F1: Peril and Monaco

I fell head over heels for Formula 1 - and shortly after that, motorsport in general - in the summer of 2021.

It’s a story I’ve told a few times but to make it short, I woke up early as I typically do on the weekend and saw an alert from ESPN pop up on my phone that the Monaco Grand Prix was about to start.

My espresso maker was nearby and there were croissants in the kitchen so I thought I’d have a nice morning and check out a new sport. 

The build up was fun.

Then the race started. 

To say I sat forward on my IKEA couch is putting it mildly. If you had a camera trained on my eyes, you would have seen the pupils dilate to the size of a dinner plate. It genuinely changed everything for me.

For that reason, Monaco will always hold a corner of my heart. A corner that is less concerned with the fact that the race essentially takes place on Saturday.

I am not a big believer in convention when there’s a superior rationale for change. For all my love, Monaco shouldn’t be entitled to a spot on the calendar due solely to its history. While I’m not to the point of calling for it to be dropped because of Sunday struggles, I would like you to think about this.

What makes a circuit deserving of a spot on the calendar in the pinnacle of motorsport? 

Peril? Tradition? Legacy? Overtaking? Locale?

Dibs on the cop-out answer of all of the above. Best of luck picking one but now you have to; those are the rules. I don’t make them. I just enforce them. And make them.

The criticism leveled at Monaco most often is the genuine lack of overtaking opportunity. This is not new, by any means. The other day, I was watching a Monaco Grand Prix from the early 90s and Murray Walker and James Hunt were lamenting at how difficult it is to overtake. 

A few decades later, things are worse in that regard but it shouldn’t be considered a fatal blow.

I value tradition least. I think the locale matters for “romance” which is a shorter word for “marketing.” Legacy is important for the drivers and for the narrative to be enjoyed by fans. Overtaking is fun on race day.

But peril is the key for me. And in Monaco, there is peril everywhere. There’s peril in the walls. Peril in qualifying. Peril from the threat of a powerful undercut. Peril from the increased importance of a pit crew’s performance. Peril from the weight of the legacy this Grand Prix carries. Peril from wheel nuts that get machined onto a Mercedes axle.

Pound for pound, there is as much or more peril in a Monaco race weekend than at any other track on the calendar. This is its best defense against removal from the calendar. With the cars getting a little smaller in the future, maybe we’ll see the race take on a flavor closer to eras past but the smart money is on it not changing a whole hell of a lot.

I don’t like keeping things the way they are because that’s the way they’ve been and so you’ll never hear me argue for Monaco to remain because of the tradition or because of its legacy. 

It stays because it’s a perilous track that will claim its victims - as it always does. Everything else is sugar on top.