Length of lap:
3.340km
Lap record:
1:14.439
(Michael Schumacher
Ferrari, 2004)
Start line/finish line offset:
0.000km
Total number of race laps:
78
Total race distance:
260.520km
Pitlane speed limits:
60km/h during practice, qualifying and race
MONACO GRAND PRIX: FAST FACTS
Although the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix (won by Juan-Manual Fangio, for Alfa Romeo), formed part of the inaugural Formula One World Championship, financial and regulatory difficulties in subsequent years meant it was not staged again until 1955. That year’s Monaco Grand Prix, the 13th, was won by Maurice Trintignant, for Ferrari. It has remained a fixture on the Formula One calendar ever since.
The winner of the first Grand Prix de Monaco, William Grover-Williams, is commemorated with a large sculpture at St Devote Curve. It depicts him at the wheel of his Type 35B Bugatti. After his racing career Williams, a fluent French speaker, was recruited to the Special Operations Executive and worked for the French resistance in Paris. He was executed in 1945.
Such are the challenges of the Monaco Grand Prix, only Formula One’s greatest drivers
have excelled repeatedly on its tight streets. The multiple winners are: triple world champion Ayrton Senna – six wins; double champion Graham Hill and seven-times champion Michael Schumacher – five wins; four-times champion Alain Prost – four wins; Stirling Moss and triple champion Sir Jackie Stewart – three wins. Juan-Manuel Fangio, Maurice Trintignant, Niki Lauda, Jody Scheckter, David Coulthard and Fernando Alonso have all won twice.
While the Monaco circuit’s fundamental character has been retained over six decades, the track layout has evolved several times. Key developments include: 1973, swimming pool section included; 1976, two new chicanes at Sainte Devote and La Rascasse; 1986, widening of the circuit at the ‘Nouvelle Chicane’; 1997, redesign of the swimming pool section to create the Louis Chiron bend; 2003-4, revised swimming
pool to La Rascasse section, to allow building of a new pits complex.
It takes approximately six weeks to prepare the public streets of Monte Carlo for the grand prix, and three weeks to return them to their normal configuration.
The Circuit de Monaco has 33km of safety rails, 3600 tyres in tyre
barriers, 554m of Tecpro barriers and 20,000 square meters of protective wire netting.
Circuit safety features include: 650 race marshals in 22 marshal sectors, 43 intervention stations, seven ‘express’ fire vehicles and three extraction vehicles, along with 120 professional fire fighters and 500 fire extinguishers – equivalent to one every 15m.
Reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel has won seven of the past nine races and has not been off the
front row since the 2010 Singapore GP.
MONACO GRAND PRIX: TRACK MAP
CHANGES TO THE CIRCUIT SINCE 2010
All drain covers will be provided with a means of positively securing them for the Grand Prix.
New debris fences with overhanging sections will be installed on the left before turn 3.
“I love Monaco, it’s a race I remember watching when I was a kid and it’s a place that really showcases Formula 1 at its very best: racing flat-out against around the toughest and greatest circuit in the world.
“After such a strong showing in Spain, I’m really looking forward to Monaco this year because I think we’ll see a different race from previous years. I think a combination of DRS, KERS Hybrid and the tyres will really make the racing come alive, and I’d love to see some overtaking action and some hard racing this year.
“I think the DRS zone at Monaco is only around 300 metres, so it’s pretty short, and not really long enough to enable us to really get enough of a launch on the car ahead. I think the aerodynamics will only really start working properly once we’ve reached the braking zone for Ste Devote, so I don’t think we’ll see too many DRS-assisted overtaking moves next weekend.
“However, I think the tyres will probably give us the greatest scope for excitement and the best chance of passing. While I don’t think the Super-Soft and Soft compounds will be as critical around Monaco as they were at a place like Turkey, I still think the drop-off we encounter as the tyres go off should create opportunities for overtaking. And I don’t think the marbles will be as bad as people fear, because they tend to occur at the exits of high-speed corners, and Monaco is generally quite a low-speed track, so I don’t think we’ll see the build-up that we saw at somewhere like Turkey’s Turn Eight, for example.
