The Monaco Grand Prix might still be considered one of the jewels in Formula One’s crown but beyond the exceptional challenge of the unforgiving circuit which is relished by drivers, the race itself has long since become something of a tiresome trudge through the streets of Monte Carlo. This weekend however F1 hopes it has found a way to bring the lustre back to its jaded gem.

In Sunday’s race the sport has mandated three sets of tyres must be used, ensuring all the drivers will have to take at least two pit stops, a decision taken since the difficulties of passing on the narrow track have become all but insurmountable.

Since the race was first held in 1929 there has always been an issue with overtaking – it is part and parcel of the challenge of a genuine street circuit – but as the sport has evolved and the cars grown bigger and heavier it has become all but a pipe dream.

Something of a nadir was reached last year. A red flag on the opening lap meant the entire field was able to make the one required tyre change without a stop and then settle down to make their rubber last to the flag. What followed was an achingly tedious procession after which the top 10 finished in exactly the same order they had been on the grid.

There was little effort to even take a sniff at a pass for fear of overworking tyres which had to make it to the end. “I think at one point we were going slower than Formula 2,” noted McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who followed race winner Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc’s gearbox round for 77 laps.

Part of the issue is the 2017 technical regulation change which widened the cars from 1.80 to 2 metres, all but impossible to outmanoeuvre in the confines of Monaco’s walls. Moreover as the Mercedes driver George Russell noted earlier in the weekend the speed advantage required to even try to wrestle these heavy cars past one another is enormous.

“My strategist said you need four and a half seconds to be quicker for a 50% chance, so four and a half seconds to have a half chance,” he said. “So basically, you’re never going to overtake, anything less than two and a half seconds is a zero percent chance of an overtake.”

The cars are not going to become radically lighter and narrower anytime soon, so F1 has attempted to spice it up using the levers they have, hence the enforced pit stops. Quite how it turns out remains entirely moot. No one in Monaco was willing to make a prediction. It will not transform the race into a flurry of overtaking provoked by differing tyre strategies because the fundamental constraints remain the same, but it will at least force a variable into which strategies are employed and which teams can react to changing circumstances with the sharpest decision making and most alacrity.

“I guess it can go both ways, where it can be quite straightforward or it can go completely crazy because of safety cars coming into play or not, making the right calls,” noted Max Verstappen who seemed to reflect most drivers’ opinion that at least it was worth trying something while withholding judgment on whether it would actually work.

The variables are enormous as to how it plays out, safety cars and VSCs will play a part, likely at very least in triggering the entire field to dive into the pits at once. Equally any frontrunner out of position or indeed teams in the midfield could well opt to take both stops in the opening laps and then run to the end. While, of course, if there are two red flag periods teams will make their tyre changes without the need for any stops at all. At which point F1 might consider the long overdue change to allowing a free tyre change under red flags.

A race then into the unknown with perhaps but one given, that the driver who puts it on pole in Monte Carlo will still very much hold the cards and qualifying promises all the intensity the race itself is so often lacking.

In first practice, Leclerc had the edge, despite losing a front wing early in the session after a slowing Lance Stroll pulled out in front of him as they entered the hairpin and for which Stroll was given a one-place grid penalty. Leclerc was a tenth and a half up on Verstappen, with McLaren’s Lando Norris in third.

In the afternoon, Leclerc once again proved quickest, with his teammate Lewis Hamilton in third, suggesting that Ferrari’s fears their car would struggle through the slow corners of the principality might yet be unfounded. The championship leader, Piastri, was reminded there is no margin of error in Monaco, when he went off and lost his front wing at Sainte Devote but recovered to come back and claim second, while Verstappen could manage only 10th.