Publications
Partners
Monaco Friday is a time of rest and relaxation for most in F1– save for already overworked mechanics, who spend the day (and even the night) rebuilding their drivers’ charges to ensure everything runs like clockwork come qualifying and the 78-lap race.
Uniquely they go about their tasks in the full glare of fans, for on Friday afternoon, after the GP2 race – in which SA hope Adrian Zaugg was tipped off-track in Turn 1 in a cluster crash immediately after the start – the pit lane is opened to fans.
The 3 340km street track, too, is open to the public, so fans are able to do what is highly desirable but simply not possible at permanent circuits: to emulate their heroes by walking (or even driving) the full layout, then spend an afternoon within metres of pit garages watching mechanics fettling the highest tech cars on the planet in preparation for one of the greatest porting shows on earth.
Then, occasionally a frisson of excitement spreads through the pitlane. A driver or other well-known F1 personality is about. Suddenly a mass throng eventuates as fans push and pull in attempts to have something, anything, signed by said person; then, just as quickly, the crowd disperses as the target heads into a garage and they get back to studying the ‘bolts’ at work. Until the next frisson...
For the media it is a day spent doing interviews – this journalist enjoyed exclusive access to Peter Sauber for a feature to be published shortly in these pages – having first partaken in a scrumptious all-frills brunch with grand prix winner-turned-TV commentator David Coulthard and Renault F1 rookie Vitaly Petrov on watchmaker TW Steel’s yacht moored beside the harbour chicane.
Lounging with Gerhard Berger
Lounging on a neighbouring yacht was former McLaren and Ferrari star Gerhard Berger. ‘Cheese Berger’, as was known in his heyday, looked extremely trim and slim, obviously enjoying life away from F1 overseeing his various business interests. ‘Wasted my life,’ I have, said the lanky Austrian, who headed up BMW’s F1 programme before acquiring a (now sold) share in Toro Rosso. ‘First driving cars in circles for many years, then having to spend it like this,’ he added demonstrably. Well, it could be a lot worse, Gerhard, try writing for a living.
However, parked slap-bang in the middle of the harbour was an enormous dark blue/gold trimmed yacht bearing the legend FB on its funnel. Regulars knew immediately the disgraced Flavio Briatore was in town despite having been banned from F1 paddocks until end-2012 for his role in the Singapore ‘Crashgate’ scandal. Ironically, FB’s yacht lies beside that of Gerard Lopez, the venture capitalist who replaced Briatore as Renault F1 team principal, and doing an exceedingly fine job in rebuilding the shattered team’s morale.
Gerhard Berger/David Coulthard (with back to camera) having a yacht-yacht chat in Monaco’s harbour. Pic by Dieter Rencken/RacingLines.
However, what happened next defied belief: Briatore arrived at the electronic turnstiles at the main entrance and was granted admission. After greeting various F1 folk he sauntered off to the a silver bus used by Bernie Ecclestone as dining/hospitality area, and was again admitted. Briatore disappeared from view, then emerged an hour later with the F1 tsar and Berger. (It has long been rumoured Berger is in line for 79-year-old Ecclestone’s job when that time comes...)
Meanwhile FIA president Jean Todt arrived by car at the governing body’s motorhome parked beside Bernie’s Bus, so was simultaneously in the paddock with the man he banned from the place for two-and-a-bit years just over a month ago. Obviously the word ‘ban’ has elastic meanings.
Tomorrow, Saturday, should, though, be even more fun: tis said by sources Briatore will once again be present, while Ron Dennis, CEO of McLaren and the team’s former team boss - but absence from races in the wake of ‘Liegate’ just over a year ago - is said to be putting in an appearance; with retired (and disgraced) former FIA president Max Moseley also showing his face. That there is no love lost between the three is a matter of record, so add in Todt, who had numerous run-ins with Briatore and Dennis while at Ferrari and has now inherited many of the messes created by Moseley, and it could turn incendiary.
Then, rumours suggest Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari president (and thus Todt’s former boss) - and the man who famously crossed swords with Todt, Dennis, Briatore and Moseley on occasions - is making the two-hour journey from Maranello to Monaco. ‘Explosive’ springs to mind.
