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MONACO GRAND PRIX

21st May - 24th May 2009

Track details
Lap Dist.: 3.340 km-2.075 miles
Race: 78 laps
Race dist.: 260.520 km-161.887 miles
Track record: M. Schumacher - 1:14.439 (Ferrari - 2004)

The first Monaco Grand Prix was held in April 14, 1929 at 13.30 under the High Patronage of His Serene Highness, Prince Louis II. The race released 16 competitors to curry out 100 laps of the 318 km long circuit. It's Williams, official representative of Molsheim, in his green Bugatti 35 B who won this first Grand Prix at an average speed of 80.104 kilometers per hour.

The appearance of the Monaco Grand Prix on international calendars is the undeniable result of a determined sports policy of the Grand Prix's President Anthony Noghes. It ail goes back to the mid-twenties, when Antony Noghes and his friends set up the Automobile Club de Monaco, an association which stemmed from the Sport Automobile et Velocipedique, which itself already goes back as far as the Sport Velocipedique Monegasque founded in 1890.

In order to expand and be recognized internationally by the A.I.A.C.R. (Association Internationale des Automobiles Clubs Reconnus), the predecessor of the International Automobile Federation, which similarly retained the real sports authority and rivaled the European record makers, an automobile sports event had to be organized on its own territory. Anthony Noghes proposed the creation of an Automobile Grand Prix which would take place right in the streets of the Principality. He obtained the official support of Prince Louis II and when he presented his plans to Louis Chiron, the famous Monegasque racing driver, he too expressed his enthusiasm. After some analysis, one realized that the topography of the place was admirably well suited to setting up a natural race track.

Since the launch of the first race, the Principality has known only 14 years without a Grand Prix, namely from 1939 to 1947 and then 1949, 1951, 1953 and 1954. From 1950 onwards the Monaco Grand Prix featured permanently in the calendar of World Champion Racing Drivers, except in 1952 when the organizers decided they preferred « Sports » cars to the single-seater Formula 2 (2 liters) normally retained for the World Championship.

The circuit itself had not undergone any major changes, the length being 3.180 km up until 1950. ?In 1952, some modifications to the Ste Devote bend led to the shortening of the length of the track to 3.145 km. In 1973, the layout underwent a change again. It was extended another 135 metres by the addition of a new track along the port, a track which was to join the track of the new pool and which would end in a hairpin bend around the restaurant « La Rascasse ». Grandstands were reinstalled on the old quay.

As the length of each lap was increased, the Grand Prix of Monaco was shortened to78 laps. In 1976, the addition of two more chicanes, one at Ste Devote, the other coming round the Rascasse hairpin bend, extended the length of each lap by 34 metres.

Ten years later, for the 44th Grand Prix of Monaco, the widening of the road at the beginning of the “Quai des Etats Unis” at the foot of the Boulevard Louis II descent, allowed the creation of a new chicane which brought the length of a lap to 3.328 km. In 1997, the first « S » of the Swimming Pool has been drawn again. Henceforth, ifs called bend « Louis Chiron ». The total length of a lap is 3.367 km.