Which was the best Monaco Grand Prix? Thank Frankel it’s Friday

Surely the organisers will run back to back editions of this usually biennial race in 2021-22, meaning that, in effect and unlike the actual Grand Prix, the Monaco Historics will in all practical senses be merely deferred for a year, and all entries held over. At least I hope so. I’ve done it before here so I won’t bore you again with the atmosphere and experience of racing around those streets, other than to say it is a unique challenge, at least so far as those I’ve had in 30 years of racing.

Instead it seems as good a time as any to look back to some of the Monaco Grands Prix that have been held on the streets of Monto Carlo since its inaugural some 91 years ago.

The first was won in 1929 by Anglo-French driver William Grover-Williams in a Bugatti Type 35B, beating the much fancied Rudolf Caracciola’s more powerful but less wieldy Mercedes-Benz SSK. Williams however (as he was widely known), is best remembered for his heroics working for SOE in France during the war, with Robert Benoist and Jean-Pierre Wimille. Of them the three, Wimille alone survived the experience.

The event was held annually until 1937, surfaced briefly in 1948, then again in 1950 (as the second round of the inaugural World Championship), once more in 1952 as, of all things, a non-championship race for sports cars, and then enjoyed an unbroken run of 64 races from 1955 until the Covid-19 spoiled the fun this year.

So which have been the most notable in that series? Well, the 1955 race was the only championship event not won by a Mercedes-Benz that year, but is probably better remembered for Alberto Ascari surviving an unscheduled flight into the Mediterranean only to be killed testing at Monza four days later.

In 1961 Stirling Moss had what many regarded as the greatest race of his career when in an apparently outclassed private Lotus 18, the Boy Wonder still managed to hold off a trio of far more powerful works Sharknose Ferraris. The Lotus handled better, but it was Moss’s driving in general and his decisive progress through traffic that resolved a two hour battle in his favour.

At the far end of the decade, Graham Hill won his fifth and final Monaco Grand Prix in what no one knew at the time was also the last time he would stand on a podium in Formula 1, even though he would race on for another six seasons. It’s also notable for the Cooper-Maserati that came last, driven by Vic Elford for that was the final time a Cooper started a World Championship Grand Prix, and the last of any car powered by a Maserati engine.

We’re going to trot through to 1982 now, which was really rather normal for the first 74 of its 76 laps, where we find Alain Prost leading, as he had since Rene Arnoux spun out on lap 15. But then it started to rain causing Prost, quite uncharacteristically, to park his Renault in the barriers. Which left Riccardo Patrese on course to record his first Grand Prix win until with one lap left he spun and stalled at the Station Hairpin. Didier Pironi took over the lead and continued to do so until he broke down in the tunnel on the final lap, which left Andrea de Cesaris as the man who was absolutely now going to win the Monaco Grand Prix right up until the moment he ran out of fuel. Which would have left Derek Daly in a now unintentionally wingless Williams to win. Except that’s not what happened: remember Patrese who’d spun and stalled? He’d been given a push start, which meant he should have been disqualified but for the fact his car was deemed to be in a dangerous position, and now he swept through to win his maiden F1 race.

In 1984 a young Ayrton Senna should have taken his first win too, his mastery of wet weather in his Toleman meaning he crossed the finish line in first place when the rain was stopped because of the rain. But he was robbed by the fact than in such circumstances the winner is taken from the lap before, which just happened to be Frenchman Alain Prost, the same Alain Prost who’d been seen frantically waving his arms in his attempt to get the race stopped… Let’s not forget Stefan Bellof either, who started 20^th and finished third before being disqualified.

The 1996 race was another weather-affected thriller which led to Olivier Panis’s one and only Grand Prix win. As if setting out to prove that you don’t finish first without first finishing, he clung on while all around him crashed out in terrible conditions. At the flag there were just four cars running, Panis’s Ligier out front with Coulthard’s McLaren and the Saubers of Herbert and Frentzen behind.

And that, to my mind, is the best of them, though I can’t leave without mentioning Lewis’ astonishing fightback in 2008 where, having hit the barrier and got a puncture still came through to win, even if it was with the assistance of a timely safety car, nor Michael Schumacher’s final pole position of his career, achieved aged 43 at Monaco in an uncompetitive Mercedes. The on board of his lap is on line, in all this downtime many of us now have, why not go and watch a true master at work?

Main image courtesy of Motorsport Images.