Ahh, Monaco.

The granddaddy of Grands Prix – the pinnacle of the sport and the race every driver desperately wants to have on their CV and the one most fans want to visit.

The glamour, the glitz, the challenge, the thrill of a Senna qualy lap or the barrier brushing at the swimming pool or the podium with the Royals or the yachts on the harbor.

And a terrible, terrible racing track.

Before you all jump up and down on social media about me dissing on the most famous Grand Prix of them all, please note the use of the term ‘racing’.

Thrilling in qualifying it might be, but Monaco is just not a good track for actual racing.

You know, the art of cars actually having a hint of a chance to overtake one another.

I’m sure it’s thrilling for drivers; a qualifying flyer on the streets of the principality generally regarded as one of the biggest challenges of hustling the world’s fastest racing cars around at speed.

And yet when it comes to putting on a great motor race it’s a fizzer.

I’ve always maintained that the ultimate test for a street circuit being successful is quite simple; if you relocated the actual race track away from it’s location, would it still be as fantastic? Or would the advantage of not having physical constraints like roads, buildings, trees and large bodies of water mean you’d make wholesale change to improve the product that it exists for in the first place?

I’d argue that if you dumped the Adelaide street circuit out in a blank field somewhere, you’d need to do very little to the layout itself because it was a genuinely good, challenging racing circuit for actually going racing.

The old Sydney Olympic Park circuit, on the other hand, is not something you’d ever attempt to replicate with a clean sheet of paper because you’d definitely design Oran Park instead.

Nor would Albert Park, though the changes being put in place for this year’s event will be interesting.

But in its previous layout, it generally produced pretty average Grands Prix year on year with compelling on-track action the exception, not the rule.

I reckon Townsville would pass as a permanent track and assuming you kept the walls, the ridiculous kerbs and the balconies, so would the Gold Coast.

Most of the US street circuits are saved only because IndyCar racing tends to be fairly wild anyway, but they’re probably not something you’d design if you had a go.

Monaco, however, is not a track anyone in their right mind would build had they a clean sheet of paper.

Take away the harbour, the boats, the towers, the scenery and the wealthy attractive people and you’re left with a circuit few would ever visit.

Now you could argue that a Grand Prix is perhaps not the best exemplar for judging a circuit’s raceability because F1 does a good enough job of turning in dour races on fantastic circuits as it is.

Formula 2, on the other hand, generally produces remarkable racing almost everywhere it goes yet their Monaco events at the weekend were almost as processional as the Grand Prix on Sunday.

Week in, week out we sit down in front of the TV to watch a Grand Prix because at least the potential is there for a good race to break out with all the usual drama, intrigue and controversy only F1 can offer up.

Monaco is one of those races we watch year-on-year because.. well.. it’s Monaco and as an F1 fan it’s almost an obligation. But I think most go in without any expectation that it’s going to be a thriller.

Monaco exists on the calendar not because it’s a great race, but because it’s good for the circus as a whole. And that’s absolutely fine – you need events like that. But don’t let anyone tell you it’s a great race.

A tweet from Top Gear presenter Chris Harris during the race succinctly said it all:

Paradox: the flagship F1 race is the worst advert for F1.

— chris harris (@harrismonkey) May 23, 2021

He’s bang on, isn’t he?

If you wanted to introduce someone to Supercars, you’d show them the Bathurst 1000.

There’s nothing better in IndyCar Racing than the Indianapolis 500.

If you wanted to introduce someone to Formula 1 racing you might well show them a Monaco qualifier…

But then you’d show them a race from Spa.

Photo: McLaren