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Mercedes driver Stoffel Vandoorne plays at home in Monaco, where he lives. The former McLaren F1 driver, who won here in GP2 in 2015, « without starting from pole », he remembers, will be one of the major contenders for a win on Saturday, in a German team which has impressed a lot this season : « We have been every competitive at every track, we won at every event », the Belgian driver underlines. His Dutch team-mate Nyck de Vries is leading the World Championship, with 57 points, and he has already collected 48, so the title chase is more than open between both Mercedes EQ drivers.
« There will be more overtaking opportunities on the longer F1 track », Vandoorne predicts, and this will allow FE drivers « to show that it is possible to overtake in Monaco, especially with the energy save that we do. We want to put on a good show, and it will be interesting to see how our car performs here ». With McLaren F1, Vandoorne came here twice, in 2017 and 2018, but experienced frustrating weekends. He is much more hopeful about this FE race, although « Group 1 in Qualifications will be challenging », he reckons. « We need to maximize the opportunities, to stay out of trouble. I love this track, I sleep in my own bed, it’s a bit strange, but I don’t want to be too comfortable ».
He may be a rookie this year in FE, but Norman Nato, the 28-year-old from Antibes, has already accumulated huge experience in motorsport, mostly in single-seaters and endurance. He should have climbed on the podium twice already this season, after superb races in front, but each time he suffered a penalty which wasted his results. However, he is happy and confident before the home race for Venturi Racing, the one and only Monégasque racing team at international level, as Team Principal Susie Wolff pointed out on Friday.
©ACM / Folleté
« To drive in Monaco is a dream when you are a kid, even if you drive a go-kart, as I did when I won the Monaco Kart Cup (in 2010) », Norman said on Friday, in the press conference before the Monaco EPrix. « It’s great to be back in Monaco, in a Formula E, for our home race, and it’s definitely a special moment in our season. It was frustrating to lose two podiums in six races, but it’s better to finish twice in a podium position, as a rookie, than finishing 9th with a few points. I had to change my mindset over the winter, in order to be more aggressive, and it worked. We have a good car, I am improving my energy management, and I will keep pushing for podiums », Norman added. And you can be sure that he will try his best to make Susie Wolff happy, come Saturday.
Sébastien Buemi has already been crowned FIA Formula E Champion, in 2016, then Endurance World Champion and he also won the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hours. He is one of the very best FE drivers and he won two E-Prix out of three in Monaco (2016, 2017), so that he is in a perfect position to judge the interest of using the F1 track here : « I love it even better since I had to use the small track the past three times. It was not adapted any more to the field of 24 cars that we now have in FE, it was mission impossible on a 48-second lap. With our Gen 2 car, we expect to lap this year in 1 :30 approximately, which is not bad for an electric car ».
The Swiss driver is the king of FE qualifications, the one who clocked the greatest number of pole positions since the launching of the series. He loves qualifying because « we are able to use 250 kW, this amounts to 25% extra power compared to race mode. Here, I expect to reach 235 km/h at the tunnel exit. This is a big +step+ compared to race mode, when we have to take great care of the available amount of energy ».
Just like Jean-Eric Vergne and Stoffel Vandoorne, Buemi raced in Monaco aboard a F1 car, but « whether you have raced here in F3, F2 or F1, it does not change much of anything, and there is no FE driver who will discover the track this weekend », the Swiss driver adds. He is the favourite driver for Japanese car manufacturers, since he races for Nissan in FE, Toyota in endurance, and he is still a reserve driver for Red Bull-Honda.
Buemi is not happy about his season start, but he remains hopeful : « We had an extremely complicated start, but we have explanations. We had the old PowerTrain and here we can use the new one, for the first time. This does not mean that we are going to win races, but it will definitely help. The car is now homologated until the end of Season 8, at the end of the +Gen 2+ era, so we had to be cautious. I hit a wall in Ryadh, I took a penalty in Rome, I was hit at the back by Lotterer in Valencia, we have not reached the level of performance that we expected », he adds.
