Apologies to those readers who do know these things, but there are many who do not and it is always a nice idea to give fans an insight into areas of the sport that perhaps they do not know… The Monaco Grand Prix has a long and rich history, which did much to give the Principality the image that enjoys today. It was created in 1929 by cigarette manufacturer Anthony Noghes, who was the President of the Automobile Club de Monaco. His father Alexandre was the man who invented the Monte Carlo Rally, back in 1911. The aim of both events was to attract business to Monte Carlo.
The first Monaco Grand Prix was won by a mysterious Anglo-Frenchman called “Williams” in a privately-entered Bugatti Type 35B, painted in British racing green. He arrived so late in Monaco that he completely missed practice but, having grown up there, he knew the right people and was able to do a few laps of the track very early on race morning. He then proceeded to beat Rudi Caracciola’s Mercedes SSK. “Williams” went on to win two victories in the Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France. In 1940 “Williams” escaped France to England and joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE). He was parachuted into France in May 1942 to act as the network organiser for a sabotage group, known as Chestnut. He recruited Robert Benoist, another famous racer and played an important role in reducing production of military trucks and half-tracks at the Citroen factory in Paris. “Williams” was arrested in 1943 and brutally treated by the SS. He was executed at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1945. You can learn more about “Williams” and Benoist if you click here
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In the 1930s Monaco quickly because one of the most important races in the racing calendar and in 1933 Achille Varzi and Tazio Nuvolari fought out one of their greatest duels on the streets for 99 of the 100 laps of the race.
The Grand Prix stopped during the war years but by then Monaco was known globally for its Grand Prix and on August 5 1945 – nine days before the Japanese surrender – the 36th American Infantry Division held a regularity trial on the circuit using jeeps and GMC lorries!
Proper racing revived in 1948 but it was not until 1955 that the race rejoined the international calendar with a dramatic race that saw Alberto Ascari crash into the harbour. In the 1960s Graham Hill earned the name “Mr Monaco” with five wins in the 1960s, but this was eclipsed by Ayrton Senna between 1987 and 1993 when Ayrton Senna won the race six times. Monaco is also famous for throwing up surprises. In 1972 Jean-Pierre Beltoise was untouchable in the wet but he never again won a Grand Prix. A decade later Riccardo Patrese scored his first Grand Prix victory in a race that had five different leaders in the last two laps, and in 1996 Olivier Panis drove through from the midfield in his Ligier to win a remarkable victory.
Today Monaco is the most important Grand Prix of the year, the place where everyone wants to be. More deals are done at Monaco than at any other race and the glitter of the Principality rubs off on F1 as much as the glamour of F1 reflects on the city.
Nice plug for your book there Joe! Fair one though as it is a good read.
I asked this in another thread but it didn’t get answered so apologies for being irritating. Will this book be available on Kindle in the future?
If I ever have the time to sort that out
I have a paper version and would also love to have a kindle version to read on my iPad. You can count on at least one more sale from me.
Thanks!
Thanks Joe, look forward to that day, you can count on my purchase when it gets their.
And countless more, I’m sure. My last 100+ books have all been on Kindle.
About time they stopped getting the race for free then. I know that poverty is such a difficult issue in the principality but maybe even just a fee of $10m to show willing?
I think they pay a nominal fee of 1MILLION or some such small change…
agreed , bernie must need the money , lol
Personally I think F1 needs Monaco more than F1 needs Ferrari.
Can’t agree more!
I have just finished the Grand Prix Saboteurs so did know some of this! Highly recommended to anyone who likes joe’s writing, it is engrossing, inspiring, sobering and ultimately deeply poignant. I was not that aware of Grover-Williams, Benoist or for that matter Wimille, let alone the levels of bravery they showed both on and off the track. I will be watching the race this weekend with that win of W Williams in mind.
Well they dont get it for free but it is a bit less than other races (although I think Silverstone is cut a little deal too) and they do also get the trackside advertising monies.
Although it does make buisness sense as a championship with Monaco is worth more than one without it.
Correct me if im wrong Joe, in terms of buisness deals I thought Singapore is the race to be at. Monaco doesn’t have a good buisness look to it anymore especially in this era of austerity. Singapore however is the buisness hub of asia and thats were a lot of the commercial deals go down. Obiously its where a lot of the racing deals are struck and im immensly looking forward to the race this year in the principality.
Silverstone had a massive fight to even keep it’s race on the calendar, let alone receive a discount from Bernie.
