Europe tour – May 2014 – Day 6 & 7 – Monaco Historics

Day 6/7 – Monaco Historics – Well, this was a show and half. The people, the place, the history, the difficulty in getting around, the cars….

I had reasonably tricky trip getting from Dusseldorf to Monaco. But this was very insignificant compared to the Dutton trip from the UK to Monaco which David Hands (T39), Andrew Cannon (T35/51) and Adam Berryman (T37A), Martin Halusa (T35C) went on. Hot, cold, snowing … (the col was 2500m I believe). 600 miles followed by the historic racing. This was led by Tim Dutton, Mags Diffey and others (including Alex, Maurice), a wonderful trip I understand.

For me without the pit passes it was a little tricky to get around – basically a lot of walking in not so straight lines, up and down the hills driven by the road closures required for the circuit.

I arrived Saturday at midday and watched some of the 1960, 1970 formula 1 and the 1950s sports racing categories. Never seen so many Frazer Nash Le Man replicas. A wander through the pits, followed by a walk through the RM Auction at Il Sporting.

Drinks were hosted by Monaco’s Ambassador for Australia (a resident of Monaco) on the terrace at the Hermitage Hotel where we could see the 1980s formula 1 cars do their ten lap race (if we looked down) and the harbour (if we looked out). A lovely evening for Australians in Monaco. Thank you to Andrew for arranging the invitation. Dinner was the yacht club and a great night.

Sunday started at with the pre war 10 lap race at 930am. Andrew was the first Bugatti to finish behind the winner in a P3 Alfa (Grist), then 4 ERA’s (Dowling ..), another P3 (Smith) and Andrew. The fastest of the pre war cars got around in just under 2 minutes. To give that some perspective, the fastest lap is Felipe Massa in a F1 Ferrari at 1′ 15″, in 1933 Achille Varzi in a T51 did 1′ 59″.

So until the next event.

- Cheers Geoff