Two racing icons meet for the first time this week, as Audi Revolut F1® Team prepares to make its debut appearance on the streets of Monaco.
For one weekend each year, the microstate on the French Riviera becomes the focal point of world motorsport. Monaco’s transformation into a stage for Formula 1 is a well-rehearsed affair. The Monaco Grand Prix has been a defining part of the principality’s cultural identity for almost a century, while the race has been a part of the F1 calendar in almost every season since the sport’s inception in 1950.
Monaco’s makeover for the latest edition of the legendary event began around three months before Audi Revolut F1® Team moves into its new home for the week. The principality has already hosted two major motorsport events this year, with the Grand Prix de Monaco Historique and Formula E having visited in the weeks prior to the grand finale: the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix.
For most of the year, these streets serve far more ordinary purposes. Residents commute through Sainte Devote, delivery vehicles navigate the Fairmont Hairpin and tourists stroll along the harbour front. Those same streets have been progressively transformed into the world’s most famous temporary circuit, where margins between success and failure are measured in centimetres. Barriers now restrict access, pedestrian routes are redirected and public spaces have been redefined around the demands of the pinnacle of motorsport.
Preparatory work around the circuit continues well into race week, though Monaco still thrives among the upheaval. The overlap between everyday life and racing spectacle is clear on the streets of the principality, where Armco barriers and catch-fencing have been brought out of storage from Nice, or even over the Italian border, and erected mere metres from store fronts and harbour walls.
The atmosphere around the track will build with each arriving train, as fans emerge from the Monaco-Monte-Carlo station for their first glimpses of the near-mythical surroundings. Located behind the Sainte Devote Chapel near the circuit’s first turn, the station serves as the arrival point for thousands of fans on race weekend.
From there, they’ll find their way around a labyrinth-like network of bridges, overpasses and tunnels, passing by temporary team merchandise stands on the periphery of tarmac that has played host to iconic motorsport moments.
All eyes are on Monaco this weekend, and life is paced significantly faster for its residents this week – not least Nico and Gabi, who’ll be experiencing the streets at a slightly less pedestrian speed than usual. Nowhere is the transformation clearer than around Casino Square, where roads normally occupied by parked luxury cars become part of one of the fastest parts of the circuit.
This is still the calm before the real storm. As Audi Revolut F1® Team prepares to take to its streets for the first time, Monaco is almost ready for the latest chapter in a Grand Prix legacy that has been unfolding in the principality for generations.
Restaurants overlooking Port Hercule become meeting places for fans ahead of the race weekend, while coffee houses provide front row seats to one of the sport’s most distinctive stages. Along the waterfront, the harbour gradually fills as race week approaches, providing one of the most recognisable sporting backdrops.
Elsewhere, public spaces take on new roles during race week. Place d’Armes, the usually lively city square, packed with the usual rendezvous points of Monaco’s year-round residents, becomes the heart of fan activity. Hundreds of fans kitted out in team merchandise will turn up to see their racing heroes interviewed on the main stage at the MGP LIVE Fan Zone.
Monaco will, of course, remain unmistakably itself despite the sport’s arrival. Long before it became synonymous with Formula 1, the principality grew around its harbour, where fishing and maritime trade helped to shape its identity. Visitors can still find traces of the rich heritage among the restaurants, cafes and terraces overlooking the Mediterranean.
The build-up to the race is felt beyond the track itself. Around the perimeter, it is not uncommon for the shops and cafes which line the track to open in the evening, catching footfall from fans walking the route of the circuit.
Monaco is the only circuit on the calendar that reopens to the public on each night of the race weekend. Parties from the cluster of establishments in the circuit’s final sector on the harbourside - which includes La Rascasse, the famous restaurant from which the penultimate corner takes its name - will spill out, literally, onto the track. Any evidence of the previous night’s antics will be cleared away before the circuit opens for racing business again just mere hours later.
As Audi Revolut F1® Team prepares to take to its streets for the first time, Monaco is almost ready for the latest chapter in a Grand Prix legacy that has been unfolding in the principality for generations.