercedes ended up causing utter chaos in the second half of the race.

Taking inspiration from the strategy that Racing Bulls had executed effectively, Williams attempted something similar. So what exactly happened in the tussle between Williams and Mercedes? The telemetry data gives us all the answers.

Racing Bulls strategy laid the foundation Williams gameplan

The potential strategy we speculated about before the race became reality when Racing Bulls used team coordination to pull off “free” pit stops. Lawson was the first to hold up the drivers behind him, allowing Hadjar to build a large enough gap, pit, and re-emerge in front.

And that’s precisely what Hadjar and Lawson did—twice—under the new regulation introduced specifically for this year’s Monaco Grand Prix.

The drivers who suffered, stuck behind Lawson’s deliberately slow pace, were both Williams drivers and both Mercedes drivers. By lap 21, Hadjar had already completed both mandatory pit stops, and the time gap and track positions between the Racing Bulls, the Williams duo and the Mercedes pair were virtually identical to lap 6, right after the Virtual Safety Car ended.

If we forget about the time gap to the race leader, it was rather efficient, wasn’t it?

But this is Monaco — lap times relative to the leader don’t really matter here. The only thing that counts is track position… and, in this case, how many pit stops you’ve served.

Once they saw this tactic was feasible, the Williams team decided to go a step further.

On lap 24, Sainz began slowing down the pack behind him—which still included Russell and Antonelli. With a race pace difference of 2 to 3 seconds per lap, it didn’t take long to build up a large enough gap for Alex Albon’s first “free” stop. That was one down, one more to go.

Again, using the same pace advantage, Albon pulled away, made his second stop and came back out ahead of his team-mate. The result? The time gap between Mercedes and Williams stayed essentially the same—only now Albon had completed both mandatory stops. In the meantime, they’d lost around 50 seconds to Hadjar.

That’s when Williams decided to elevate the strategy to an entirely new level.

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On lap 42, Albon and Sainz swapped positions just after the Nouvelle chicane, this time allowing Albon to slow the pack while Sainz went in for his own tyre change. It took just six laps for the American to break clear and switch to a fresh set of mediums.

Meanwhile, Russell—visibly frustrated with what was unfolding ahead and powerless to do anything about it—decided to cut the Nouvelle chicane and overtook Albon illegally.

Russell’s first attempt came on lap 49, but Albon closed the door. A lap later, the Brit forced his way through, well aware the move was against the rules. Still, Russell calculated that the 5 or 10-second penalty he’d likely receive was a fair trade if it meant breaking free from the traffic jam.

And that would’ve been true—data shows he was lapping 3 to 4 seconds quicker once in clean air, meaning he could easily erase the penalty time.

However, the FIA decided to impose a drive-through penalty—far more punishing, requiring the driver to pass through the pit lane without stopping, costing around 20 seconds at Monaco

In the laps that followed, Russell stayed close to Sainz and helped widen the gap to Albon behind. When Sainz came in for his second stop, Russell dived in at the same time to serve his penalty and emerged just ahead of Albon. In a way, the gamble paid off—he regained the position, something nearly impossible through normal racing at Monaco.

There was just one problem: Russell still had to make two mandatory stops. It was already lap 55. So what did Mercedes do? The same as Racing Bulls and Williams.

Antonelli now took over the role of slowing the pack behind to give Russell the gap he needed for a “free” stop. It was the best Mercedes could do at that point. Russell held on to P11 while Antonelli ended up down in 18th after his late double stop.

So what’s the takeaway; did the new rule improve racing?

I think all Formula 1 fans would agree, no one wants to watch a race where one driver is deliberately holding up an entire train of cars. Of course, it’s a different story if it’s happening on a circuit where overtaking is actually possible but in this case, we didn’t get good racing, not by any stretch.

The Racing Bulls and Williams strategies were undeniably clever and effective, both teams left with valuable points, but that wasn’t the spirit of the new rule.

Could the teams have done something differently? I believe they could.

One interesting example is the situation between Tsunoda and Stroll, which likely went unnoticed. Both drivers were stuck behind Antonelli while he was backing the field up to help his teammate. At that point, both had only made one stop.

The Aston Martin pit wall called in Stroll early, recognising the slowdown ahead. The Canadian then made up the gap and, once the Red Bull driver pitted, Stroll emerged in front. In other words, perhaps Williams and Mercedes could’ve tried a different tactical approach to deal with the traffic.

In the end, what remains is a general sense of dissatisfaction from the drivers at both Williams and Mercedes who, above all, want to race.

Read next: Sainz slams Monaco GP ‘manipulation’ as Williams ‘put on a bad show’ for F1