Monte Carlo Hairpin F1

For any fans of Formula 1, you will know exactly what this curve is – for anyone that doesn’t follow motorsports, it looks like you have come to a fairly standard road. You are in fact looking at the Monte Carlo Hairpin, the most difficult corner not only in the Monaco Grand Prix but across the whole of Formula 1 – there is nothing more challenging for a Formula 1 driver than this turn right here. What makes it so hard is how narrow and tight this corner is – it is over a 180 degree turn, which is incredibly difficult for Formula 1 cars which are not built to be that deft. They are wide and fast, built to move around 300 kph – here they can only move at 30, which is double the speed of any cars coming around the road at the moment but still incredibly slow for Formula 1 – this corner feels like the cars are moving in slow motion. This race is not a test of speed, it is a test of skill and endurance; how tight are the racers going to take this corner, are they going to try to overtake, can they make it to the end – most racers simply don’t finish the Monaco Grand Prix circuit.

This circuit is one of, if not the most, difficult Formula 1 circuits in the world. Most of them take place in oval stadiums, but the fact that Monaco is a street circuit puts a bit of a spanner in the works. The problem with street circuits is that it is difficult to adjust them without adjusting the geography of the city itself. Monaco Grand Prix is one of the oldest circuits in the world, starting around 1929. At this point, the cars were much slower and much wider, so they were suited to the terrain of this race. Over the decades, the route has barely changed at all but the cars and the technology have come a very long way, which means that this circuit is unsuitable for modern Formula 1 – if it were to be redesigned today, it would not pass the safety regulations.

Actually, the circuit itself is quite small – obviously, Monaco is a small country, so the route itself is around 3.3km long. However, the drivers will go round it roughly 78 times, with 54 gear change per lap. It’s a lot of gear changes, which is a no for me but there was a famous statement made by Nelson Piquet, a three time Formula 1 champion from Brazil, who said that driving around Monaco feels like cycling around your living room. So, I encourage you to try cycling around your living room 78 times – if you can do it, you might have a career as a Formula 1 champion here in Monaco, which is absolutely worth your while. Formula 1 racers are amongst the highest paid athletes in the world, and a lot of them now have property in Monte Carlo as one of their many residences across the world.

The Monaco Grand Prix is a massive money maker – it takes place over 4 days, so an extended weekend at the end of May, and within those 4 days, Monaco makes enough money to sustain itself for the next year – hundreds of billions of euros are poured into this country in that time. This is now the primary way that Monaco makes its money.

The secondary way is real estate – the market is steep and competitive, dominated by oil sheikhs and Russian oligarchs. The big blue building, nice and curvy, that you can see over there in the distance, is called the Odeon Tower, and it is a steep price; buying an apartment over there will set you back a long way. The top three floors are all one apartment which was sold recently for over half a billion euros – roughly 750 million euros. We are not completely sure who bought it; it is considered to be an up-and-coming oil sheikh. Whoever it is has built a helipad right on top, so they don’t have to mix with the common millionaires of Monaco anymore – they can just fly in and out when they want to come home.

So we have this beautiful flashy building on this side, on the other side we have this construction site – its looking pretty ugly now, but come by in 2025, 2026 and you will see a beautiful new neighbourhood called Portier Cove – all of the flats in this new district have already been sold. All of the cranes, the people, the vehicles, the construction work is taking place on water on a new stilt technology that is very sophisticated. The seabed is raised, then stilts are installed, similar to Venice but much more stable – these stilts can rise and fall with the motion of the waves, meaning that this area cannot be flooded. On top of this is a pontoon grounding, on which everything is now resting. It is very advanced, and changing the way we consider human habitation, now looking to the water as more open space, even though currently it is expensive to build here.

Given a few years, all of these hollow buildings will become beautiful new real estate, with public parks, public pools, a promenade right down by the waterfront and an artificial beach – in fact, this whole area used to be beachy coastline, but Monaco decided a while ago to dissolve this coast. They make no money on public beaches and even if they privatise it, they make a hell of a lot more money through real estate and yachts, which have now become the priority for Monaco. There are two significant beaches which remain in Monaco – there is the Larvotto beach, on the other side of the development which you can take with the bus number 6, or the secret beach in the old town, located around the back of the Oceanic Museum if you follow the stairs all the way down to the -2 level of parking and walk around the coastal balcony to the small, rocky secret beach.

If you are a beachy person and looking for a sandy beach you can relax on all day, there are a couple of other beaches around the Cote d’Azur which will serve you a little better. The beaches in Cannes are elegant and golden, as befits such a place of glamour and prestige. The beaches in Antibes are within cove areas, and particularly enjoyable. The beaches at Juan-les-Pins have some of the most sensational water, and are lovely places to relax. Otherwise, you can go to Villefranche, a small seaside fishing village, which is about 15 mins by train or 25 minutes by bus, between here and Nice. It has a really expansive sandy beach, with a beautiful view in both directions of the cliffs of the Cote d’Azur on one side and the Villefranche Old Town on the other. The beach is brilliant, you can do loads of water sports like paddleboarding for a decent price and they have some lovely restaurants as well.