Which F1 Drivers Live In Monaco?

• Most of the current F1 grid’s biggest names, Leclerc, Hamilton, Verstappen, Norris, Sainz and Alonso among them, live in Monaco at least part of the year.
• Not every driver does. Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly live in Geneva and Milan instead, largely because French nationals can’t access Monaco’s tax status.
• Monaco’s own government puts its population at 38,857 as of the end of 2025, packed into just 2.14 square kilometres after a 2024 land extension.

Why So Many F1 Drivers Call Monaco Home

Which F1 drivers live in Monaco? A large share of the current grid does, for reasons that have little to do with racing itself: geography, language, tax status and a decades-old culture of drivers doing the same thing as the ones before them.

Monaco is the world’s second smallest sovereign state after Vatican City, and even after adding new land it covers only 2.14 square kilometres, roughly two-thirds the size of New York’s Central Park. Around 38,857 people live there, according to Monaco’s official statistics office, in one of the most densely populated and heavily policed places on earth, and it hosts the Monaco Grand Prix every year as one of Formula 1’s oldest fixtures.

Which Current F1 Drivers Live In Monaco?

Charles Leclerc, born and raised in the principality, never had to move. Lewis Hamilton has lived there since 2012, and Max Verstappen has lived in Monaco’s Fontvieille district since 2015, both figures consistently confirmed across several years of reporting. Lando Norris has lived there since relocating from the UK at the end of 2021, and Oscar Piastri, Norris’s McLaren teammate, is also reported to live in Monaco.

Carlos Sainz moved to Monaco in 2024, joining fellow Williams driver Alexander Albon, who has described living just minutes from the paddock during Grand Prix week. Nico Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso are both established Monaco residents, Alonso having moved there in 2022, and Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson has also been confirmed as living in the principality.

A handful of others are reported to have moved to Monaco with less independent confirmation behind the claim. Gabriel Bortoleto and Oliver Bearman, both of whom joined the grid in 2025, are reported to have taken up residence there since arriving in Formula 1, and Sergio Perez’s family has said the same of their own move, according to his father. Valtteri Bottas has held a Monaco residence for years alongside properties in Finland and Australia.

Which F1 Drivers Don’t Live In Monaco?

Not every driver has made the move, and the exceptions are often more interesting than the rule. Esteban Ocon lives in Geneva and Pierre Gasly lives in Milan, and in both cases the same reason is given: as French nationals, neither can access Monaco’s tax-resident status under a bilateral tax agreement between France and Monaco dating back to 1963, which removes the main financial incentive that draws other drivers there.

Arvid Lindblad, the Racing Bulls rookie who joined the grid for 2026, lives near Lisbon, Portugal, and has said directly that he has “no interest in the lavish Monaco stereotype.” A separate group, George Russell, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Isack Hadjar and Lance Stroll among them, isn’t confirmed to live in Monaco either way by any reliable, current source, so none of them is treated as a Monaco resident here despite sometimes being assumed to be one.

Why Do F1 Drivers Move To Monaco In The First Place?

Monaco sits close to the middle of Formula 1’s European heartland, within a short flight or drive of most of the teams’ factories, and Nice airport is around 25 minutes away by car or roughly seven minutes by helicopter. English is the working language of the sport itself, written into the FIA’s own regulations as the version that governs any dispute, which removes a layer of friction that a driver based elsewhere in continental Europe might otherwise face.

Tax status is the reason most often cited, and it is real: Monaco levies no personal income tax, no wealth tax and no capital gains tax on residents, and inheritance passed to a spouse or children is taxed at zero percent, though other relatives and non-relatives are taxed at 8 to 16%. That is not available to French nationals under the 1963 agreement, which is why Ocon and Gasly base themselves elsewhere despite the same career.

Beyond the finances, Monaco offers a genuinely unusual combination for a small territory: a mild Mediterranean climate year round, ski resorts within two hours, and a police presence, roughly 556 officers for a population of under 40,000, that is regularly described as the highest per capita anywhere in the world.

Which Former F1 Drivers Still Live In Monaco?

Mika Hakkinen has lived in Monaco since 1991 and remains associated with the principality today. David Coulthard, Daniil Kvyat, Paul di Resta and Lucas di Grassi, the 2017 Formula E champion, are all long described as Monaco residents as well, though less has been freshly reported on any of them in the last year or two specifically.

Nico Rosberg’s situation is less clean cut. He grew up in Monaco and still calls it home in interviews, but multiple sources describe him splitting his time with Ibiza, where he and his wife run a business, rather than being based in Monaco full time. Jenson Button, by contrast, has moved away entirely, current property reporting places him in Calabasas, California, rather than Monaco.

Does Toto Wolff Live In Monaco Too?

Yes. Mercedes’ team principal and CEO moved to Monaco with his wife Susie Wolff, a former racing driver and current managing director of F1 Academy, and their son in 2016, citing a security concern in the UK and a preference for international schooling. He also keeps a base in Oxfordshire near Mercedes’ Brackley factory for the working week, in a principality that itself pays considerably less to host a Grand Prix than most of the countries its resident drivers race in. No other current team principal turned up a source solid enough to confirm the same.

Monaco Living FAQs

Sources

• Monaco’s $2.4 Billion Plan To Add More Land Nears Completion – Forbes
• 2025 Population Census – IMSEE, Government of Monaco
• Which F1 drivers live in Monaco? – Monaco Life
• Monaco’s Grand Prix and the F1 Drivers who Live Here – HelloMonaco
• With 556 police officers patrolling a country half the size of Central Park – CNN, via KTVZ
• Tax in Monaco – Monaco government official portal

Article reviewed and updated by Jack Renn, August 2026.

Read this article in: Français

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Written by

Jarrod Partridge

Jarrod Partridge is the Co-Founder of F1 Chronicle and an FIA accredited journalist with over 30 years of experience following Formula 1. A member of the AIPS International Sports Press Association, Jarrod has covered F1 races at circuits around the world, bringing first-hand insight to every race report, driver profile, and technical analysis he writes.

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