If you ask any Formula 1 driver which race they would choose to win if they could secure just one victory in their career, the answer is almost always the Monaco Grand Prix. As the elite motorsport series returns to the Principality this weekend for the eighth event of its 24-race season, every one of the 20 drivers—from series leader Max Verstappen of Red Bull, who won the race in 2021 and 2023, to those at the back of the grid—dreams of holding the coveted winner’s trophy while standing next to the Monaco royal family on Sunday afternoon.
“No question, in Formula 1, outside of winning your home Grand Prix, I’d say Monaco is the other really precious, precious event to put on your resume,” says racing great Mario Andretti when asked by Robb Report to comment on the contest’s importance. “Monaco is one of the absolute premier events—look at the tradition it has,” adds the 1978 world champion, who did win his home grand prix but never took Monaco. “I wish I could have had that as part of my trifecta,” he admits, referencing his other major wins.
Yet even the unlikeliest underdogs can have their day. While a back-of-the-field driver has very little chance of victory at any other race in the season, history has shown repeatedly that, despite the difficulty of overtaking on the tight street circuit, any racer can win in Monaco if exceptional circumstances play into their hands.
The Monaco Grand Prix is unlike any other: a spectacle blending the glamour and prestige of a Hollywood gala with pure speed. Nestled into the Mediterranean coast, the Principality is a fairy-tale world of sun-kissed cliffs, yacht-filled harbors, and opulent palaces. The namesake race transforms superyachts into grandstands for billionaire owners and their A-list celebrity guests, who check in from the Cannes Film Festival up the coast. All the while, the world’s best drivers push their apex cars to the absolute limit, mere inches from unforgiving barriers in a location never designed for racing. Surprisingly, though, the Monaco Grand Prix has been an iconic fixture in motorsport since 1929.
Jenson Button, who won the race in 2009, called it the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. “Monte Carlo is a place where every driver wants to win,” he said at the time. “But achieving it is so satisfying because you know you’ve conquered one of the toughest circuits in motorsport.” In that regard, the race is a bit of a paradox: in a sport that’s all about speed, this street circuit is both the slowest course on the calendar and one of the most dangerous.
Lewis Hamilton, seven-time winner of the Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship, has stated, “Even though Monaco has the slowest average speed of all the circuits we visit in a season, it always feels incredibly quick.” Hamilton won in Monaco while driving for McLaren-Mercedes in 2008, and then at Mercedes in 2016 and 2019. He’s also on record explaining that the dichotomy is “because the acceleration is so rapid and the walls so close: there really is no room for error.”
From the hairpin to the tunnel section, every corner presents a unique challenge, testing the limits of both skill and courage. The record-holder, with six victories, including five consecutive first-place finishes from 1989 to 1993, is the late Ayrton Senna, who described a particular qualifying lap around the track in almost supernatural terms. “At that moment, I suddenly realized that I was going beyond the threshold of consciousness,” Senna once said, adding that while doing his lap he felt as if he was seeing himself from above, with the track as a kind of tunnel.
Forget about sprawling circuits with wide-open corners. Monaco is like a tunnel at those speeds, or like a tight, twisty, 2.07-mile rollercoaster that demands inch-perfect precision. Here, memorizing the bumps, the slippery white lines, and every subtle nuance of the asphalt is essential. Since its inception, the track has undergone minimal changes, with corners like Casino Square, the Swimming Pool chicane, and La Rascasse all becoming part of motorsport lore, each a potential scene for glory or disaster.
Although every driver will say that scoring the pole position is almost a prerequisite to victory on a track where overtaking the leader is nearly impossible, history has produced outrageous scenarios time and again. Torrential rainfall, enemy to the drivers hoping for a procession from pole to checkered flag, has often provided the key to success for those whose cars are not otherwise up to it. The rain has written several of the most memorable moments in the race’s epic story, including the event 40 years ago that announced the arrival of Ayrton Senna.
Alain Prost, himself a rising star that year, started from pole position in the rain. But way back in 13th place, the rookie Senna took center stage in an uncompetitive Toleman. By lap 32 of the 76 projected laps, the Brazilian had climbed up the pack to finally pass Prost and cross the finish line in the lead as the race was red-flagged due to danger. The rules stated that the official classification had to be counted from the last lap during which all cars still running had crossed the finish line—in this case the 31st lap—and so Prost was named the winner. The Senna legend and the Prost-Senna rivalry, however, had just begun. The two drivers would be the only winners of the race from that year until 1993, the last time that the Brazilian participated before his death in a crash the following season.
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Heavy rain was also responsible for giving two Frenchmen their only Formula 1 victories. Jean-Pierre Beltoise won in 1972 in an otherwise underperforming BRM, and Olivier Panis won in his Ligier in 1996 after he qualified 14th on the grid. With one champion after another crashing out, Panis crossed the finish line ahead of only two other cars that made it to the end of the race, a record for the least number of cars finishing a grand prix.
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