That, though, is tomorrow’s business, and today was a time for soaking up the unique atmosphere surrounding this utterly enchanting place. Yacht hopping, people watching, fine wine and finer food, bobbing boats interrupted by a motor race at midday – can life get any better on Fridays?
Recession hits Monaco
That said, the Monaco’s harbour is emptier than ever before, with yacht rentals said to be down at least 50% on previous years. In fact, one broker puts the number at 75%, but that is too depressing to be true, so let’s stick to the former. Grandstands, too, are expected to be empty, with the Automobile Club de Monaco’s website last week showing that just 53% of the race weekend’s tickets had been sold. For race day the number is 68%.
Equally startling is lack of trackside signage, which traditionally added so much peripheral colour to proceedings. This year there are slabs of grey barriers interrupted by the odd hoarding where once companies paid over the odds for space.
The lack of Friday supercar pageantry, which sees the rich and famous wheel out their most exotic toys and burning about the place, further reinforced the point. Come evening and the tunnel turns prime playground for the big-watched, chest-wig brigade with high-revving Italian stallions at their disposal. Red cabrio, twelve cylinders and cheering audiences to blip for makes the weekend of every playboy living within a thousand kays complete - even if he knows not the identity of the winner come Sunday – but this time they were strangely absent.
Sure, supercars still abound, but a couple on their sixth visit to Monaco walked the entire length of the most famous tunnel in the world and were not once thus entertained. ‘In the past so many blipped though there we just took them for granted,’ they remarked, ‘and this year not one.’
Getting out of the place at night is also the work of a moment: where in 2006, when crowd power was at its peak, it took two hours to travel the five kilometres from harbour front to the Monaco – Nice autoroute, last year the time was down to half that. Today: 20 minutes...
When a place like Monaco – Monaco - cannot sell out, particularly given a total grandstand capacity of just 31 000 seats (by contrast, the Circuit de Catalunya, scene of last week’s Spanish Grand Prix, accommodates up to 140 000 fans), then both the principality and F1 have a major problem.
True, the world is in the throes of the worst recession for seven decades, but passion dies hard, and if Silverstone is able to sell out, so too should Monaco. A stonking two days of action will show people exactly what they’re missing. The signs are this year’s event is squaring up to be one of the best ever - just pity it will play to half empty stands.
Uniquely they go about their tasks in the full glare of fans, for on Friday afternoon, after the GP2 race – in which SA hope Adrian Zaugg was tipped off-track in Turn 1 in a cluster crash immediately after the start – the pit lane is opened to fans.
The 3 340km street track, too, is open to the public, so fans are able to do what is highly desirable but simply not possible at permanent circuits: to emulate their heroes by walking (or even driving) the full layout, then spend an afternoon within metres of pit garages watching mechanics fettling the highest tech cars on the planet in preparation for one of the greatest porting shows on earth.
Then, occasionally a frisson of excitement spreads through the pitlane. A driver or other well-known F1 personality is about. Suddenly a mass throng eventuates as fans push and pull in attempts to have something, anything, signed by said person; then, just as quickly, the crowd disperses as the target heads into a garage and they get back to studying the ‘bolts’ at work. Until the next frisson...
For the media it is a day spent doing interviews – this journalist enjoyed exclusive access to Peter Sauber for a feature to be published shortly in these pages – having first partaken in a scrumptious all-frills brunch with grand prix winner-turned-TV commentator David Coulthard and Renault F1 rookie Vitaly Petrov on watchmaker TW Steel’s yacht moored beside the harbour chicane.
Lounging with Gerhard Berger
Lounging on a neighbouring yacht was former McLaren and Ferrari star Gerhard Berger. ‘Cheese Berger’, as was known in his heyday, looked extremely trim and slim, obviously enjoying life away from F1 overseeing his various business interests. ‘Wasted my life,’ I have, said the lanky Austrian, who headed up BMW’s F1 programme before acquiring a (now sold) share in Toro Rosso. ‘First driving cars in circles for many years, then having to spend it like this,’ he added demonstrably. Well, it could be a lot worse, Gerhard, try writing for a living.
