Formula 1 will run two races through the barriers of Monte Carlo on the same weekend in 2027 — at a circuit where the 2026 podium was not settled on track at all, but in a courtroom in Paris three months after the chequered flag. Monaco is one of 10 sprint events on next year’s 24-race calendar, up from six this season, and the choice has drawn more criticism than any other line on the schedule. BBC Sport’s Andrew Benson tackled it, and your other questions, before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.
Why Monaco, of all places, is staging a sprint
The objection writes itself: Monaco is the hardest track in the world to overtake on, so why stage two races there instead of one? Benson’s answer is that F1 is not really selling a second race. It is selling a second qualifying session.
Sprint weekends compress the schedule into a single hour of Friday practice, followed by sprint qualifying the same day, the sprint itself on Saturday, then conventional qualifying and the grand prix. At most circuits that means drivers arrive at qualifying underprepared. At Monaco, where confidence is built lap by lap and the walls punish the smallest misjudgement, asking a driver to deliver a lap after 60 minutes of running is close to the cruellest thing the sport can do to them — and, for spectators, the most entertaining.
Two qualifying sessions is the pitch. Monaco qualifying is already the single best hour of the F1 season; F1 has simply decided that two of them beat one, and that any sprint procession on Saturday is a price worth paying. The counter-argument — that a dull race remains dull however you dress it — has not gone away, and won’t until June 2027.
The rest of the 2027 calendar carries its own talking points:
- Bahrain opens the season on 14 March, with Saudi Arabia a week later
- Monaco lands on 6 June; Portimao returns as a standalone race on 20 June
- Turkiye comes back as part of a triple-header with Azerbaijan and Singapore
- Bahrain, Australia, Japan, Monaco and Abu Dhabi are sprint debutants; Canada, Britain, Italy, Brazil and Qatar keep theirs
The virtual safety car lottery is staying
Several of you asked whether F1 should copy Formula 2, where pit stops are banned under a virtual safety car but permitted behind the full safety car. The argument is straightforward: a well-timed VSC can hand a driver a near-free pit stop and decide a race for reasons that have nothing to do with performance.
Benson reports no consensus emerged from recent FIA meetings. Drivers have previously floated a guaranteed minimum VSC duration of one lap, but every fix carries a cost — in that case, keeping the field neutralised longer than the incident warrants. The VSC exists precisely to deal with small problems without the blunt instrument of a full safety car, and removing the pit-stop option strips away much of its purpose.
The more persuasive defence is statistical. Over 23 races, the luck evens out. Kimi Antonelli has both gained and lost from VSC timing in 2026, and he sits 81 points clear at the top of the drivers’ championship on 292 points, with George Russell on 211 and Lewis Hamilton third on 191.
Madrid’s loose ends: Russell’s two-stop and Verstappen’s give-back
On why Mercedes committed Russell to two stops at the Spanish Grand Prix despite Madrid’s long pit lane: the lap-14 virtual safety car forced the decision early. Antonelli was on mediums, Russell on hards, and Charles Leclerc stayed out while Mercedes pitted. With the hard tyre comfortably the best race rubber, a second stop was always implied. Russell’s own verdict was that “everything I would have done would have brought us to the same position”.
And on the stewarding question — if a driver is ordered to hand back a position but a third car has since slotted in between, must they still comply? Yes. Max Verstappen gave the place back to Hamilton in Madrid even with Antonelli in the way. The precedents run deep: Fernando Alonso was made to return positions at Japan in 2005 and Silverstone in 2010, and drivers who cannot physically comply are penalised instead.
Next up is Baku, round 15 of 23, and a Saturday grand prix on 26 September — the first in the race’s history, moved from Sunday for Azerbaijan’s Remembrance Day. Mercedes lead Ferrari 503-358 in the constructors’ standings.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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