As a TV viewer rather than an attendee, I’m always surprised by how well-regarded Monaco is. It’s my least satisfying race of the season, mainly because of the poor viewing angles. But more than anything the coverage of this race emphasises and celebrates the gulf between the normal F1 fan and the super-rich F1 circus. I will watch, of course. But to my mind it’s F1 at its least attractive.
Out of interest Joe, do you have any thoughts on the daily protests in Montreal that were initially about student fees but have escalated into a human rights issue? They seem confined to the downtown area, so the circuit should be OK but travel might be disrupted.
Senna would have won Monaco seven times – all in a row – if it weren’t for that little boo-boo he made while leading handily in 1988…
If you want to know more about how “Williams” and others from the F1 fraternity contributed to the Allies win, I urge you to read a superb book by Joe, The Grand Prix Saboteurs….
Well researched and written – a great read.
Nice one Joe- more historic stuff please!
Kindle Joe. Kindle. Put it on Kindle and I will buy it. It’s not even hard to do
Nice bit of history there, many thanks!
Sorry to be a pedant, but Graham Hill’s 5-win record was not “eclipsed” by Ayrton Senna, it was “beaten”. Eclipsed would have meant comprehensively beaten – 8 or 9 or 10 wins.
I have Grand Prix Saboteurs on my shelf for reading soon (am just starting on my hero Tony Brooks’ autobiography first), and I have a 1/43rd model of Williams’ Bugatti.
Best wishes
Eclipse [ih-klips] : noun
to make less outstanding or important by comparison;
surpass: a soprano whose singing eclipsed that of her rivals.
It’s a valid definition.
Really Joe? Plugging your book to your avid blog readers?
Lucky it was a bloody great read! Enjoy the weekend in the Principality, don’t work too hard
The point of a free blog is to do what?
Convincing argument.
Are you planning on any more books? ‘Saboteurs’ was an absolutely engrossing read and ‘Crippen’ was read and enjoyed over a weekend.
Nuvolari and Varsi. There’s larger than life. 100 laps!!
Joe, did anyone record race details in those days? how many pitstops, strategy, fuel loads? I know this is pre FIA and pre-Bernie [just]
Joe,
Don’t apologise, always great to have the reminder during the build up week and you always manage to add a new fact or two.
It also gives me the opertunity to ask if your books will ever turn up on Kindle?
Steve
Me really, really wants to read GPS, but me wants to save the planet and has committed not to buy anymore paper books unless they are used. Me thinks a used book will not contribute to you writting more..
So me has to wait and despair, for how long?… Joe, please have compassion of me and ask your publisher to make a kindle edition of your book…
I could sell you mine and save the planet, but then Joe would not get the revenue so you’ll have to wait or buy one. I am sure that carrying a sheet of glass around is going to cause accidents. Oh and yes it is a bloody good read, stuffed to the gills with F1 history. Also very good is the other one about Joes great grandad. (The man who caught Crippen)
Well… wood is about 50% carbon (very approximately). Allowing for the other additives that go into making commercial paper and bindings that means your final book is probably about 40% carbon. Giving it a quick heft, I reckon my copy of GPS weighs in at about 300g. Therefore, by buying the book you are sequestering about 120-130g of carbon onto your bookshelf. That’s enough carbon to make nearly half a kilo of carbon dioxide gas, or enough to offset driving your Prius around 6km. Of course, making the book used some carbon so you’d probably still better go shopping on your bike.
Books: carbon neutral ab urbe condita 698.
Eco-question : is the embodied energy versus carbon sequestering of a paperback book more or less environmentally friendly than the e-reader equivalent (taking into account primarily the embodied energy and energy consumption of an e-reader divided by life-span and multiplied by the number of hours required to read said book).
But all told, bored as I am at work, I’m not sure I’ll be able to work this one out.
Hmm… turns out that providing a convincing answer to this is pretty tricky. From a few calculations I hashed out – mostly based on numbers culled from what sources Google Scholar and my library subscription could provide – it would seem that your average paperback is carbon neutral to slightly indebted (by approximately its own mass). Of course this is hedged about with caveats relating to the manner of the wood production (managed vs. old growth logging, etc.) and the country that the paper and book were produced (more or less efficient power generation, generation methods, etc.).
A glossy book made from old growth wood, logged by helicopter, and processed in Australia (mostly older, coal-fired power stations) would probably be worse than running a Roller for a year, while FSC-certified pulp paper, processed and produced in Canada (lots of hydroelectricity) might get close to offsetting that Prius trip. Assuming that both e-book and dead-tree book have similar editorial, typesetting and promotion energy costs, the scales seem fairly evenly poised. However, an e-book can never be inherently carbon neutral while a conscientiously produced paperback might be.
