Why Is The Monaco GP So Special?

• The Monaco Grand Prix has run every year since 1955 bar 2020, one of the longest unbroken streaks on the F1 calendar.
• Ayrton Senna holds the win record with six victories, five of them in a row between 1989 and 1993.
• Formula 1 tried and then scrapped a mandatory two-stop rule at Monaco within a single season, after teams found ways to game it.

What Sets The Monaco Grand Prix Apart?

The Monaco Grand Prix runs on public roads through Monte Carlo that are barely wide enough for two Formula 1 cars side by side, with concrete walls standing in for run-off at almost every corner. No other circuit on the calendar punishes a single mistake as completely, and none carries the same weight of history behind it.

The race traces back to 1929, when William Grover-Williams won the first running in a Bugatti, organised by the Automobile Club de Monaco with the support of Prince Louis II. It joined the Formula 1 World Championship in 1950, disappeared for four seasons, and has run every year since 1955 except for 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced a cancellation.

What Makes The Circuit So Difficult To Drive?

The Circuit de Monaco measures 3.337 kilometres, with the race run over 78 laps for a total distance of 260.286 kilometres, making it the shortest lap on the F1 calendar by some distance. Drivers still spend close to two hours completing it, since the tight, twisting layout keeps average speeds well down.

The corners carry their own history. Sainte Devote opens the lap, Casino Square and Mirabeau climb and fall through the town, the Fairmont Hairpin remains the slowest corner in Formula 1, and cars plunge through a tunnel before the swimming pool section and the tight final corners at Rascasse and Anthony Noghes. There is almost no room to pass anywhere on the circuit, which makes qualifying position decisive before the race has even started.

Who Holds The Monaco Grand Prix Win Records?

Ayrton Senna won at Monaco six times, including five in a row from 1989 to 1993, a run still unmatched by any other driver. Michael Schumacher and Graham Hill each won five times, Schumacher across 1994, 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2001, and Hill across 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1969.

Hill’s Monaco record sits alongside a rarer distinction. He remains the only driver to have completed motorsport’s Triple Crown, victories at the Monaco Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a feat several drivers, including Fernando Alonso, have chased since without success.

Lewis Hamilton has won at Monaco three times, in 2008, 2016 and 2019. As a constructor, McLaren holds the record with 16 Monaco victories, most recently through Lando Norris in 2025.

What Are Monaco’s Most Famous Races?

Some of the race’s best known moments are more complicated than they get credited for. In 1984, Alain Prost was leading in torrential rain when the race was red-flagged on lap 32. Ayrton Senna, in a Toleman and starting 13th, had been closing the gap by two to three seconds a lap and was still second when the chequered flag came out early, denied a debut win rather than claiming one.

Eight years later, Senna won again in far tighter circumstances. Nigel Mansell had built a thirty second lead before a loose wheel nut sent him back to the pits, and he spent the final laps hunting Senna down, attacking on both sides of the track. Senna held the racing line and crossed the line 0.215 seconds ahead, one of the closest finishes in Monaco’s history.

1996 belonged to nobody expecting it. Heavy rain wrecked the field from the first corner, and by the finish only three cars remained running. Olivier Panis, who started 14th for Ligier, won the only race of his career that day, ahead of David Coulthard and Johnny Herbert.

Why Did F1 Try And Then Scrap A Mandatory Two-Stop Rule?

Monaco’s tightest streets have long produced its least exciting racing. In 2024, the circuit recorded the fewest overtakes of any race that season, and a first-lap red flag that year let drivers change tyres without losing track position, effectively letting some of them complete the race without a genuine pit stop at all.

For 2025, Formula 1 made at least two pit stops mandatory at Monaco, using at least two different tyre compounds, aiming to force strategic variation onto a circuit where track position rarely changes hands. It backfired almost immediately. Teams with two closely matched cars had one driver deliberately slow down to open a pit window for a teammate, then reverse the favour later, producing gaps of up to four seconds that had nothing to do with racing.

Williams team principal James Vowles was blunt about it afterwards, saying it was “the most uncomfortable I’ve felt,” adding that he disliked “the lack of clean racing that occurs as a result of it,” even though his own team used the tactic once rivals had already started. The rule was scrapped for 2026 despite having been formally ratified by the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council, with lighter 2026-specification cars offered as a more natural route to better racing instead.

Why Is Monaco GP So Special In 2026?

The 2026 running gave Monaco precisely the chaos its critics say it lacks. Kimi Antonelli, 19 years old and driving for Mercedes, won his fifth consecutive race of the season, beating Lewis Hamilton, now at Ferrari, by 6.271 seconds. Crashes for Lance Stroll and then Charles Leclerc at Anthony Noghes triggered a red flag and a 40 minute stoppage, and the race resumed with a second standing start for the final eight laps.

George Russell’s weekend summed up how much can still go wrong at Monaco even without a mandatory rule forcing it. A pit lane speeding penalty was compounded when his team began changing his tyres before he had served it, dropping him from third to twelfth with a drive-through penalty. The Monaco Grand Prix itself now runs across a standard Friday, Saturday and Sunday weekend, a format Formula 1 adopted in 2022, ending the circuit’s long-standing Thursday practice sessions.

Monaco GP FAQs

Sources

• Mercedes F1: 2025 Monaco Grand Prix Pit Stop Rule Explained – Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team
• James Vowles questions Monaco GP rule that made him “the most uncomfortable ever” – Yahoo Sports
• Monaco GP: Kimi Antonelli wins fifth F1 race running with Lewis Hamilton second after dramatic, chaotic finish to Grand Prix – Sky Sports
• Kimi Antonelli wins Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix after crashes and red flag drama – NBC News
• McLaren’s defining moments in Monaco – McLaren

Article reviewed and updated by Jack Renn, June 2026.

More F1 Reading

• Deaths in Formula 1
• Did Lewis Hamilton Drive For McLaren?
• The Golden Era Of Turbos In Formula 1
• Lance Stroll Podium Finishes: A Look At His Career Achievements