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Drove 15 hours for one F1 Friday
The drive to Monaco
The family loved F1 but didn't have much money, and the Friday session was what they could afford. They left in the middle of the night and reached Monaco around 6 a.m., while the roads of the track were still open to ordinary cars. They drove the whole circuit before anything began, and the nine- or ten-year-old in the back seat was the happiest kid on earth. They bought a baguette.
Michael Schumacher crashed right in front of them that day. Hotels in the area were crazy expensive, so after a full day of racing they drove back the same night. The trip home from their hometown took six or seven hours, which made roughly 15 hours of driving on top of a day at the track.
Back as a sponsor
Years later, that boy was a sponsor of Mercedes F1. He rode on the boat, stood in the paddock with the drivers, and was treated like a VIP. For someone who came from not much and loved the sport that much, it was a moment to look back and feel fortunate.
Why can ordinary cars drive Monaco's race track?
The Monaco circuit is made of the principality's ordinary public streets, including the harbor road and the roads around Casino Square. Barriers and grandstands go up in the weeks before the race, but the streets reopen to traffic outside session hours. That arrangement is unusual among Formula One venues, which are mostly purpose-built tracks. The Monaco Grand Prix has been run on those streets since 1929.
Why is passing so hard at Monaco?
The streets are narrow, with barriers close on both sides, and there are only a few places wide enough for two cars to run side by side. Cars that start near the front tend to stay there, so qualifying matters more than at most circuits. Each lap is about 3.3 kilometers, the shortest on the calendar. Drivers still complete the race distance by running many more laps than at longer tracks.
Why are Monaco hotels so expensive that week?
Monaco covers only about two square kilometers, so its supply of hotel rooms is small. Grand Prix week brings teams, sponsors, guests, and fans into that space at the same time. Yachts packed into the harbor are a second form of lodging for many visitors. The principality is the second smallest country in the world, after Vatican City.
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