After no more than a three day gap, the relentless Formula One circus rolled up into the Monaco principality; still widely accepted as the most prestigious event on the calendar, even with the introduction of the stunning facilities that come with the races from the Middle East.
With very little time to reflect on last weekend’s highly eventful Spanish Grand Prix, a number of rash decisions and alterations within the teams have been made, most noticeably at the head of the field with Ferrari and Red Bull making changes to how they go about racing:
After having its pit stops shadowed by Ferrari in last weekend’s race, Red Bull have moved to revise its pit stop procedures, in the hope of making it less obvious to rival teams just when they select to stop. Although these alterations remain unclear for obvious confidential reasons, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner confirmed that the alterations have been put in place in order to make their pit stop timing much less "transparent". The issue they faced in Spain was the manner in which Fernando Alonso was seemingly able to shadow Mark Webber’s pit stop strategy, which in turn prevented Webber from passing Alonso in the pit stop windows via the 'undercut'. Horner rejected the wild claims from the teams Motor Sport Advisor Helmut Marko, that the Scuderia had been hacking into Red Bull's team radio, and instead suggested a much less controversial and reasonable series of suggestions as to how Ferrari knew when Webber was pitting: "I don't know if mechanics were putting their hands in their pockets at the wrong time, or it was someone picking a tyre up".
Ferrari themselves have also made changes to their backroom staff on the back of a largely disappointing start to this year’s campaign, which was further compounded in Spain last weekend, as Felipe Massa eventually retired after suffering from handling woes throughout the entire weekend, and Fernando Alonso made waste a race lead in the first half of the race to finish a dismal lapped fifth come the end of the race. As a result, technical director Aldo Costa has relinquished his position as the team's technical director, in the midst of a raft of changes inside the Maranello team’s technical department. Former McLaren man Pat Fry has been placed in charge of chassis development for the rest of the season, with Corrado Lanzone being put in charge of production. The Engine & Electronics development will continue to be headed by Luca Marmorini, as the three men will now report directly to team boss Stefano Domenicali as appose to communicating to Aldo Costa beforehand. It is hoped that these largely dramatic alterations within the teams technical department will herald a new direction in terms of development and success for the team, who enter this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix with the unwelcome dark cloud over the teams head, of the tenth anniversary since the team was last victorious in the principality during the wonder years of Michael Schumacher’s domination in the 2001 season.
Further down the pecking order, Hispania Racing’s team boss Colin Kolles has moved to quash rumours that his team was to launch a protest during this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix. During the immediate aftermath of last Sundays Spanish Grand Prix, Kolles had suggested in a BBC interview that his team may be prepared show their opposition to the use of blown diffusers by launching some form of unspecified protest. However, today (Thursday) Kolles rejected any chance of HRT protesting, having been rest assure by the governing body the FIA, that the concept of ‘off throttle blown diffusers’ was being looked into. 
The issue with the use of off-throttle blown diffusers relates the rule in the sport that effectively bans any means of movable aerodynamic assists; the rule having reared its head several times over the past few years, most recently with the situation regarding ‘flexi-wings’. In this instance, teams are exploiting the very limits of the rulebooks perimeters, by feeding hot exhaust gases through to the cars’ rear diffusers, most controversially when the cars are off throttle. On conventional engines, exhaust gases are not emitted whilst off throttle; however the technical gurus within the F1 paddock have altered engine mapping with the car, allowing ‘off throttle’ gases to course through to the rear diffuser, generating a consistent source of downforce. Besides Kolles and other personnel, including race director Charlie Whiting, the Williams team have also issued their own complaint at how the rule has been interpreted by other, more wealthy teams that have been able to develop and utilise this apparent loop hole in the regulations. If a complete ban of this typically clever and exceptional devise is outlawed during the season (as is well likely regarding the current state of affairs), then the pecking order within F1 may just be turned on its head.
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