Who Are Monaco’s Most Successful Formula 1 Drivers?
The Monaco Grand Prix is the poster child for Formula 1. Sat on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, the Circuit de Monaco provides an exceptional mix of glamour and prestige. Purists will argue the circuit is antiquated with its narrow wall-lined track making overtaking more impossible than improbable.
Nevertheless, given its setting, heritage – a Grand Prix race was first staged on the Monaco streets in 1929 – and status, most drivers would list this race as the one race they want to win. But race victory at the tiny principality is not easy to come by.
Ayrton Senna practicing on the Monte Carlo streets ahead of the 1990 Monaco Grand Prix. ©GettyImages
Triple Formula 1 World Champion Nelson Piquet, who never won on the Monaco streets, once said the venue was “like trying to cycle round your living room,” adding “A win here was worth two anywhere else”. Other world champions from the same era, Damon Hill and Nigel Mansell, also failed to win this unique race.
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Who Are the Kings of Monaco?
Since the race first became a part of the Formula 1 World Championship in 1950, there have only been 35 individual Monaco Grand Prix winners. Sixteen drivers have won the race more than once. Ayrton Senna holds the record with a remarkable six victories.
Read the story of previous multiple Monaco Grand Prix winners headlined by the celebrated Brazilian legend and including Lewis Hamilton – the winning most Formula 1 driver of all time.
1. Ayrton Senna
Winning in 1987 and every year between 1989 and 1993, the indomitable Ayrton Senna won the Monaco Grand Prix six times in ten attempts. Remarkably, his record could have been even better.
On his debut in the famous 1984 Monaco Grand Prix staged in a downpour, the race was red-flagged at a time when Senna – who started in 13th – was hunting down race leader Alain Prost. 1985 was another case of “what if”. Senna had qualified in the pole position but was forced to retire from the race lead with a blown engine.
The 1988 Monaco Grand Prix was a low point of Senna’s career. Having performed what is frequently described as the “greatest qualifying lap of all time,” the Brazilian was leading the race by 55 seconds when an unforced and inexplicable error saw him crash out of the contest.
But a sequence of five Monaco victories followed, and good fortune played a part in one of them. In 1992 clear race leader Nigel Mansell was forced into the pits with a loose wheel nut. He re-emerged in second with six laps remaining, but despite having a superior car and fresh tires, the Englishman failed in his several attempts to find a way past.
Mansell also inadvertently gifted the 1987 Monaco Grand Prix to Senna when, as race leader, his engine blew up. It allowed the Brazilian to take his maiden Monaco race win ahead of teammate, Nelson Piquet, by 33 seconds.
Ayrton Senna was tragically killed in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix just two weeks before his attempt to win a sixth consecutive Monaco Grand Prix. During this race weekend, Karl Wendlinger suffered a huge crash in practice and resultantly spent several weeks in a coma.
Mercifully, only one driver has perished in the Monaco Grand Prix. The disaster happened during the 1967 race when Lorenzo Bandini’s crashed car ruptured its fuel tank and caught fire.
2. Michael Schumacher
With five victories, seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher sits second on the list of Monaco Grand Prix winners. His career spanned 18 full seasons and, notably, the German did not land the race on any of his final eight attempts.
1994-2001 was Schumacher’s golden years. He won the race in 1994 and 1995 (in a Benetton car), but a hattrick bid was thwarted in 1996 following a first-lap crash from pole position in the Ferrari that he raced for 11 seasons.
In 1997, starting second but leading from the run to the opening turn, Schumacher won for a third time. 1998 saw Schumacher damage his car and finish down the field. But 1999 was a repeat of 1997, with the second spot on the grid becoming a decisive first-corner lead that became unassailable.
2000 could have been another Schumacher masterclass. Well clear and unchallenged, suspension failure cost him almost certain victory. And so, he did not become a five-time Monaco Grand Prix winner until 2001, when good fortune came his way.
This time pole-setter, David Coulthard, failed to leave the grid on the warm-up lap. It presented Schumacher with an immediate lead which his Italian team managed well – using his teammate, Rubens Barrichello, as a buffer.
Schumacher finished second and third in the following two editions of the Monaco Grand Prix. These were his last podium finishes. He did claim pole position in 2006 under highly controversial circumstances but eventually started the race last by order of the stewards.
