Remember this billboard? It hung at the Loews hairpin during the 2009 Monaco Grand Prix, and was so distracting that it caused Lewis Hamilton to crash his McLaren during qualifying.
“Every time you passed into that corner you had this woman looking at you,” said Williams Martini Racing driver Felipe Massa. “It was just a picture, but it was impossible not to look.”
In fact the image of model Jessiqa Pace was apparently so alluring to the drivers that they had to take it down before the race even started. So what have they done with it now, eight years later? Why, they’ve put it back up, of course!
Thankfully this time, though, the advertisement for Martini vermouth (with its longstanding history of motorsport sponsorship) won’t be hanging trackside where it could distract the drivers.
Instead it’s mounted at the heliport in Monte Carlo where some of the wealthier fans pouring into the Mediterranean enclave will be landing for this weekend’s race. Hopefully it won’t prove too distracting for the helicopter pilots, because the consequences would likely be even worse.
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