23/05/2014
FEATURE BY GUEST AUTHORS
The new Princess Grace movie (Nicole Kidman playing ex-actress and ex-Princess Grace Kelly) is opening down the Corniche at Cannes. And two current citizens of Monaco in their dominant Mercedes-Benz W05 machines - sorry "W05 Hybrid" - are about to take to the streets of Monte Carlo to see which one will be feted at the royal box Princess Grace used to occupy in the heyday of the Grand Prix de Monaco, a race that has become the crown jewel of the 19-race Formula One calendar.
With the kind of tense and exciting season we have been having in the first five races, it is just possible that we are on the cusp of an historic race weekend at Monaco, where so much Grand Prix history has already been written, a race that for once could match the grand and spectacular setting that is the Principality.
One thing for sure is that the factory Mercedes-Benz team will play the pivotal role, once again returning to a venue that the legendary German team has been trying to conquer for 85 years, not always successfully, so unpredictable are the forces that determine the winners at Monaco.
The Best Monaco?
I once reviewed the ingredients that would make up the very best race weekend in the Principality since the first race was run in 1929. I concluded that the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix took the prize, a race that saw the then-dominant Sharknose Ferrari 156s - sculpture on wheels - driven by Americans Phil Hill and Richie Ginther, coming up short against a battling Englishman, Monaco-specialist Stirling Moss, who bested the Ferrari team in a year-old Lotus 18 run by privateer liquor baron Rob Walker.
I chose 1961 as the Best Monaco because it had everything; course, cars and drivers of the first magnitude and a race that was so close that Ginther and Moss were swapping identical times as the American, in only his fourth Grand Prix, having dispatched his teammate Hill, vainly tried to catch the much more experienced Briton.
In 1961, the Monaco course was still in its relatively low-rise, round-the-houses configuration as it had mostly been since 1929, with the multi-coloured Victorian brickwork of the elegant Monaco railroad station and the Station Hairpin in front of it defining one end of the circuit, and the Gasometer hairpin defining the other end of the course, leading the cars back into the city streets for another lap, passing the royal box on the main straight along the way.
The cars were then, as now, in the first year of a new formula that was already not well-received by the Grand Prix community and fans alike, the new 1.5 litre engine (not "power unit"), regarded as much less worthy than the 2.4 litre era that had preceded it. Sound familiar?
And yet in the fullness of time, the Grand Prix cars of that initially-unloved formula have become some of the most influential and admired icons of our sport: the Lotus 21 of Jim Clark was the latest innovation from Colin Chapman, the aero-stylish Ferrari 156s that we have never seen the likes of again, the BRM P48 of Graham Hill that would evolve into the winningest car at Monaco since the Bugatti, the Coopers of John Surtees, Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren that had ushered in the rear-engine revolution and the even the idiosyncratic Porsche F2 cars that Dan Gurney and Jo Bonnier raced that year at Monaco which would in a year's time bring the Stuttgart manufacturer its only win in Formula One.
All of these legends of the future were in that one race and those names and marques would come to epitomize Grand Prix racing. So maybe there is hope yet for our much bemoaned current 1.6 litre teeny turbo formula and it will surprise us all and bear unexpected fruit over time.
The Missing Marque
The only marque conspicuous by its absence in the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix was Mercedes-Benz, which has had a very chequered history in the Principality, going back to the very first race in 1929 (which lasted nearly 4 hours by the way; no drink bottles).
Rudolf Caracciola, could only wrestle his brawny, white-coloured, 7-litre Mercedes-Benz SSK to third place behind two Bugatti 35B's in the inaugural "Grand Prix Automobile de Monaco", as the posters called the race, Caracciola having been delayed by a four-and-a-half minute tyre change on lap 51 of the 100-lap race.
On Easter Monday 1935, when the Mercedes-Benz W25Bs, by now painted silver and dubbed the "Silver Arrows", ruled the earth, Caracciola returned to Monaco with a factory team of 3 cars and he and his teammates - Manfred Von Brauchitsch and Luigi Fagioli - started side-by-side on the front row, with Alfred Neubauer and his trademark red and black flag running the team. There was no absence of noise in the streets of Monaco from the whining superchargers of these magnificent beasts.
