Grand Prix races may come and go, but Monaco’s came and stayed. Some have likened driving there to “riding a bicycle in your living room.” Time magazine once called it “a cheerful interlude” in “a sport that is obsessed with speed and dogged with death.” In 2009, Autosport Magazine’s survey of British sports fans rated [...]
- Posted in 09. Grand Prix
Aryton Senna won the Monaco Grand Prix six times between 1987 and 1993, losing only once—to Alain Prost—in 1988. His string of five consecutive victories is unmatched. The Brazilian had been driving since he was ten years old, when his father gave him a full-size 100cc kart as a birthday gift. At the age of [...]
- Posted in 09. Grand Prix
The switch to 3.0-litre engines, beginning with the Monaco Grand Prix in 1967, helped Britain’s Piers Courage crack the 130 kph/lap barrier in 1969 and propelled Austrian Andreas Nikolaus “Niki” Lauda to back-to-back victories in 1975-76. Other winner big winners of the 1970s included “Super Swede” Ronnie Peterson in 1974 and South Africa’s Jody David [...]
- Posted in 09. Grand Prix
Racing was suspended in Monaco for nearly a decade, beginning in 1938 and ending in 1947. One notable exception was on 5 August, 1945. As the war was winding down and the Japanese were about to surrender, members of the 36th American Infantry Division held a little “Grand Prix” of their own on the streets [...]
- Posted in 09. Grand Prix
The initial success of the Monaco Grand Prix was followed up in 1930 with the race’s second running, won again in a Bugatti T35B, but this time piloted by France’s René Dreyfus. He set new lap and race speed records in doing so at 90.141 kph and 86.137 kph, respectively. By way of comparison, the [...]
- Posted in 09. Grand Prix
