MonacoGrand Prix

Perfecting the Principality

"Monaco is a legendary F1 track, it's like Monza with walls,” says Test and Reserve Driver Fred Vesti.

“When you stand next to the circuit and watch the cars go past, you can barely believe what the drivers are able to achieve – it feels impossible.

"That's exactly what makes Monaco so special, you can be within half a centimetre of the wall and still be perfectly on the limit of the car.

“Confidence is key for the perfect lap here."

Long Legacy, Short Circuit

This will be the 72nd running of the Monaco GP as a Formula 1 World Championship round, and only Great Britain and Italy have hosted more Grands Prix.

The Monte Carlo circuit is however the shortest on the calendar this season, coming in at just over 3.3km, almost a kilometre less in distance that the next shortest track, Zandvoort.

At 260km-long, the race is also the shortest in distance of the season and is the only event that does not conform to standard regulations which say an F1 Grand Prix should run for a minimum of 305km.

No other Grand Prix on the calendar features as many laps however, with Monaco’s 78 consistently proving the most on the rota in recent years. The only exception to that was the one-off 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, run over 87 laps.

Fantastique Firsts

In the F1 era of the Monaco Grand Prix, nine drivers have claimed their first win in the sport around the Principality.

Juan Manuel Fangio (1950), Maurice Trintignant (1952), Jack Brabham (1959), Denny Hulme (1967), Jean-Pierre Beltoise (1972), Patrick Depailler (1978), Riccardo Patrese (1982), Olivier Panis (1996), and Jarno Trulli (2004) all celebrated their maiden victories in Monaco.

For the latter two, it would prove to be the only F1 win of their careers.

The Monaco Grand Prix as an F1 championship event has only been won once by a Monegasque driver. That came in 2024 when Charles Leclerc won for Ferrari.

Ayrton Senna holds the record for most wins around the streets of Monaco with six. The Brazilian legend won five in a row in Monte Carlo between 1989 and 1993, a joint-F1 record for consecutive victories at the same Grand Prix. In all, there have been 38 different winners of the Monaco Grand Prix.

Mercedes in Monaco

The Three-Pointed Star has triumphed around Monaco five times, all in the modern era of F1.

Four of those five victories came in consecutive seasons between 2013 and 2016.

Three were for Nico Rosberg – whose first victory in 2013 came 30 years after his father Keke had won the race for Williams – and the other was for Lewis Hamilton.

Lewis won the race for a second time in 2019 - an emotionally charged day for the team as the race was held just days after the passing of Niki Lauda.

Both Lewis and Valtteri Bottas’ W09 cars ran with a red halo in tribute to our friend and non-executive chairman. Before 2013, Mercedes-Benz powered cars also triumphed with McLaren in 1998 (Mika Hakkinen), 2000 and 2002 (David Coulthard), 2005 (Kimi Raikkonen), 2007 (Fernando Alonso) and 2008 with Lewis.

In 2009, Jenson Button’s Mercedes-powered Brawn won the race, and Jenson was famously forced to run down the pit straight to the podium after pulling up in parc fermé rather than at the start/finish line.

Mercedes has taken five pole positions in Monaco, the first courtesy of Juan Manuel Fangio in 1955.

One pole position that didn’t actually materialise for Mercedes in Monaco came from Michael Schumacher in 2012.

The legendary German was fastest in qualifying for the Grand Prix, in what would prove to be his final Monaco qualifying session before retiring from the sport but had already been handed a five-place grid penalty from the previous race, and so lined up P6.

Did You Know?

The 1996 Monaco Grand Prix holds the record for the F1 race with the fewest classified finishers, with three. A hectic race saw almost the entire grid retire before the chequered flag, leaving just podium-finishers Olivier Panis, David Coulthard, and Johnny Herbert still running at the end.

But Did You Also Know?

In years gone by, practice day in Monaco would take place on Thursday, with teams and drivers given Friday off before resuming as normal with qualifying on Saturday and the Grand Prix on Sunday.