I’d point out here that while I’m a scientist, I’m not an environment scientist, and these quick and dirty calculations may or may not be anywhere close to the truth.
Sorry for hijacking the blog, Joe, but you did title it “Did you know?”
Is carbon emission the only measure for environmental impact? How short sighted….
What about the chemicals needed to produce paper or inks?. What about intensive water use and water pollution? I guess you have never visited a paper factory. What about deforestation? What about unnecessary waste of scarce resources like fossil fuels?
But if you still want to talk exclusively about carbon emissions, i believe that whatever my ebook reader has produced, is clearly less that equivalent on paper for the at least 200 books that i have already read on it.
Is carbon emission the only measure for environmental impact? How short sighted….
What about the chemicals needed to produce paper or inks?. What about intensive water use and water pollution? I guess you have never visited a paper factory. What about deforestation? What about unnecessary waste of scarce resources like fossil fuels?
But if you still want to talk about carbon emissions, i believe that whatever my ebook reader has produced, is clearly less that equivalent on paper for the at least 200 books that i have already read on it.
On the other hand, the indium and rare metals required to make the screen of your e-reader, the lithium required for its battery, and the other metals within its electronics are hugely limited resources that require vast quantities of energy to find, extract, refine and then manufacture, all of which is derived from fossil fuels. The plastics that go into its shell are all derived from oil, which again is a limited, non-renewable resource whose extraction and refining cause very similar problems to the chemicals required to manufacture paper, and those plastics tend to be of very limited recycleability.
Having lived near an oil refinery and now living just over the river from two pulp and paper mills I can tell you from personal experience that the environmental impact of a pulp mill is far less than that of a refinery. Deforestation isn’t an issue if you buy paper from properly managed and certified sources, and wood is an infinitely renewable resource that actually absorbs more carbon the younger the tree is. A mature tree is actually pretty much carbon neutral, so the best way to sequester carbon through forestry is by growing and cutting on a cycle, so long as you use the grown wood in some way that either locks the carbon away (e.g. wood products, such as books) or that offsets energy produced by non-renewable sources (e.g. a wood-fired rather than oil-fired stove). Every single gram of carbon in a book was in the atmosphere just a short while ago. The same isn’t true of your e-reader, made is it is from fossil resources.
Books are non-toxic, biodegradable, almost infinitely recyclable, last as long as you can keep them dry, or can be used as a fuel (if that doesn’t make your skin crawl; something about burning books just seems wrong to me). None of those things are true of an e-reader. Add in to that the fact that most e-readers have obsolescence built in (any model with non-replaceable batteries loses all claim to environmental sustainability) and have to be recharged. When is the last time you needed a power source for a book?
And what about the societal impact? I grew up being able to feed my reading addiction through raiding the book shelves of friends and family. My tastes are consequently extremely broad and varied, and I was exposed to authors who are now unfashionable or simply forgotten. A visit to a friend’s house always, but always, involves a quick browse of their bookshelves and more often than not subsequent discussions over unusual or obscure books. With everything stashed on Kindles how would a kid today be able to do the same thing? I’m more than a little sad that future generations are probably going to be denied the pleasure of poking around in the dusty back rooms of second hand book shops. Some of my most prized volumes are ones that Amazon and their ilk would never consider stocking.
I’m not arguing that there is no environmental impact from the production of books, just pointing out that they do have an inbuilt environmental upside. E-readers do not.
Joe,
are you books going to be available as ibooks (or kindle)?
Thanks for the brief history – very interesting. I am buying your book as I type this, as I just love the theme of intelligence during the third reich era. Don’t suppose there are any photos out there of the US soldiers in their jeeps pounding around the streets?
PS. A bit of a long shot perhaps, but with your investigative background and passion for the automotive industry, do you know any of the family of former NSU engineer Walter William Moore? I am desperately trying to track down somebody who can enlighten me more about his life at NSU in Heilbronn during the 30′s (i.e. more than what the period press articles and factory archives reveal). Thanks.
as per business deals – do you think it will be eclipsed by Singapore soon?
No
Should’ve read this before entering the quiz on f1fanatic!
