What the Monaco Grand Prix Is Really Like
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On the ground at the famous race, I saw A-listers, supermodels, gazillionaires—and one very impressive new watch from TAG Heuer.
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Monaco Grand Prix winner Kimi Antonelli celebrates his victory. (Photo: Getty Images)
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If you care about style, check out our guide to the essentials you need this summer right here.
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When it comes to sheer adrenaline, the Formula 1 season offers nothing more electrifying than the Monaco Grand Prix. Snaking around the harbor, beneath balconies and buildings and at times just centimeters from cafés and restaurants, the course is largely unchanged since the first car race in 1929. It’s so famously hard to overtake on Monaco’s narrow urban course that the race is, basically, an extremely fast traffic jam.
So it’s only when something goes wrong that things really get exciting. Shunts, lockups and, occasionally, rain, have the power to make a memorable race epic. This past weekend was a good example. The one thing that didn’t change was up front. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), started in pole position, held off all comers with ice-cold determination and won his fifth F1 race in a row. At just 19, it’s clear the boyish Antonelli is on fire right now, and he has already established himself as a big name in the sport.
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A shot of the race. (Photo: Getty Images)
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Behind him, however, there were all sorts of things happening to futz with the expected results. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) stalled on the start line and was out; George Russell (Mercedes) earned a penalty for veering into the pit lane which cost him any chance of reaching the podium. Both Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and Lando Norris (McLaren) locked up and slammed separately, nose first, into the same conveniently placed Louis Vuitton banner at the entrance to the starting straight. There were winners, too, like Verstappen’s young Red Bull teammate Isaac Hadjar, who, despite spending much of the weekend wondering if his car would even function on race day, nailed his first ever podium in third place behind Sir Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari).
There is no ideal place from which to watch the Monaco Grand Prix, except maybe your couch at home, where TV coverage allows you to be omnipresent around the track and fully informed of what’s going on too. But it’s still better to be in Monaco if you can swing it. The crowded amphitheater-like layout of the city amplifies the roar of the engines so much that you don’t so much hear it as feel it. And then there’s the whole social fandango that attends this particular race more than any other on the Grand Prix schedule.
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Patrick Dempsey wearing a TAG Heuer Monaco. (Photo: TAG Heuer)
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I had a ringside seat to view both the race and the heady mix of gazillionaires, supermodels, and Hollywood A-Listers in the pit lane, including Patrick Dempsey and Brandon Sklenar. Also on hand were Kardashians (Kim and Khloe), Michael Douglas, and Tommy Hilfiger (a sponsor of the Cadillac F1 team). Dempsey is a fixture at Formula 1. As well as being no slouch in the Hollywood department, he’s a TAG Heuer ambassador and a race driver in his own right, and regularly up on the podium, as here, to hand over trophies to race winners.
Monaco, with its reputation for high-living, tax-exempt ballers, has long been synonymous with high-octane glamor worldwide, something enhanced by this historic race. In America, however, Formula 1 is a relatively new discovery, fueled largely by shows like 2019’s Netflix doc, Drive to Survive. To judge by last weekend, the Americans are certainly making up for lost time.
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The scene on the TAG Heuer boat. (Photo: TAG Heuer)
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I was lucky to stay enough to stay, courtesy of TAG Heuer, on a mini ocean liner in the port’s outer harbour, moored between Symphony, the sleek family megayacht of LVMH Chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault, and the yogatastic Alo superyacht, whose bleached Scandinavian-style decks were awash every morning with spandex-decked models working out with a constant audience on the dock. In Monaco, everything is about the show; the money on show and the show on the track.
TAG Heuer has more right to be here than anyone. Monaco has been a spiritual home for the brand ever since it launched the first ever automatic chronograph, the Heuer Monaco, in 1969 as an homage to the race. Back then, the Monaco didn’t only perform differently from other watches, it looked different too. Big and square, it presaged the flashy, funky ‘70s look of sports watches to come, and it anchored TAG Heuer as a watch brand synonymous with the glamour both of Formula 1 and the legendary racers who wore Heuer watches on their wrists, including Ayrton Senna, Jo Siffert, and Nikki Lauda.
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A little nighttime entertainment. (Photo: TAG Heuer)
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Since 2011, TAG Heuer has been a partner of the Automobile Club de Monaco (the body that created the Grand Prix de Monaco way back in 1929 and still runs it today). But last year, TAG Heuer’s parent company, LVMH, made the relationship big time official, when it cut a 10-year deal that would feature TAG Heuer, Louis Vuitton, and Moet & Chandon as rotating F1 title sponsors. This year it was Vuitton’s turn, but TAG Heuer still enjoyed the rights, as official F1 timekeeper for the entire season, to some prominent brand visibility around the track.
To celebrate this year’s Monaco Grand Prix, TAG Heuer released a new strictly limited version of the Monaco that’s unlike any that came before it. In a first for the brand, the watch was created in conjunction with La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, a small watchmaking enterprise specializing in unique, high-complication movements that was founded by engineers Enrico Barbasini and Michel Navas and is now majority owned by LVMH.
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The Monaco Speed 12. (Photo: TAG Heuer)
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For the new Monaco, named the Speed 12, Barbasini and Navas rethought a previous jumping-hour movement they created for Louis Vuitton in 2009 and made it in lightweight, grade-5 titanium. The Vuitton Spin Time, the first home of the movement, featured cubes (each decorated with one of the 12 letters of the name “Louis Vuitton”) that would click over instantaneously like old airport departure boards to show the hour. For the Speed 12, however, those cubes were replaced with tiny engine cylinders that flip over to mark the passage of time. But even if you bought the new watch as soon as it was available, you wouldn’t have been able to see the trick play out over an entire day. It sold out in hours, speeding into the realm of watchmaking legend almost as fast as the cars in the race itself.
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Thanks for reading this week’s Big Black Book newsletter. See you in a couple weeks. Until then, feel free to drop me a note at nicksullivanesquire@hearst.com.
- Nick Sullivan, creative director
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