Scrapping Monaco would be mad – it’s ultimate driver’s test
The Netflix generation may find it boring but the legendary circuit makes up the supreme challenge
If you want a perfect metaphor to sum up the difference between the cultures of Europe and the United States of America, you could not do much better than to juxtapose the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500. In fact, if you were so inclined, that is what you could have done on Sunday. Right after the Monaco broadcast ended, coverage crossed the Pond to the self-proclaimed “Greatest Race in Motorsport”. It is a boast that, in my eyes at least, has more than a little justification.
Which brings us pointedly to the question: where does that leave the Monaco Grand Prix?
Monaco may be the jewel in Formula One’s crown, but not even diehard fans would describe it as the “Greatest Race in Motorsport”. It could more justifiably lay claim to the title of being the “Most Challenging Race in Motorsport”, although for many the term “race” might be stretching it a little; overtaking being next to impossible on the tight, twisting street circuit.
The question – and I am sure it was one being posed on sofas up and down the country about 50 laps into Sunday’s race, assuming viewers were still awake – is whether it has a long-term future at all.
It would have been heresy not so long ago even to suggest a Formula One world championship without the race that every driver most wants to win. Monaco is, after all, part of the very fabric of the sport, like Ferrari.
First run in 1929 (coincidentally the year my father, who went on to win the race five times, was born), its history is littered with the legendary names and deeds of our sport.
I only ever saw my father win it once and never made it to the event while he was alive. But the image of him rounding the Gasworks hairpin waving to the crowd in 1969, despite poor reception on our portable black and white TV in England, is still clear as day in my mind.
As is the shaky onboard footage of Ayrton Senna’s legendary qualifying lap in 1988, where he experienced an “out of body” moment that freaked him out so much he had to come into the pits to have a think about it.
Increasingly, however, you hear it suggested that it has slipped over the line that divides “unique”, and “charming” from “anachronistic” and “anomaly”.
Could Liberty Media, the sport’s American owner, do the unthinkable? After all, the contract it signed last year only takes us up to 2025. If it saw Monaco as that crucial to the world championship, surely it would have wanted to nail it to the calendar for the next 10 years?
Liberty knows very well what Monaco brings to the party. It is incredibly glamorous. It is in the south of France. You can watch it from your own yacht.
It has a long and very important association with Formula One. It is where many of the drivers live (one is even Monegasque: Charles Leclerc). They get all that. In fact, the Netflix Drive to Survive marketing-led Liberty executives probably get it better than Bernie Ecclestone ever did.
But the one thing they do not like is a boring race. And this is Monaco’s weak suit.
The Automobile Club de Monaco can change the track and the pits and paddock facilities all it likes. It can try to make the circuit longer, adding another possible overtaking opportunity (or should that be “an” overtaking opportunity?). It can relinquish more control over TV production (something it had, by virtue of its ever-so-special status, managed to hold on to long after all the other events caved in) to try to improve the viewing experience. But there is only so much it can do about the predictability of the race itself once qualification is done and dusted.
More than any other race track in the world, cars at Monaco have an unerring tendency to end up exactly where they started on the grid on Sunday, particularly in the modern era with these huge machines. Fans do not like this. And when I say fans, I mostly mean new ones who have joined since Netflix. And that means Liberty does not like it. Because, why watch a race where nothing happens?
Well, I get that. But I would argue – and I accept this is quite a personal viewpoint – that is to miss the point entirely of Monaco. To a racing driver, Monaco is quite simply the ultimate test. It is between you, your car, and the track. It is the most technically difficult, courage-invoking, concentration-sapping, eyewidening roller-coaster ride in our sport. Yes, the race is sometimes boring to watch on a Sunday (unless rain livens things up, as it did this year). But that is because the real race is on a Saturday.
Monaco is all about qualifying; those magical final few seconds (should you make it that far!) when the track grip level increases to its highest and the car becomes like a slot car. You can hardly make it slide it has so much more grip. But you have to find that next level, because your competitors are getting the same benefit. It is a balls-out, 100 per cent focus, pure concentration, ride of your life.
By the end of this year’s qualifying, my heart was pumping
The real race is on a Saturday. Qualifying is a balls-out, 100 per cent focus, ride of your life. Total drama
adrenalin as if I was actually driving. That was the best Monaco qualifying session I can remember. Total drama. Watching the best of the best put it all on the line to get that oh-so-important perfect lap. They were all brilliant.
Now, maybe it is because I used to race myself that I can feel and see something newcomers do not get. But we have to help them get it. Because Monaco is special. It is where the legends have left their calling cards.
From Juan Manuel Fangio, to Stirling Moss, Senna to Michael Schumacher, and now Max Verstappen. I never won it myself unfortunately. In 1996 I led for 40 laps before my engine blew in the tunnel. But just watching it still gives me a feeling like no other. To lose that challenge, that link with history, would be devastating.
Monaco is not the Indy 500, which is perfect in my book. It is another variety of racing – one of the greatest tests of driving skill in our sport.
I love it. And I love that I can then watch the Indy 500! Call me a sad old ex-racing driver who cannot kick the bug.