It must be nearly 30 years ago that I went to Monaco, (pretty sure Senna was in the F3 race) I still remember the electric air of tension and excitement that pervaded everything in town on the night before the race. Walking round the track at 11pm. (Bet you’re not allowed to do that now) The anticipation was exceeded only by the prices which were 5 times their normal level. It was also the first time I had seen cockroaches, this in the bedrooms of the ancient crumbling edifice in Ave des Engalis in Niece, in which we stayed. Not sure if my heroine from “High Society” was in the palace by then, but the whole place had a kind of magic about it. I guess that wears off if you have to go every year and be deafened.
Typo that’s Ave des Anglais of course.
great read, I love these history articles. Please do them more often!
while your mind is on grand prix’s and WWII, I have been trying to find out the name of a driver but the search engines are giving me nothing. I saw a TV show a few years ago regarding a British GP driver that raced for Daimler/Mercedes just before the war, it was a fascinating story of how most people in England shunned him because of his loyalty to his german team in those troubled days. He also got married to a german girl just before died in a fiery crash during a GP, not long after this, Hitler had the silver arrows destroyed so that they wouldn’t fall into British hands.
I’ve been unsuccessful in remembering or finding out his name so I can read more about him; you seem like the perfect person to know this information with your fascination for both WWII and GP history.
BTW I would also buy the book as soon as it would be available in e-reader format
Dick Seaman. There’s a film currently in production about his life.
Richard Seaman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seaman
Dick Seaman, I presume.
Richard Seaman, I reckon. There’s a photo of him saluting when, if he’d lived, he was Fighter pilot material….
Thnaks for the info guys, I’ll start looking him up.
Sound like you are talking about Richard Seaman, who died at Spa in 1939. Details are on wikipedia and many other sites.
I had a bit of a Google using some of the details you provided and came up with the name Richard Seaman.
Is this the gentleman of whom you speak? Wikipedia entry is shorter than your message here, but maybe it will give you what you need to continue your research.
Regards,
Rob.
Ack! Beaten to it several times… Damn my slow refresh intervals!
Sorry, I was busy doing other things and did not reply to all the comments this morning. The answer, I see, has been delivered by others. Dick Seaman is the man. There are quite a few Silver Arrows left, by the way…
Hi 6
“….Hitler had the silver arrows destroyed so that they wouldn’t fall into British hands”
Fortunately for us all that’s not what happened.
For many years the Auto Unions were believed to have been dumped down a salt mine in Siberia where they would have corroded away to nothing, presumably after the Russians had examined them in order to learn from German engineering.
In 1977 or thereabouts, one turned up at Dijon, it was a non-runner so was at the end of a tow-rope, for a parade organised by Philip Morris (Marlboro cigarettes). Several people tried to buy it, Porsche were approached to make missing parts for it, eg crankshaft and supercharger innards. Eventually, British Classic Car dealer, Colin Crabbe, had it, then it passed to Neil Corner, an enthusiastic collector and racer of old racing cars. Crosthwaite and Gardiner, a specialist restoration firm, got the car in running order, new cylinder heads had to made to replace the originals which had become porous.
Over the years several other Auto Unions have turned up, the Deutsche Museum in Munich had one, for example. Crosthwaite and Gardiner have now probably restored several, they may even have made replicas as part of deals where Audi have acquired genuine cars from who-knows-where and replaced them with replicas. The Crosthwaite and Gardiner website has a great picture of Nick Mason, I think it is, at the wheel of one.
Oh and Bernie owns one!
One of the cars, a V16, was demonstrated at the recent Monaco Historic Grand Prix by Jacky Ickx, two years ago both a V16 and a V12 were demonstrated by Ickx and Hans-Joachim Stuck, son of Hans Stuck who drove for the Auto Union team in the 1930′s.
The Mercedes W154′s were distributed about the Third Reich in pairs, Mercedes recovered some but not all of the cars after the war. Neil Corner acquired one of them and raced it at the Silverstone Classic (it was probably the Coy’s Classic then) about 15-20 years ago as a replacement for his intended car which had broken. Unfortunately it was savaged by a Riley Special, I think it was, and suffered body damage and a broken fly-screen.
One, possibly two, of the W154′s was taken to a race in South America (the Argentine Temporada probably) after the war but the cars/s ran poorly. Rudolph Caracciola was the driver?
Caracciola took out Swiss nationality before the war and was invited to look after the two W165 1.5 litre cars in neutral Switzerland for the duration of the war. They were built for the 1939 Tripoli GP which they won, Herman Lang from Caracciola. Caracciola attempted to race the cars after the war, the original F1 was for 1.5 litre supercharged or 4.5 litre unsupercharged cars. I think he attempted to use his Swiss nationality to get round the ban on German teams competing in Grand Prix racing for ten years after the war but was unsuccessful.