Based on his experience of FE, Le Mans 24 Hours winner judges that the level of competition has been raised since Porsche and Mercedes joined, and also « because the rules have been stable for a few years, which makes a big difference. Mercedes has an edge, they won three races out of six this year, and they are always at the front. This is not a series that you can dominate, because of the qualification groups, and because the levels of performance are very close, but they definitely have an edge ».
Last but not least, Buemi thinks that « there is a level of impredictability in this championship that is a bit too extreme now. There is no more logic. When I go back to endurance racing, I find a general frame which varies less, with a similar level of performance from one weekend to the other… »
Racers and fans will have to get up early on Saturday, and there is a good chance that they will go to bed very late.
The schedule for the 4th Monaco E-Prix is heavy, with 24 cars on track and a number of promotional events organized by the 12 teams entered in the Formula E World Championship. There will be ups and downs, surprises and crashes, with an amazing casting of talented drivers. One thing is already sure : spectators, around the track and in front of their screen, are going to have fun !
Here is the schedule :
8h00-8h45 : Free Practice 1
10h15-10h45 : Free Practice 2
12h00-13h00 : Qualifications (Groups 1, 2, 3 et 4, then Super Pole with Top 6 drivers)
16h00 : 4th Monaco E-Prix (45 minutes + 1 lap)
In accordance with the directives of the Monegasque authorities concerning the organization of the 78th edition of the Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco which will take place from Thursday 20th to Sunday 23rd of May, the Automobile Club de Monaco shall organize the event under the following conditions:
Days of Thursday 20th, Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd of May:
Day of Friday 21st of May:
Ticketing prices of each grandstand are available online on www.formula1monaco.com, on the Official Ticketing Office (44, rue Grimaldi – Monaco) as well as on the several ticket offices located in the Principality: Promenade Honoré II & Direction du Tourisme de Monaco – Boulevard des Moulins. Our staff remains at your disposal by phone (00 377 93 15 26 24) and by mail ([email protected]).
The Automobile Club de Monaco, the FIA and Formula One are applying and taking all precautionary measures (mandatory physical distancing, wearing of face masks and hand hygiene) to ensure the optimum hygiene protocol for the attendees of the Event.
All the hygiene protocol disciplines for the Principality are available on: www.covid19.mc
The 4th edition of the Monaco E-Prix will take place on this Saturday 8 of May. In accordance with the Government directives applied in the Principality, the Event will respect the following conditions:
The Automobile Club de Monaco and Formula E are applying and taking all precautionary measures (mandatory physical distancing, wearing of face masks and hand hygiene) to ensure the optimum hygiene protocol for the attendees on the Event.
The ticket offices are located on the Promenade Honoré II as well as at the Direction du Tourisme de Monaco – Boulevard des Moulins, and will be open on Friday, May 07 (09:00 – 18:00) and Saturday, May 08 (06:30 – end of the Monaco E-Prix).
All the hygiene protocol disciplines for the Principality are available on the following link :
https://covid19.mc/
Download the Guide d’application des Décisions ministérielles du Gouvernement Princier
Alesi and Arnoux, two guest stars for Ferrari…
For his come-back on the Monaco track, the former Scuderia driver was the star of the show and should have won Race F, as in Ferrari, after jumping in the lead from his 2th place on the grid and then leading for 15 laps out of 18. However, a race incident with poleman Marco Werner, who was then penalized, changed the outcome of a magnificent race. But the mission had been accomplished: for three days in a row, Alesi and another former F1 driver back behind the wheel of a Ferrari, René Arnoux, pleased the fans around the track, on TV and social networks. They also chatted in the paddock with current F1 stars such as Charles Leclerc and Nico Hülkenberg.
Maserati and Lotus, shining as usual…
If we look at the long list of mythical brands that wrote the legend of Monaco F1 Grand Prix, two of them were in great shape during this 12th edition : Maserati first, because Guillermo Fierro-Eleta won both Races B and C in superb manner, at the wheel of two prestigious and glamorous models of the Italian firm, the 250F and the 300S; Lotus as well, because the English brand founded by Colin Chapman put four different cars in the Top 4 of Race D, and then when Marco Werner’s Lotus 77, in Race F, challenged Jean Alesi’s Ferrari until both cars collided. Other brands also brought back great memories to the most nostalgic fans, such as Talbot-Lago and Bugatti in Race A, Jaguar in Race C, Surtees, McLaren and Hesketh in Races E, F and G for the most recent F1 cars, built between 1970 and 1980.
