Why criticism of Monaco is often wide of the mark

Nelson Piquet once famously compared driving a Formula 1 car at Monaco with attempting to ride a bicycle in your living room. That was 40 years ago. Doing it today is like being on a hefty e-bike – with a trailer big enough to carry the truck load of FIA resignation letters.

Brace yourself for the annual carping competition about Monaco being unsuitable for F1 cars. And don’t be surprised if the one-eyed commentary is led by Jeremy Clarkson, the entertaining broadcaster and writer who, to be fair, highlights the farming community’s hardships while, I would imagine, turning a reasonable profit for himself.

The Monaco Grand Prix will provide enough low-hanging flippancy to allow expansion of his incisive observation that race tracks should be designed to suit F1 cars. Which is a bit like saying that the increased performance offered by golf technology means Augusta National should uproot the magnolias, chop down ancient pine trees and get rid of those horrid bunkers.

Monaco is Monaco. Twenty-four of them in a season would be catastrophic, but just one represents a unique challenge. You don’t get tedious track-limit penalties at Monaco. There’s no need for the black-and-white warning flag after three transgressions; one is enough to guarantee an early visit to the media interview pen.

The race itself may be a procession, but the relentless test of mental stamina is like no other.

You can see it in the winner’s eyes. Sparkling they may be in the euphoria that comes with raising the cup aloft in the Royal Box but, when you get down to closer examination in the interview room, an almost vacant stare can accompany recall of the previous couple of hours.

Hakkinen celebrates on the podium alongside second-place finisher Fisichella and Irvine

Photo by: Sutton Images

Ayrton Senna’s graphic descriptions were slow and explicit; one of his many gifts, particularly when English was not his first language. This had become familiar over the course of the Brazilian’s six wins at Monaco. But we did not expect a heartfelt and lucid follow-up to Mika Hakkinen’s victory in 1998.

Keen to savour the moment, Mika had completed what seemed like the slowest cool-down lap in the history of the sport. The enormity of his achievement was continuing to sink in as he reached the media centre.

Hakkinen is a fairly mild-mannered guy. When he starts to get excited about something, you know it’s for real. The thrill of the moment continued as Mika managed to describe the emotion that was surging through him.

“It just shows that you can hit the wall very, very easily. I thought, ‘That’s it. Something’s broken’” Mika Hakkinen

His eloquence was reminiscent of Senna, right down to the pauses and considered replies. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

Hakkinen said he had seen previous Monaco winners struggle to articulate their feelings. Now he understood exactly what they had been going through because he, too, was finding difficulty expressing himself.

A frequently restrained and indifferent Hakkinen was no stranger to the winner’s press conference but, on this occasion, it was as if a twin brother, an alter ego, had taken his place.

Hakkinen really drank in the moment of triumph on his cool-down lap

Photo by: Motorsport Images

This was clearly not a chore; a job to be done before dashing off to a waiting helicopter. Of course, there was no need to rush since he was working on his own doorstep, the Hakkinen apartment actually overlooking the track he had ruled for most of the weekend.

That aside, it was clear that the Finn was genuinely thrilled because of the job he had just completed. His message was that winning at places such as Melbourne or Interlagos was nothing compared to doing the business on the streets of Monte Carlo.

“You have to concentrate every minute,” he said. “It’s incredible. When you have a 20-second lead, it’s so easy to make a mistake. It’s crazy to keep driving at 110%, so you back off. Then the brake and tyre temperatures drop. These cars are not designed to go slow and it becomes really difficult. Really difficult.

“The problem is that the grip changes with every lap. At Rascasse, the rubber builds up on the white lines and the front end of the car suddenly had a lot of grip. It turned in really suddenly. I thought, ‘That’s OK’. But then the back did the same and I clipped the barrier.

“It just shows that you can hit the wall very, very easily. I thought, ‘That’s it. Something’s broken.’ I felt a slight vibration and I could only hope it was OK.”

It was. The McLaren-Mercedes MP4-13 didn’t miss a beat, Hakkinen making special mention of the support from a team with which he would win his first of two world titles that November.

“The pressure [of racing at Monaco] is incredible,” he said. “The only way to get through that is by having the right people around you.”

The fact that it’s a race like no other keeps Monaco relevant

Photo by: Chris Gresty / Motorsport Images

He went on to thank the team for taking the trouble to build specially strengthened parts on the understanding that their drivers were going to hit the wall at some point. That probably saved McLaren from losing this race and denying Mika the chance to savour the greatest victory lap of all.

“It was very good fun,” he grinned. “I’ve been teaching the guys on the team some words in Finnish and they were shouting them at me over the radio. It sounded really funny. But I went slowly because I wanted to experience that feeling and get it inside me. I don’t want to forget it.

“Keke [Rosberg, Hakkinen’s manager] said that Monaco was absolutely the best GP to win. He’s right. This win is unbelievable, just unbelievable.”

Things may be different now in certain respects, but those measured words are worth remembering. Particularly when the cheap shots begin to fly.

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Track-limits penalties gratifyingly don’t apply here

Photo by: James Sutton / Getty Images via Getty Images