“I’m already looking forward to it.”
Jenson Button
“Monaco is the most glamorous and historic race on the calendar. Winning there [in 2009] was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, and it remains one of my favourite grand prix victories.
“It’s always a strange contrast going from a circuit like Barcelona, which is fast, open and flowing, then arriving a few days later at Monaco – which is the slowest, tightest and toughest track on the calendar.
“On your first lap out of the pits, the acceleration just feels incredible and the barriers feel far too close! But you build up a little more gradually than you would at any other circuit, and you quickly find your focus. Still, it’s an intense and slightly unbelievable feeling.
“There’s been some suggestion that KERS Hybrid might not provide a useful laptime benefit around Monaco, because you might think you couldn’t really exploit it to give you a boost onto a straight. But our simulations suggest that it’s worth as much at Monaco as it is pretty much anywhere else, which is another positive because I think that the Mercedes-Benz unit is the best in Formula 1.
Martin Whitmarsh Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
“Both our drivers have won the Monaco Grand Prix, and McLaren has an enviable record around the streets of the principality – we’ve won the race on 15 occasions which is more than any other team – and we go into next weekend aiming to make it 16!
“Our Barcelona race pace, in particular our sector three times, looked very respectable indeed last weekend – and hopefully that will give us a good idea of what to expect at Monaco, because it’s a slow, stop-start section of the track. I think one of the strengths of the MP4-26 is its low-speed grip and traction, so I think we should be in good shape from the start of the weekend.
“Additionally, I don’t think the deployment of driver-operated tools like the DRS and KERS Hybrid will affect the concentration of our drivers. One of the many strengths of having two strong drivers is that they are both gifted enough to be able to deal with those added complexities within the cockpit without it affecting their performance.
“Let’s hope we can put on a showcase race at Formula 1’s showcase event.”
MONACO GRAND PRIX PREVIEW
When: Thursday 26 to Sunday 29 May, 2011
Where: Circuit de Monaco
Round: 6 of 19
The jewel in Formula One’s crown. The dash through the Principality’s tortuous streets is the most prestigious on the calendar; it stands on a pedestal, almost distinct from the sport from which it was born.
The 78-lap race is one of the most intense and mentally draining of the year for the drivers. The proximity of the barriers leaves no room for error and there are no straights along which they can relax. Overtaking is virtually impossible, which places extra importance on Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session. Grid position is crucial.
Add the glamour of the Monaco harbour and a handful of A-list celebrities into the mix and you have one of the biggest sporting events in the world.
Sam Michael, Technical Director: The Spain - Monaco back-to-back presents clear logistical challenges for the operational group and engineering team. Any modifications to the cars based on information gained in Barcelona must be turned around quickly so it will be a busy week.
Monaco is a low grip street circuit, requiring the softest springs and highest ride heights that we operate over the whole season. Normally reducing understeer and improving traction are the keys to a good laptime.
Rubens Barrichello: Monaco is a second home for me so I really enjoy this race weekend, especially qualifying. We need to wait and see how we can use DRS. While the FIA is conscious of that fact that it is notoriously difficult to overtake around Monaco, they want to try and make it possible without making it dangerous. I am open-minded to whatever they decide. We are keen to keep on fighting as we want to score some points as soon as possible.
Pastor Maldonado: I feel good heading to Monaco and it is definitely my favourite track and a place where I’ve had great results over the last five years (including one win in World Series and two wins and two podium finishes in GP2). For me it has a magical atmosphere and to be there racing in Formula One has always been a dream of mine. I would love to score my first points of the year there. I think it will be difficult for us as we don’t have much time between these two races and we’ve never tried the supersoft tyres before. Once we see how they perform, we can then see how we can improve our performance within the car.