Notwithstanding the legendary build quality of the W25s, on lap 1, von Brauchitsch's transmission acted up on the twisty streets and he limped back to the pits and retired, classified dead last. Caracciola - so successful everywhere but Monaco - was again saddled with bad luck when a valve spring broke in the bulletproof W25, consigning him to a lowly 10th place.
Only the Italian driver, Fagioli, saved the day for Mercedes-Benz, the key to his race being a launch from the three-wide front row that got him off the line ahead of his more distinguished teammates, demonstrating better clutch and wheel spin control over the tram-lined Monaco streets than his betters.
If Nico Rosberg is to have a chance of taking victory over his ex-World Champion teammate and Monaco multiple winner in all categories Lewis Hamilton, he will need the Force of Fagioli behind him for a Rocketship start to be ahead of the Briton before the run up to Massenet. A stop at the Ste Devote Chapel to murmur a prayer might be in order for Nico on one of his trips around his Hometown.
Although Caracciola would always be denied victory at Monaco, at the 1937 Monaco Grand Prix, he and Von Brauchitsch, in the last Monaco Grand Prix before World War II, would take on the other German super team, Auto Union and its mighty V16 supercharged engine, and lead a mind-boggling Mercedes-Benz 1-2-3, fielding four W125 Mercedes-Benz 5.6 litre eight cylinder engines that made about 580 horsepower, some 200 horsepower less than the Mercedes-Benz WO5 Hybrid Rosberg and Hamilton have available to them. (The fuel flow was somewhat different, with the thirsty W125's using one litre of fuel per kilometre!)
Will History Repeat Itself?
This 1937 Monaco Grand Prix mirrored what we could expect to see this year between Rosberg and Hamilton. Hotdog Caracciola (the "Hamilton" of the team) was on pole and Von Brauchitsch (the "Rosberg" of the team, often a bridesmaid) were at each other's throats, with Caracciola building a lead, only to lose it when a two-minute pit stop to change spark plugs meant that Von Brauchitsch was able to lap him.
Fighting back furiously after his lengthy pit stop, Caracciola was turning fastest laps while von Brauchitsch found himself mired down in the pits, the Prussian suspecting that the mechanics were intentionally slow in servicing his W125 in order to allow Caracciola to close up. In the end, Caracciola/Hamilton had to return to the pits for water, leaving the victory to von Brauchitsch/Rosberg.
Could Monaco/Mercedes-Benz history from 1935 and 1937 repeat itself in 2014?
We saw the two comparatively slow pit stops Hamilton had at Barcelona that cost him almost 2 seconds to Rosberg, in a game of inches in which the Briton won by a margin of only 0.6 seconds; a slip of a wheel gun on the tight Monaco pit lane could make a difference. Be nice to your pit crew Nico!
Grace, Fangio and Moss: Simply the Best
The last chapter of Mercedes-Benz dominance at Monaco during the 1955 race is also illustrative of what could happen to the current Mercedes-Benz teammates in 2014, notwithstanding the apparent strength and superiority of the team.
After a four-year hiatus, the Monaco Grand Prix was back on the calendar and the modern post-war era of the Principality was just getting underway. Prince Rainier met Grace Kelly in the Summer of 1955 while she was filming Hitchcock's "To Catch a Thief" on the French Riviera; by April 1956 they would be married and she would be in the Royal Box for the 1956 Monaco Grand Prix.
While the Prince was romancing his future wife, out on the racetrack in 1955, Mercedes-Benz as a company had recovered from WW II and was back on top. Alfred Neubauer was still at the helm as he was pre-war, ruling the roost. The car was the shapely and reliable 2.5 litre Mercedes-Benz W196 (unsupercharged), which had, in the hands of Juan Manuel Fangio, won all but one of the races it had entered in 1954, sometimes in open-wheeled form and sometimes in the sleek, all-enveloping streamlined body that looked so magnificent and was used for the high-speed courses.
For 1955, the Mercedes-Benz Rennabteilung arrived on the streets of Monaco with all possible confidence and pageantry; the silver W196s having been transported across Europe on a blue, specially-built, high-speed transporter (which had the same engine as the Gullwing 300SL), with a crew cab designed to look similar to a Mercedes-Benz sedan of the time, with its headlights, chrome bumpers and a grille sporting a huge three-pointed star.