The W125′s,, that’s the 1937 cars that ran to the 750 kg (maximum weight) I know few details of, but some cars exist. I think one of them raced in the original Monaco Historic Grand Prix in 1997, Neil Corner again?
Anyone interested in these old cars really should visit the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart, the Audi museum in Ingolstadt has some of its cars on show too.
And while you are on holiday pop down to Milan to see the Alfa Romeo museum too.
Martin
there was a book about Dick Seaman published some years ago, written by a british journalist, or historian, of name Dixon, I think. most probably out of print but certainly worth finding.
I think it was Nixon, rather than Dixon, but I am not sure
Racing the Silver Arrows by Chris Nixon, £29.95 at the time, very thorough.
There are other books by him on the Silver Arrows too, one on the life of Bernd Rosemeyer for example, it was written while his widow was still alive so he was able to interview her to get her version of what went on in the thirties. I hope I’ve remembered this correctly, most of my Silver Arrows books are elsewhere.
Martin
Indeed, Chris Nixon’s “Shooting Star: The Life of Richard Seaman”.
If I remember right, 6 Wheeled Tyrell, some of those silver arrows were later discovered in several places in what had been the Reich (as well as some very interesing aeroplanes that Mr. Adolf H would undboubtedly have prefferred not to be in British hands either.)
Most of the AutoUnions were hidden in a mine in East Germany. They ended up in Moscow.
The book is a great read, Joe.
What do you make of the theory that “Williams” survived the war and lived out the rest of his days as “Georges Tambal” with his wife? I’ve heard this theory a few times.
I do not believe there is any real value in that theory. I think that Yvonne never really recovered from Willy’s death and that Tambal was a suitable fantasy figure, someone who looked a lit like Willy. The rest of the theory is just not credible.
Richard Seaman is the Bloke. Doug Nye has written a book about his Nazi links, but it’s a hefty bite out if your wallet.
Bound in finest Okapi hide, tanned by dusky maidens on the banks of the Congo.
You may wish to wait for the Haines perfect bound version, like me.
the life of these racers makes anything you hear from the current drivers seem so tame and predictable.
Joe, I just want to throw in another vote for a Kindle version of your books. That’s the only reason I haven’t bought them yet.
Yeah, don’t know if anyone’s asked so far, but I sure would love to buy all of your books in kindle format, being completely impatient and unwilling to wait for a book to be sent to me.
I take my hat off to your parallel-universe impatience: I waited for mine to be sent to me and it still arrived nearly five years ago!
There is also a market for Non-Kindle readers such as the Sony (which I have) so can I add to the request for an e-version, please?
Your historical references to the sacrifice of F1 participants in patriotic service to world freedom is especially welcome here in the States, as this coming weekend is capped by Memorial Day on Monday. A day of tribute to all veterans, living and dead.
I don’t get this. Surely you want to buy book for it’s interest to you and it’s intellectual content. How anyone can say I’m not going to read this because of the medium seems silly to me. Has anyone looked at eBook prices vs printed copy lately? Pretty much the same for current stuff. I’ve got them in hardcopy, so at least I’ll be able to read them again when the lights go out.
So you can read in the dark then?!?!
It’s not a question of the price at all, and nobody has said that they wouldn’t read it because of the medium, that I could see.
E-readers are very useful for travellers and others who like to have a selection of books available but for practical reasons cannot.
I’d pay a premium to have Joe’s books on my e-reader, and I suspect others would as well.
(but only until the battery goes flat)
Paper just takes too much room – and I can read multiple books on my Kindle, it has a light and cover, can take it anywhere and change books anytime, it’s more about the medium and it’s convenience!
…and Kindle format isn’t portable to other devices. Once they stop producing Kindles your library dies. I think I’ll stick to hardcopy for all but the pulpiest of beach reading. My great grandfather’s library is still perfectly usable; my parents’ music cassette collection is worthless.
“it was not until 1955 that the race rejoined the international calendar”
Well, except for 1950 – second World Championship event ever.
It was a Grande Épreuve in 1948, too.
aNd it was back regularly on the schedule in what year?
If being classified as a Grand Épreuve doesn’t count as being “on the international calendar” then I don’t know what would. I would also argue that Le Mans, the Daytona 24, Bathurst 1000 and Indy 500 are also very much “international calendar” events. Being on the World Championship calendar is a different matter.
Kindle, please!