Certainly, the risk of mounting a successful passing move on the principality's streets is high, and any misjudged moves on a driver can often come at a high price.
While Monaco earned its reputation when the cars in F1 were not particularly egregious in size, the current crop of oversized machines has exacerbated the situation.
20 years ago, F1 cars were approximately 4.5m in length and 1.8m wide, and it was tough even then to accommodate two cars running side by side. They've ballooned in size since then through various regulatory changes: every car is now two metres wide, and most are north of 5.5m in length.
Three-time F1 champion Nelson Piquet once opined that Monaco was like riding a bicycle in a living room; nowadays, it's probably like steering a Challenger tank through an en suite bathroom.
Packaging and aerodynamics are the main culprits in explaining why F1 cars have become so engorged over the years. Aerodynamicists began to identify that running with a longer floor offered more downforce, and thus wheelbases became longer and longer through the years. As the car grew, the internals could be repackaged to ensure the bodywork became tighter, creating ever more radical 'Coke-bottle' sections at the rear of the car.
The aerodynamic changes in 2017 created another step change in the swelling sizes of F1 cars, where the cars' widths were expanded to two metres after nearly two decades of running at a 1.8m track width. This was to increase the speeds of the cars, but at the cost of their ability to race closely on track.
Although many of the 2022 changes were enforced to undo the restrictions developed by the 2017 rules, the wide-track cars still persist. Developments carried into 2023 have diluted the initial effect of improved following between cars experienced last year.
Source: Autosport