THE MONACO GRAND PRIX
One of the good things about banking with the Midland Bank is that they are part of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank Corporation, who are one of Stewart GPs principal sponsors. As we'd already arranged tickets for the Monaco GP, our local Midland manager Andy Lewis was persuaded that we were good enough customers for him to recommend that HSBC's Grand Prix Manager, Johnny Harrison, give us a tour of the paddock!
Having competed myself in the 1998 and
1999 Monte Carlo Rallyes Historique in January, I was already reasonably familiar with the Monaco circuit and it's surroundings, but the visit to the F1 paddock was a real eye-opener - first of all of course the paddock area is a long way from the temporary pits, which in any case are too small for anything other than routine servicing when the cars are out on the circuit, so everything else has to be done in the paddock, which involves a serious climb up lots of narrow stone steps - no wonder Monaco isn't the teams' favourite venue!
We were very lucky to have the paddock tour of course, which was absolutely brilliant, but there again the Monaco GP is a real "must" for any F1 enthusiast, and we were very pleasantly surprised how easy it is for the independent traveller to have a really good time here, with surprisingly little hassle.
Our original intention was to drive into Monte Carlo on the Friday prior to the race from our Alan Rogers campsite, La Vielle Ferme, (Site No 0605 in the Alan Rogers Good Camps Guide for France) at Villeneuve Loubet, suss out the situation, have our Paddock Tour, return to Villeneuve Loubet, leave our car there and use the train to travel in and out of Monte Carlo on the Saturday and Sunday.
We duly took the train on the Saturday morning - after a long queue for tickets we joined a packed, very slow, train which stopped for 20 minutes in Nice. The journey was said to take half an hour, but in fact took an hour. The return was even worse - we couldn't even get on the first two trains out of Monte Carlo, and this was only the qualifying day!
After some discussion we decided to risk the car on race day, although we were warned by some Germans on the campsite that we would need to leave really early, and to expect traffic jams, and they would be leaving Villeneuve Loubet at 5am!
We decided that a 5am start was not really on, so we left at 6.30 - to our amazement there was little traffic, and we drove straight into the first "parking for Grand Prix" car park we saw, walked about 400m to the centre of Monte Carlo and were sat down having breakfast at a local pavement bar in the Place d'Armes by 7.15am!
We'd managed to get some grandstand tickets near the Swimming Pool for the race, but quite frankly the extra cost of anything other than the very best stand tickets is arguably not really justified in terms of getting a good view - yes we were close to the track, but could only see a short stretch around the back of the swimming pool, and a more distant view down to the Rascasse and the Stars and Bars. If your main interest is getting a good view of the race, you need to buy the very best stand tickets, for which most us would need a second mortgage, or watch it on TV which is a lot cheaper
It's not the view, or lack of it, that we like to go to GPs for, it's the atmosphere of course, and in this respect Monaco is truly exceptional - where else (after 7pm) can you walk round most of the circuit, including the tunnel, drink in the history and the Campari, eat well and at surprisingly reasonable prices, spend an hour on the beach, gawk at the mega yachts, do some sightseeing, go to the Casino (no we didn't actually, but we could have) rub shoulders with former GP drivers to say nothing of watching the free practice, the qualifying and the race itself from a variety of situations?.
Perhaps we just got lucky (and yes we did so for as the Paddock visit went, and many thanks to Johnny Harrison for an excellent tour) but even without that particular bonus we're now hooked on the Monaco GP - or rather, we're now firmly committed to the Grand Prix HISTORIC de Monaco which features historic Formula 1 racing cars from years gone by. This event, introduced a few years ago, has become increasingly popular and in terms of "value for money" is unbeatable, with tickets being about 1/5th the price of thoise for the modern F1 Grand Prox, a more informal atmosphere where you can actually walk around without a plethora of "passes" and with the fabulous noise from slower-revving engines that doesn't threaten to burst your eardrums like present day F1 engines do!
For more information visit:
grand_prix_historique
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