Williams team boss James Vowles plans to ask the FIA why the Monaco two-stopper has been added back into Formula 1’s regulations, amid his ongoing unease about how things played out this year.
The trial of forcing an extra tyre change for the Monaco GP to stop it being so processional proved contentious as three teams rolled out tactics that helped manipulate the result.
Racing Bulls, Williams and Mercedes all used their second cars at various points of the race to hold up rivals behind them and open up a gap in traffic ahead of them to allow their team-mates to effectively get a free pit-stop.
Williams duo Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz said sorry to fans afterwards for what they did to help secure ninth and 10th by the chequered flag.
Albon explained at the time: “I know we put on a bad show for everyone, and I know we made a few angry drivers behind us in the process as well. It's just taking advantage of the track, the size of the cars, and that's it really.
“The two-stop just made us do it twice, rather than once. Just frustrating. Apologies to everyone who watched that, that wasn't very pretty.”
While opinions were divided afterwards among teams about whether or not the two-stopper had been a success, it will definitely be back for 2026 after it was added back into the regulations this week by the FIA.
That move has surprised Vowles, however, who says that there was no debate about the Monaco plan in the most recent F1 Commission meeting – with it hardly having been brought up previously.
Asked why it was back, Vowles said: “Good question. It wasn't actually discussed in the F1 Commission...”
Pushed on whether this was something that the FIA had done by itself, Vowles responded: “That wasn't what I said, either. I hope it comes up in a conversation coming up.
“I have a meeting this afternoon with Nikolas [Tombazis, FIA single seater director] where I want to discuss exactly that as a topic of, where did this get discussed? And [then] I'll be sure.”
Vowles is open that he is not a huge fan of the two-stop rule, and said that he deeply disliked having to unleash the tactics his team did to help secure a good result.
“We weren't the first to do it,” he said. “I had to do it in reaction to the field. I didn't like it. It's the most uncomfortable I felt.
“I like going out there and fighting for points on merit rather than having to game the system in order to achieve it.
"I still maintain, however, by the time it got to us, and I waited as long as we could in the race until there's just one point remaining, that at that point you have got to think of the championship and take a point.
“I think the arguments that are being made are, was it a better show? Irrespective of that. I can't answer that question. I think that's for the fans to answer. My personal opinion is I don't like the lack of clean racing that occurs as a result of it.”
The Race understands that the topic of potential manipulation tactics has been added to the agenda for the next meeting of the FIA’s Sporting Advisory Committee which discusses such rules.
The FIA is eager to do all it can to try to eradicate attempts to game the system for 2026, especially because teams will now all be aware of how successful the strategy of holding up rivals can be if executed well.
One option could be for the FIA to punish drivers that it deems to be driving unnecessarily slowly to hold up the field – although this would be a complicated thing to police.
