Phew! Even our resident grumpy old git seems to approve of this race. Thank goodness, otherwise we just might have had to take him outside and shoot him.
Monaco is the land of dangerous assumptions and the most dangerous is that today is the first day of the rest of your life. Waking with an enormous headache, the noise of the race cars indicating that you have overslept, the more likely assumption is that one is actually dead. Then the awful truth dawns that one has been spared to face another day of “work” followed by a night of low grade debauchery.
The Monaco national anthem sounds as though it comes from a scene in a film where the stock in a toy shop comes to life and that’s appropriate given that the Principality is all about grown up boys and girls playing with their toys; very expensive ones though, as Money Co would be a more appropriate name for the place. Protecting the super rich is something the Monegasque authorities take very seriously, which is why, come race week, I reckon the ratio of tourists to police officers is about 4 to 1. In reality, they’re just there to direct traffic, which I can tell is awful, even though I’ve never experienced it, as I always walk or cycle everywhere. Indeed, having a car in Monaco is about as useful as owning a lawnmower in Venice.
To paraphrase Dr. Johnson – you remember him, the American actor who popularised rolling up the sleeves on your suit in “Miami Vice” – “a man who is tired of Monaco is tired of life”. No matter how much aggravation this week throws at you, it still gives you a fantastic buzz, from the moment the cab driver from Nice airport has ripped you off to dump you outside your digs, until your credit card bill arrives a couple of weeks later. Actually, the Heli from Nice Airport isn’t much more expensive than a cab and taking it allows you to feel rich and get in the habit of wasting money.
Have you tried walking up the very steep hill to Cap d’Ail with a grid girl comatose over your shoulder?
The drivers always bang on about how fit they are, but they have it easy compared to many of us in the press corps, faced as we are with an endless round of parties and cocktail events. They never seem to end well, or at least not in my case. Have you tried walking up the very steep hill to Cap d’Ail with a grid girl comatose over your shoulder? Heavy as a dead deer. Well, it happened to me, even though I really cannot remember why or how. An endless procession of Ferraris, driven by fat millionaires with chest medallions and a blonde in the passenger seat, hooted as they drove past. All supercars have to have a blonde in the passenger seat, all of them studying for a PhD in suntanning. If you see a millionaire with a brunette in Monaco, he’s just killing time until the next blonde comes along. At this point my computer screen goes all wavy-gravy as children or politically correct people might be reading, so let’s just say that, since time immemorial, this race has produced a high old time, in every sense of the word.
With Honda back in the game this year, I am reminded of so many entertaining stories from that period in the late 80s, when I worked for them. Friday was always the night of the Gala dinner at the Sporting Club and inevitably, a pleasant evening turned into a bacchanal in Jimmyz nightclub. Somehow, at around 8 on Saturday morning, I thrashed a scooter through countless hairpin bends to get back to my hotel hanging off the edge of a cliff in Beausoleil. I dashed for the lift, hoping to get up to the room and change out of my dinner jacket and into team kit before my Japanese masters met me in the lobby. Unfortunately, the lift doors opened to reveal aforementioned bosses keen and eager to head for the circuit. “What happen Eric?” Thinking on your feet when you can barely even use them for standing up is not something I’d recommend, as I blurted out the first thing that came into my head: “It’s qualifying…it’s qualifying in Monaco…everyone always wears black tie.” There was a hurried conversation in Japanese, “Elic san, brack tie” etc etc after which they headed back to the lift to go to their rooms and change. At this point I sobered up just enough to explain I had been joking and the situation was saved.
In between the parties, there’s the track action and it is always thrilling. All the wonders of modern technology and the very latest camera equipment, cannot convey the wonder, the mind-blowing madness and danger of driving a Formula 1 car around a little seaside resort with silly roads. No, you simply have to actually stand at the side of the track at the one race of the season where you can get really close to the action. When the cars made a lot more noise, you could watch from just behind the Armco at Casino Square and the barriers would tremble and make a spooky noise like whales talking in the deep ocean, as the cars came within millimetres of them on the run down to Loews. As for watching in the tunnel, nothing you will encounter in the eternity of the afterlife in hell, where all lovers of needlessly burning fossil fuels are bound to go, will shock you as much as the first minutes of spectating here.
A drink to steady your nerves is what you need after that and thankfully, plenty of people are happy to oblige, starting with the floating Red Bull Energy Station on Thursdays. I still remember the first ever Red Bull Monaco bash in 2005, when they were new to it all and foolishly or generously, depending on your point of view, simply opened their doors to the entire world. At one point the whole edifice looked set to tip over into the harbour. I didn’t stay to the bitter end, leaving when a barman told me the only drinks they had left were Malibu or cider, surely God’s way of telling you you’ve had enough to drink.
Working in F1 means you can get a bit blasé about the stars who turn up at races, but in Monaco, the sleb count goes through the roof. However, some of them can overstay their welcome, as they turn up every year on their way home from the Cannes Film Festival. I often eat in a little pizzeria, whose name I won’t reveal, but every year my party has a battle with film director George “Star Wars” Lucas, to get the big round table at the back of the room. We tend to get it because we’re better tippers, but it spoils the evening, because even if he’s sitting out of our line of sight, like Darth Vader, I can always feel his presence.
Finally, if you’ve take my advice re taking the Heli on the way in to Monaco, I recommend doing the return journey by bus, to gently reacclimatise yourself to the outside world.