Michael Schumacher thoroughly deserves his lofty position in the Monaco Grand Prix history books. No driver has led more laps of the race – 435 in total – and no driver has claimed more fastest lap distinctions. He has five in total.
3. Graham Hill
Two-time World Champion Graham Hill contested the Monaco Grand Prix 17 times. He only won 14 races during his entire career, but five of those victories came in the Monaco Grand Prix. His success saw him awarded the moniker: “Mr. Monaco”.
Only Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso have completed more race laps of Monaco than Hill, whose first Monaco victory – during an era where the race was 100 laps – came in 1963. Twelve months later the Englishman lapped the field to score in Monaco again. He completed a hattrick from pole in 1965.
Third in 1966 and runner-up in 1967, Hill won a two-hour 80-lap Monaco Grand Prix by two seconds in 1968 and cemented his place in folklore with a fifth and final victory on the Monaco streets in 1969.
Hill’s last Monaco victory was the final race win of his career. In 70 subsequent starts, he did not finish on the podium of another race. He bowed out of Formula 1 in 1975 after failing to qualify for that year’s Monaco Grand Prix.
Graham Hill was killed in a plane crash six months later. He left two daughters and a son, Damon, who became Formula 1 World Champion in 1996. The young Hill never won at Monaco but finished second in 1993 and 1995 after qualifying on pole.
4. Alain Prost
Like all three aforementioned Monaco Grand Prix winners, Alain Prost enjoyed a Monaco purple patch. His four victories at the tiny principality came between 1984 and 1988. Coming from bordering France, his triumphs were well received by trackside spectators.
Success in 1987 would have seen Prost become the first driver in Monaco Grand Prix winners’ history to complete a five-timer. But, that year, he was held in third position when suffering an engine failure. The race went to Senna, and for a decade, between 1984 and 1993, only Prost or Senna won the Monaco Grand Prix.
Thirteen career starts at Monaco yielded Prost four wins and two other podium finishes. Additionally, he claimed four pole positions, four fastest laps, and led the race for 232 laps during his visits to Monaco.
After he retired from driving, Prost ran his own team, Prost Grand Prix, for five seasons. One of its best results came in the 1997 Monaco Grand Prix, where Oliver Panis – the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix winner – drove his car into fourth position.
5. Moss, Stewart, Rosberg, and Hamilton
With three wins apiece, four drivers share the fourth spot on the Monaco Grand Prix past winners list. Stirling Moss took the race in 1956, 1960, and 1961. Contesting the race just seven times, it is an excellent record.
Jackie Stewart’s victories came in 1966, 1971, and his retirement year, 1973. The Scotsman contested the race nine times and claimed an additional podium in his second-ever Formula 1 start in 1965. Qualifying on pole in both 1969 and 1970 – only to retire when leading with mechanical issues – his record could be much better.
Rosberg and Hamilton are from a different generation. They have enjoyed the benefits of a Mercedes car that dominated the sport following the introduction of hybrid power units in 2014.
However, the first of Rosberg’s three Monaco victories, in 2013, came in a car that was not top of the tree. The future World Champion took the race from the front after claiming an excellent and unexpected pole position. 2014 was another pole-position conversion for the German.
But 2015 belonged to his teammate, Lewis Hamilton. That was until the Mercedes pit crew made a fatal miscalculation and called Hamilton into the pits from the lead of the race. The error cost Hamiton track position and his second Monaco victory. Rosberg, a local resident, was the beneficiary.
Hamilton’s first Monaco Grand Prix victory came in 2008 on a wet track in an action-packed race for McLaren. He had to wait eight years to meet Prince Albert again and receive his second winner’s trophy. Once again, the circuit was wet, and the Brit had qualified in third.
All-in-all, the Monaco Grand Prix has been kind to Lewis Hamilton. He has scored 173 World Drivers’ Championship points in Monaco and most recently won the race for a third time in 2019 with a dominant display from the pole.
McLaren Clear in Constructors Stakes
As a constructor, McLaren is the most successful team in Monaco’s history. The English squad has taken the race 15 times. Success began in 1984, but the team has not won in Monaco since 2008.
As a Formula 1 contest (post-1950), the Monaco Grand Prix history books show Ferrari has won the race on nine occasions. Mercedes have been successful five times – between 2013 and 2019 – and Red Bull is moving up the chart quickly with six victories since 2010.
