The Principalities. The famous streets. The exotic life. A third of the ‘Triple Crown’. The jewel in the crown. The one they all want to win.
The Monaco Grand Prix.
There’s something so special about the Monaco Grand Prix. It’s unpredictable nature means anything can happen. Drama, action and excitement. The streets of Monte Carlo have it all…
Watch Mr. Monaco himself Graham Hill, a five time winner, describes a lap around Monaco. It’s a classic clip in F1 history from a classic driver.
This event can truly make the impossible possible. Under normal circumstances in 1992, there’s no way Nigel Mansell’s Williams would be denied but not in Monaco as Aryton Senna defiantly fended off Mansell — who pitted from the lead due to a tyre issue — for a memorable win.
Monaco is a marathon. 78 laps around the tight and twisty bends of Monte Carlo. It’s an endurance race and one of a kind. One lock up, one snap of over-steer, one lapse of concentration and it’s over. The streets of Monaco are cruel as Lance Stroll found out on Thursday practice.
That what it should mean to be an F1 driver. You’re on the edge and mistakes are punished severely. Sure, I like tracks like Bahrain but the run-off areas are the size of the deserts the tracks are built in. You can run wide and it’s no big deal. Not in Monaco…
If you simply finish the Monaco Grand Prix that’s an achievement in itself and if you finished you have a chance of scoring points. Monaco is where the Marussia team score their only points thanks to the late Jules Bianchi’s 9th place in 2014.
Monaco is where we see the race of some driver’s lives. In 2004 Jarno Trulli won his only F1 race on the famous streets of Monaco in a classic affair that saw Michael Schumacher get squeezed in the tunnel, under the safety car conditions, by Juan Pablo Montoya.
Fernando Alonso also crashed out of the race after attempting to overtake back-marker Ralf Schumacher around the outside in the tunnel.
This left Trulli to fend off Jenson Button for the final stint of the race and Jarno went on to win a classic.
Even in recent history Monaco has churned out great races.
2015 saw a controversial decision from the Mercedes team to pit race-leader Lewis Hamilton under the safety car to fit on the supersoft tyres, believing they had enough of a window to pit and rejoin in the lead. But Mercedes and Hamilton (who wanted to pit) miscalculated their margin and Hamilton rejoined behind Sebastian Vettel and teammate Nico Rosberg who went on to win the race.
A very wet affair 2016 saw one of the moments of the season occur as the Red Bull team called Daniel Ricciardo into the pits from the lead but didn’t have his tyres ready. Ricciardo lost valuable time in the pits and Hamilton got the jump on the Aussie. With track position being absolutely everything in Monaco and overtaking truly an art, Ricciardo couldn’t get past Hamilton and had to settle for second.
Monaco always springs some surprises. Let’s see what it springs this year.
Graham Chapple 