Video: Stunning F1 Ferrari 246 slides to pole at Monaco

14th May 2022

Seán Ward

With modern F1 cars it’s sometimes more difficult to spot the moments where a driver has to correct a slide. There are momentary drifts, but for the most part someone like Charles Leclerc would want to keep his Ferrari Formula 1 car as straight as possible on any given lap. All of the style points, then, go to old-school Grand Prix racers like this, a 1960 Ferrari 246, sliding around the streets of Monaco at the hands of its driver Alex Birkenstock.

Birkenstock is absolutely on it, oversteering gracefully through every corner and yet carrying enough speed for pole position against other rivals at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix. With the rear end so mobile it’s incredibly easy to see just how much work drivers of these cars had to put in, how every corner was about balancing the throttle perfectly.

This particular car? It was driven by Phil Hill in the 1960 F1 championship, and with its 2.5-litre V12 mounted ahead of the driver it became the final front-engined F1 car to win a race, at Monza.

What a lap, what a car, and what a terrific noise.