However, parked slap-bang in the middle of the harbour was an enormous dark blue/gold trimmed yacht bearing the legend FB on its funnel. Regulars knew immediately the disgraced Flavio Briatore was in town despite having been banned from F1 paddocks until end-2012 for his role in the Singapore ‘Crashgate’ scandal. Ironically, FB’s yacht lies beside that of Gerard Lopez, the venture capitalist who replaced Briatore as Renault F1 team principal, and doing an exceedingly fine job in rebuilding the shattered team’s morale.
Gerhard Berger/David Coulthard (with back to camera) having a yacht-yacht chat in Monaco’s harbour. Pic by Dieter Rencken/RacingLines.
However, what happened next defied belief: Briatore arrived at the electronic turnstiles at the main entrance and was granted admission. After greeting various F1 folk he sauntered off to the a silver bus used by Bernie Ecclestone as dining/hospitality area, and was again admitted. Briatore disappeared from view, then emerged an hour later with the F1 tsar and Berger. (It has long been rumoured Berger is in line for 79-year-old Ecclestone’s job when that time comes...)
Meanwhile FIA president Jean Todt arrived by car at the governing body’s motorhome parked beside Bernie’s Bus, so was simultaneously in the paddock with the man he banned from the place for two-and-a-bit years just over a month ago. Obviously the word ‘ban’ has elastic meanings.
Tomorrow, Saturday, should, though, be even more fun: tis said by sources Briatore will once again be present, while Ron Dennis, CEO of McLaren and the team’s former team boss - but absence from races in the wake of ‘Liegate’ just over a year ago - is said to be putting in an appearance; with retired (and disgraced) former FIA president Max Moseley also showing his face. That there is no love lost between the three is a matter of record, so add in Todt, who had numerous run-ins with Briatore and Dennis while at Ferrari and has now inherited many of the messes created by Moseley, and it could turn incendiary.
Then, rumours suggest Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari president (and thus Todt’s former boss) - and the man who famously crossed swords with Todt, Dennis, Briatore and Moseley on occasions - is making the two-hour journey from Maranello to Monaco. ‘Explosive’ springs to mind.
That, though, is tomorrow’s business, and today was a time for soaking up the unique atmosphere surrounding this utterly enchanting place. Yacht hopping, people watching, fine wine and finer food, bobbing boats interrupted by a motor race at midday – can life get any better on Fridays?
Recession hits Monaco
That said, the Monaco’s harbour is emptier than ever before, with yacht rentals said to be down at least 50% on previous years. In fact, one broker puts the number at 75%, but that is too depressing to be true, so let’s stick to the former. Grandstands, too, are expected to be empty, with the Automobile Club de Monaco’s website last week showing that just 53% of the race weekend’s tickets had been sold. For race day the number is 68%.
Equally startling is lack of trackside signage, which traditionally added so much peripheral colour to proceedings. This year there are slabs of grey barriers interrupted by the odd hoarding where once companies paid over the odds for space.
The lack of Friday supercar pageantry, which sees the rich and famous wheel out their most exotic toys and burning about the place, further reinforced the point. Come evening and the tunnel turns prime playground for the big-watched, chest-wig brigade with high-revving Italian stallions at their disposal. Red cabrio, twelve cylinders and cheering audiences to blip for makes the weekend of every playboy living within a thousand kays complete - even if he knows not the identity of the winner come Sunday – but this time they were strangely absent.
Sure, supercars still abound, but a couple on their sixth visit to Monaco walked the entire length of the most famous tunnel in the world and were not once thus entertained. ‘In the past so many blipped though there we just took them for granted,’ they remarked, ‘and this year not one.’
Getting out of the place at night is also the work of a moment: where in 2006, when crowd power was at its peak, it took two hours to travel the five kilometres from harbour front to the Monaco – Nice autoroute, last year the time was down to half that. Today: 20 minutes...
When a place like Monaco – Monaco - cannot sell out, particularly given a total grandstand capacity of just 31 000 seats (by contrast, the Circuit de Catalunya, scene of last week’s Spanish Grand Prix, accommodates up to 140 000 fans), then both the principality and F1 have a major problem.
True, the world is in the throes of the worst recession for seven decades, but passion dies hard, and if Silverstone is able to sell out, so too should Monaco. A stonking two days of action will show people exactly what they’re missing. The signs are this year’s event is squaring up to be one of the best ever - just pity it will play to half empty stands.