Monaco hosted the twelfth edition of Historic Grand Prix to commemorate the first victory of Ferrari in the Formula 1 World Championship. Despite the restrictions that are still in force due to COVID-19, more than 90 pilots, who were divided into series A, B, C, D, E, F and G, took part in the event.
Pre-war cars comprised Group A, as well as the iconic Maseratis 250 F, which performed in the Formula 1 series from January 1954 to November 1960. As a result, 12 out of 13 qualified cars entered the race. Patrick Blakeney-Edwards kept the lead for five of the ten laps of the race at wheel of Frazer Nash, but due to a technical breakdown he had to park his car on the side of the road. Thanks to the elimination of the British pilot, the victory was won by the Swiss Christian Traber driving a Talbot-Lago.
Among the Formula 1 and Formula 2 cars produced before 1961 (Series B) this year there was no match to the Spanish entrepreneur Guillermo Fierro-Eleta behind the wheel of a Maserati 250F. The second and third places were taken by Max Smith Hilliard and Alex Birkenstock in Lotus 16 and Ferrari 246 (DINO), respectively.
The Serie C race was made up by front-engined sports cars manufactured from 1952 to 1957. Despite the fact that, as in any race, the main attention was focused on the struggle for victory, the audience remembered three spectacular accidents much more than the fight between Maserati and Jaguar. David Hart in a Maserati 300S miscalculated the trajectory and caught a gardrail, his namesake Graus will have a serious repair of his Frazer-Nash Targa Florio after an accident on the fourth lap of the distance. At the same time, Jean-Jacques Bally was even less fortunate behind the wheel of a Maserati A6GCS. The owner will have to spend a lot of time and a lot of money to restore his Italian beauty.
In Serie D, where Formula 1 cars of 1961-1965 competed, with engines capacity of 1500 cm3, four out of seven were presented by Lotus. The strongest of them was the car piloted by Mark Shaw from Great Britain, which was once driven by two-time Formula 1 world champion James Clark.
Races in the E, F and G series (E series — Formula 1 cars with a 3-liter engine from 1966 to 1972, F series — Formula 1 cars from 1973 to 1976, G series — Formula 1 cars 1977 to 1980, Ed.) will be remembered by Michael Lyons’ fantastic hat-trick. The Briton won three races in a few hours, driving three different cars. Perhaps the most memorable victory was the one in the Series F race (Formula 1 from 1973 to 1976). Over fourteen laps Jean Alesi at the wheel of Niki Lauda’s Ferrari 312B was confidently leading, skillfully repelling the attacks of the three-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans — Marco Werner. But at three laps to go, the German caused an accident resulted in the damages to the Alesi’s both front and rear antiwings which forced the Frenchman to retire. Werner, who then finished first, received a penalty for “picking up” Alesi and rolled down from first to third position, and Michael Lyons won the race.