Monaco has held a special place on the F1 calendar with its traditional end of May date which coincides with a huge internal film festival down the road in Cannes. This ensures the event is regularly star studied as the world’s most beautiful people make the short journey up the coast to be seen at this round of the most watched of global sporting competitions held each year.

The principality too is steeped in F1 history, and the circuit today is pretty much the way it has always been. Grand Prix racing first graced the streets in Monaco way back in 1929 and the city was host to an F1 race in the debut year of the sport in 1950.

The legendary Ayrton Senna proved his mastery around this track when in an underpowered car and torrential rain conditions he proved to be quicker than McLaren’s Alan Prost. The Brazilian still retains the record for the number of race wins in the principality, with six in his shortened career of ten years.

 

 

 

Monaco deal with Ecclestone

Monaco too played its part following the intervention of the EU around the turn of the millennium, when Formula One was forced to separate out its regulatory and commercial interests. The FIA was agreed to be the guardian and policemen of the rules of the sport, whilst Bernie Ecclestone acquired the rights to market F1 for 999 years.

However, Ecclestone did not have the cash to complete the deal and rumour has it he came knocking in Monaco at the then Crown Prince’s castle. The former F1 supremo was famous for agreeing deals by handshake, and thus in moment the commercial rights to F1 were sold on, but the Crown Prince of Monaco extracted his own conditions.

Despite F1 being broadcast around the world by its own FOM service, Monaco had retained the right under Ecclestone to direct the pictures for its own event. Further, the advertising around the circuit went into the Monaco coffers unlike at every other circuit where it is paid to F1.

And finally a quirk of history was retained as first practice was held on Thursday with a day off on Friday for the teams and drivers.

Williams to miss Las Vegas Grand Prix

 

 

 

Monaco loses prime slot

Now Monaco’s final concession to remain on the F1 calendar is to agree to move its sacrosanct late May date on the calendar to early June, thus cutting of the supply beautiful folk from the Cannes film festival.

The length of this new contract reflects the relative contentment within Liberty Media over the Monaco situation, whose ‘special relationship’ with F1 they wanted to iron out. Two and three year deals have been the order of the day since Liberty acquired F1 in 2017 but now the principality has a six year extensions to 2031.

Whilst the F1 circus driving in Monaco is celebrated by all concerned each year, come Sunday the mood does swing somewhat in the principality. The modern behemoth F1 cars are too big for the narrow streets and processional racing is most often the faire on offer after eating Sunday lunch.

As if to prove the monstrous difficulty that is overtaking in Monaco, this year the top ten classified drivers finished in the positions they started the Grand Prix.

The F1 team offers rejected this year by Sergio Perez

 

 

 

Motorsport’s global triple crown

Moving the race from 2026 to the first week of June has a number of advantages. Currently two of the motorsport triple crown events are held on the same weekend, being Monaco and the Indy500. This means for now only Graham Hill remains the driver to have completed all three in his career by also collecting during his career the Le Mans race of 24 hours.

By moving the Monaco Grand Prix, this means the triple crown events will be broadcast across consecutive weekends with Le Mans taking its traditional place on the second last weekend of May. Whether F1 decides to fill the old Monaco slot is yet to be seen.

The purpose of moving the Monaco Grand Prix is all part of F1’s green agenda. In recent years the sport has begun to regionalise its events and criss cross the world less and less bringing down carbon emissions.

Canada will now be moved forward three to four weeks and be paired with Miami. Currently the teams break away from the European season to visit Montreal in June.

Hamilton’s debut test run for Ferrari 

 

 

 

F1 calendar issues yet to resolve

Japan tried to resist being moved from their traditional slot amongst the season ending flyaways, but they now are part of a pre-European season set of Pacific rim events which includes the opener in Melbourne, Shanghai and Suzuka before moving to the middle east for Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

The new arrangement will then see the F1 circus travel to North America visiting Miami and Montreal before beginning its European season in June. The remaining crazy scheduling on the calendar is about to be forced upon the travelling F1 folk.

A night race in Las Vegas precedes a ten hour leap forward in time and a fifteen hour track across the world as the teams leave Sin City on what will be the morning at the following weeks event in Qatar.

F1’s biggest boss announces retirement

 

 

 

Monaco avoids F1 rotation

The special relationship Monaco has with F1, established under Bernie Ecclestone, has been slowly eroded and now the hosting fee has more than doubled since the last deal from $15 to $32m.

This brings Monaco in line with other European events hosting fee who have contracts to and beyond the 2030 timeline. The other four European events yet to agree new deals beyond 2025 are all paying a fee of around $20-25m. 

However, a number the European races are set to be rotated following last weeks announcement by Stefano Domenical. Which is why so many events contracts are expring at the same time. Zandvoort, Belgium and Emilia-Romagne are all in line for rotation, or even cancelation in the case of Imola.

Monza too is facing its challenges as F1 demands their facilities are brought into the twenty first century before agreeing a contract extension beyond next September. 

Mercedes spill the beans on Verstappen family

 

 

 

F1 rejected for 4th US based Grand Pri

Formula One has wanted to crack the United States of America for almost as long as any one can remember. Under the sport’s previous owners, Bernie Ecclestone touted a race in New York City, but the Jersey shore location failed to inspire the promoters, who of course would prefer a 5th Avenue start finish line and the cars travelling through Central Park during the race.

Now with the US Grand Prix at the Circuit of the America’s, the Miami Grand Prix held outside the iconic Dolphin’s Stadium and next up a race along the Sin City strip it appeared the push for more races in the US was over.

However, behind the scenes executives from FOM (Formula One Management) have been secretly negotiating to host another race in an iconic location where Formula One once held the USGP between 1976 and 1983… READ MORE