Not only was Mercedes-Benz so well-financed and managed that it could afford trappings like fancy transporters; they even had the time and resources to develop two special short wheelbase W196's to suit the tight city streets.
Nothing was left to chance by the wily Neubauer, and nothing but the best overall for the team. Mercedes-Benz riding as high then as they are now, exemplified by one of the strongest driver line-ups ever: Fangio and Moss.
Stirling Moss had not yet won his first Grand Prix so the hungry and respectful student intended to be tutored by the Master this season.
And yet, with everything imaginable in place, once again in the horses-built-for-courses sense, Mercedes-Benz experienced its usual Monaco bad luck all weekend.
Hans Hermann in the third W196 crashed his car at Massenet coming up on Casino Square and got trapped under the barriers, lucky to avoid being decapitated. Of course, Mercedes had a spare car for driver Andre Simon, whom they rang up at the Hotel Mirabeau just up the road before the Station Hairpin.
Fangio was on pole naturally, but by half-distance he had pulled his W196 off the circuit and onto the kerb stone in front of Railroad Station, out with a broken rear axle. Whether he got on the train and went home or trundled back to the pits is not known!
Moss succeeded to the Maestro's lead and looked certain to win his first Grand Prix when his W196 started making more steam than horsepower and so he moved his car to the side of the road until the end of the race when he managed to urge his car over the finish line, being classified 9th, 19 laps down on the leader Maurice Trintingant in a Ferrari 625. How the mighty had fallen.
But the bad luck was only beginning for motor racing that Spring of 1955, which had opened with such promise. Alberto Ascari, who had qualified next to Fangio at Monaco in his fabulous-looking double-panniered Lancia D50, somehow overshot the chicane and ended up in the Mediterranean, car and driver were both rescued, but Ascari would then lose his life a few days later on May 26, while testing a Ferrari 750 sports car at Monza.
On June 11, 1955, we had the horrific disaster at Le Mans involving Mercedes-Benz, which brought the curtain down on participation by a factory team until the modern era we are now witnessing, which is at its apogee, with former World Champion Niki Lauda heading up a team so strong on all levels, from the garage and wind tunnel to the cockpit, that all the others are left seemingly stupefied.
Any race now I am expecting a new blue transporter to come through the paddock gates!
With that history of Monaco and Mercedes-Benz as prologue, and the fierce competition between Rosberg and Hamilton - both previous Monaco winners - as the present motif, there is every reason to hope that this 2014 Monaco Grand Prix is shaping up to be another classic for the history books.
What can we expect from our modern-day Caracciolas, Fagioli and such? We can guess that Massa and Grosjean will crash at Ste Devote or coming out of the tunnel. Vettel will be mildly miffed as Kobayashi holds him up, saying he did not see the blue flags. Maldonado, though another Monaco specialist in the lower formula, will crash somewhere and take out a few neighbours in the midfield, probably bringing out a Safety Car, an increasing phenomenon at Monaco.
Alonso and Kimi will mess up their practice runs, which both are prone to do at Monaco, leading Luca di Montezemolo to head for the exit. Bottas and Button will find safety in each other and finish in the points as a reward for being neat and tidy.
None of them will be able to challenge Rosberg and Hamilton, who are poised for possibly the most-watched race of their careers and which will define them in everyone's eyes. When Hamilton won at Monaco in 2008, it was a storming drive, when he actually clouted the barriers, pitted for fresh tyres and still won. We know he has the goods.
Rosberg's victory last year in the less-celebrated WO4 2.4 V8 was impressive but it was a slow-speed procession behind two Safety Car periods and a red flag, not a Champion's drive. Hamilton finished fourth and said he was uncomfortable in the car so the 2013 race lacked the nip and tuck drama that the 2014 season has sparked between Rosberg and Hamilton and which promises to serve up an absorbing race weekend for the centrepiece venue of Formula One.
Even Grace Kelly is back on our minds in the form of Nicole Kidman and her movie and with any luck maybe Bernie can get her into the paddock for an interview on the grid with Martin Brundle. Unlikely you say? You must be forgetting that Kidman got her start with Tom Cruise in the NASCAR movie Days of Thunder! So she is a natural for the F1 paddock.