Pirelli brings soft tyres as the quirks of Monaco could spring surprises

Pirelli have announced the tyre allocation for the 69th running of the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend.

The three softest compounds in its 2023 portfolio will be used between Friday and Sunday, with the conditions expected to play into the tyres' strong points. The C5 will act as the white-walled Hard tyre, the C4 as the yellow-walled Medium tyre, and the C3 as the red-walled Soft.

In addition to having the lowest average speed of around 150km/h of any circuit on the F1 calendar, it also has little grip and limited wear.

"One of the peculiarities of Monaco is the fact that the track is opened to normal traffic every evening, which means that it's very hard for rubber to build up on the racing line, making the surface even more slippery," said Mario Isola, Pirelli's motorsport director.

"With Imola having been scrubbed, Monaco could now become the debut for the new Cinturato Blue full wet without tyre blankets, obviously depending on weather conditions: another potential random factor this weekend."

Indeed, there is a 20% chance of rain on each of the three days running, which could disrupt the intended strategies teams may have banked on.

A different winner?

So far in 2023, the Red Bull duo of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez had won all five races, with Verstappen taking three victories to his teammate's two. But Monaco's unique nature could mean someone else has an outside chance to steal the win.

The Monaco track is a low downforce circuit, meaning that greater focus is placed on achieving the highest speeds through corners rather than having the highest speed through the speed trap. As such, expect teams to debut bigger front and rear wings to allow F1 cars to stick to the track.

This setup approach can either nullify Red