Lyons roared three times…
In these three very intense races, at speeds that should be unconceivable for 50-year-old cars, the 30-year-old Anglo-Irish driver with red hair, as humble as he is fast, showed all the facets of his huge talent: a perfect start in Race E, to take the lead from poleman Stuart Hall’s McLaren and never look back, formidable pressure in Race F to push Jordan Grogor (Arrows) at fault, and last but not least, absolute wisdom in Race G, in 3rdposition, waiting patiently for something that was meant to happen between Alesi and Werner. This was done in the matter of hours and aboard three very different single-seaters: a blue Surtees TS9, an orange McLaren M26 once driven by James Hunt and a blue Hesketh 308 E, dating back to 1977, that Lyons had set-up perfectly during a testing session at Anglesey, a short and demanding circuit in the north of Wales.
Perfect tarmac, modern tyres…
Lyons will never become a Formula 1 World Champion, but he could not care less. He is happy racing and winning Historic races in cars that he needs to “preserve”, while “setting them up as well as possible for them to be competitive”, he smiles. It was the case this weekend in Monaco, on brand new asphalt, with excellent Avon or Dunlop Racing tyres (depending on the category entered). With these modern tyres on ancient cars, the lap times were incredible and the races outstanding, as it was often the case during the golden age of F1, at the end of the last century.
See you in May 2022!
This was such an historical Grand Prix de Monaco, on all levels, that many actors and spectators will remember it for long. And the good news is: they will not have to wait too long until the 13th edition takes place, from 13 to 15 May, 2022.
Podiums of the 12th Grand Prix de Monaco Historique:
Race A
Race B
Race C
Race D
Race E
Race F
Race G
He deserved to drink a cup of Champagne on the podium, he lost it all at the end of a superb race but it was not his fault. He was disappointed but he will be back next year : Jean Alesi was cheered and applauded by drivers in the pits, fans in the grandstands, when he made his way back to the paddock. He had led three quarters of the race in amazing manner, he had resisted all the assaults of a very excited Marco Werner survolté (too optimistic at the end?), and the black Lotus ended up pushing his Ferrari 312 B3 in the wall. A few minutes later, Jean discussed the incident with Toni Seiler, who had just finished the same Race F, and recalled the Monaco GP in 1992, when Ayrton Senna won for the 5th time in the streets of the Principality after resisting until the finish line, and closing all the doors to Nigel Mansell, who could never pass him. Because as Jean Alesi summarizes perfectly, « when there is no space, you cannot pass ! ». Jean will be back for the 13th edition of Grand Prix de Monaco Historique, he promised !
Thanks to the best start possible, on pole position, Guillermo Fierro-Eleta, in his Maserati 250 F which raced at Monaco F1 Grand Prix from 1955 to 1959, paid a vibrant tribute to Maria Teresa de Filippis, a former driver of this exceptional car and the first female driver ever entered in the World Championship. The duel that all fans expected against Max Smith Hilliard’s lightweight Lotus 16 never happened because the British driver missed his start, so that the 60-year-old Spanish entrepreneur could escape safely and lead the whole race. Behind Fierro-Eleta and Smith Hilliard, the podium was completed by Alex Birkenstock in his Ferrari Dino 246. The first three drivers received beautiful trophies from the hands of Michel Ferry, the vice-president of Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM). Martin Halusa took 4th place with his all-white Maserati 250 F that was once driven by illustrious Jean Behra.
The win in Race A for pre-war cars should have been taken by British driver Patrick Blakeney-Edwards, whose Frazer Nash from 1935 started in pole and lead for more than half of the race. However, a major technical problem forced him to retire and to park safely his superb single-seater. So that the sky blue Talbot-Lago driven by Switzerland’s Christian Traber took the lead and won the race, ahead of two other legendary cars, Austrian Niklas Halusa’s venerable Bugatti 35 B and Scottish driver Ewen Sergison’s Maserati 6 CM. On the podium, the trophies were handed to the happy drivers by Christian Tornatore, the General Commissioner of Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM).