From Cosworth’s perspective: Monaco is one of the least demanding tracks of the season in terms of requiring outright engine power with just half the lap spent at full throttle. It does pose its own unique challenges, though. The lack of any long straights and the number of low speed corners means that cooling becomes a critical issue. Drivers need to find a rhythm to put a quick lap time together, which requires driveability from the engine, traction through the slow corners and quick acceleration in the low speed gear range. There is also the added pressure of Monaco being a street circuit; the bumpy nature of the track puts all elements from the driver, car and engine under some considerable strain which can certainly take its toll over 78 gruelling laps.
From Pirelli’s perspective: This race is where our new supersoft tyres, which are ideally suited to a circuit like Monaco, are making their debut.. . It’s a question of extracting the maximum performance and grip in Monaco within the shortest space of time, and that’s what our supersofts are designed to do. It’s not exactly a qualifying tyre but the supersoft is nonetheless quite focussed and we think that the drivers are going to enjoy using them. Monaco is a race where qualifying is all-important and anything can happen. We think it should suit Williams and it’s a track that definitely presents the team with a good opportunity.
Barcelona, May 22nd 2011 - Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel has won a tense high-speed duel at Barcelona, beating McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton in a hectic race to the chequered flag, with the two separated by just a handful of seconds from start to finish.
Such was their pace, using a combination of Pirelli’s new PZero Silver hard and PZero Yellow
tyres, that with 20 laps still to go they had already lapped everybody up to sixth place with just 1.5 seconds between them. After their final stops, they emerged less than two seconds apart with 16 laps remaining.
The McLaren driver, who like Vettel stopped four times, set fastest lap using the new PZero Silver hard tyre to challenge his Red Bull rival all the way to the flag, ending the 307.104-kilometre race only 0.6s behind. The duo battled with less than a car length between them for the last 10 laps, providing one of the most memorable finishes to a grand prix this season as they carved through the traffic together.
At exactly the same time, there was an equally close fight for the final podium place between their team mates Jenson Button and Mark Webber. Button eventually claimed third thanks to a three-stop race strategy.
Webber started the race from pole using the PZero Yellow tyre, but the new harder PZero Silver tyre came into its own at the end of the race. The leading runners all chose to use the new hard tyre at the end of the race, due to the performance gap compared to the rapid soft tyre, as had been planned. This however provided an increased range compared to the previous version of the hard tyre, with the potential for the new tyre to run for up to 25 laps.
The extra durability was demonstrated by Lotus Renault’s Nick Heidfeld, who was forced to start from the back of the grid after failing to set a time in qualifying. Heidfeld began the race on the new PZero Silver tyres, switching over to the softer PZero Yellow tyres on lap 21 as part of a three-stop strategy that took him to a points-scoring eighth place from last.
Just behind him, the Sauber team also ran a different strategy to the others, using the hard PZero Silver tyres during their middle stints and finishing the race on the soft tyres. This tactic also proved successful, bringing both cars home in the points. Underlining the importance of strategy, this was the first time that the Spanish Grand Prix had not been won from pole position since 2000, when Mika Hakkinen won while Michael Schumacher started from pole.
Pirelli’s Motorsport Director Paul Hembery said: “It was certainly a dramatic finish to the race, with the battle between Vettel and Hamilton going down to the final lap once again, using our new PZero Silver tyres. Both of them drove magnificently, treating us all to a
fantastic spectacle, and it was thrilling to see such an amazing start to the race from Fernando Alonso and Ferrari as well. Further down the field we also saw several other interesting variants on strategy, notably from Lotus Renault and Sauber. While it was a great race, we’re still not happy with the idea of having four pit stops as three is our target. This was caused by the performance differential between the hard and the soft tyres, which prompted the teams to opt for a sprint strategy, as can be seen from the sheer pace of this grand prix – although it’s interesting to note that the fastest lap was actually set on the new hard tyre. We’ll be looking at that again in future but for now we’re excited to be moving onto a completely different challenge: the street circuits of Monaco and Canada with the introduction of our new PZero Red supersoft tyre.”
