The F1 circus arrives in Monaco this weekend for the most famous race on the GP calendar. The narrow, twisty street circuit is almost completely unsuited to modern hyper-quick, high-downforce F1 cars, and doesn’t give much opportunity for drivers to pass. But it does give them ample opportunity to crash, as this video from the official F1 YouTube channel proves.
The clip is actually a couple of years old, and was produced to celebrate the Monaco GP’s 90th birthday back in 2019. But it’s still absolutely worth a look today to see a bunch of multi-million dollar single-seaters climbing over the top of each other and snapping wheels off as they try to cram themselves through corners that would seem tight in a Renault supermini.
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There’s a shot from way back in 1950 when a wave crashed over the wall and caused a mass pile-up, clips of cars doing somersaults as they try to take the right hander leading into the tunnel, Ayrton Senna ditching his car and walking home, and grumpy Lewis Hamilton purposely crashing his Mercedes into his third-place finish sign at parc ferme after a pit-stop strategy error by his crew cost him a win. Even if you’re not a massive F1 fan – and I count myself in that group – it’s still an entertaining watch.
And if you want a clearer picture of how Monaco looked back in the 1960s, take a look at this excerpt from Hollywood director John Frankenheimer’s 1966 movie, Grand Prix. Actor James Garner, who’s probably best known for playing gumshoe Jim Rockford in the 1970s TV series The Rockford Files, was, like his contemporary, Steve McQueen, a handy wheelman and did most of his own driving. The high-quality footage is beautiful, and shows Monaco before the big tunnel was built and giant superyachts dominated the harbour.