Christian Horner wants Monaco F1 track changes after zero overtakes

Red Bull F1 team principal Christian Horner believes the time has come for Monaco to “investigate” track layout changes to spice up racing at the legendary venue.

Despite F1 introducing a mandatory two-stop strategy at this year’s Monaco Grand Prix to try and add excitement to an event which has long faced criticism, zero overtakes were completed during Sunday’s 78-lap race.

There was a close battle for the top three positions but Lando Norris held off a frustrated Charles Leclerc to claim McLaren’s first win at the Principality since 2008.

Speaking to media including Crash.net after Sunday’s race, Horner urged Monaco to consider tweaks for the future.

"I don’t think I saw a single overtake in the race,” Horner said.

“So trying to create a bit more braking area, either on the exit of the tunnel or Turn 1 if there was any way of creating a longer braking zone somewhere, we should really investigate it.

“The cars are so big now that you just don’t have a chance to get alongside.”

Asked if he thinks changes to the layout are realistic, Horner replied: “I think everything has to move with the times ultimately.

“It’s an iconic and historic circuit but, you know, if you look at how Monaco has changed, how much land they’ve reclaimed into the sea into the 72 appearances here, I don’t think you’d need to do too much.

“There just needs to be one area where you can have an overtake, and everybody knows that coming here, the race was pretty much done yesterday. We’ve introduced another dynamic with the pit stop which ultimately for the top 10, other than the retirement, nobody really changed position.”

Current F1 cars are the biggest ever, but the sport is introducing smaller and lighter cars as part of the regulation shake-up for 2026, which could help matters.

“Maybe go-karts,” Horner laughed in response when asked if F1 needs smaller cars.

“I think these cars are just too big for this circuit, you can barely get them side by side, that’s Monaco. We know that, we all want to be here, we’re here because it is Monaco and the prestige and the cache that goes with that, but everything has to move with the times at one point.

“The marshals are fantastic here, they put on a great event. It would just be really cool to have at least one area where there was a chance of an overtake, as even in Formula 2 and the support races it’s very similar.”

Was the mandatory two-stop an improvement?

Despite there being no fundamental competitive change as a result of the new mandatory two-stop rule, Horner felt it was an improvement.

“I would say it was an improvement,” Horner said. “It was strategically more interesting, there was more jeopardy to it, certainly better than last year where there was just a procession.

“The fundamental problem is you cannot overtake here and you can drive around three-four seconds off the pace.”

Four-time world champion Max Verstappen finished fourth after staying out in the hope of a Safety Car or red flag, while Yuki Tsunoda finished down in 17th. 

Explaining Red Bull’s split strategy, Horner added: “We rolled the dice a little bit today. Starting on the hard our tactic was always to go long, with the main opportunity behind Safety Cars or a red flag, which can sometimes be the case here.

“So Max led a large portion of the race but was one of those Monaco’s where everyone pretty much behaved. So yeah, the first stop we got pretty close to Oscar [Piastri] at one point. He had a wobble on his second lap out of his pit stop, but we would have been at best alongside, so we decided keep going.

“The upside would have been if there had been a Safety Car or red flag Max would have led, then again he had the medium tyre, went very long, stopped on the last lap, and again you’re just hanging out for a Safety Car or VSC and red flag.

“For Yuki we did the inverse and went lap one, initially looked like he would get a significant benefit from it but then everyone started to drive extremely slowly as they started to play around with the tactics.

"He was basically on the same set of tyres for the whole race and set his fastest lap at the end there when he finally got some clear traffic, he was just sat in a queue the whole race. Difficult for him today.”