Two weeks before this year’s Monaco Grand Prix round of the FIA’s Formula One World Championship, the streets of the Principality echoed with the sounds of historic racing cars as the 9th Grand Prix de Monaco Historique took its turn around the fabled circuit. Monaco hosts the vintage racecars every other year, and this year’s homage to the past featured Grand Prix cars from 1925 to 1978, as well as Formula Three cars built between 1974 and 1978, and sports cars from 1952 to 1955. While F3 regularly served as the main support race for the GP, sports cars were actually the feature race in 1952, when Vittorio Marzotto won as Ferrari swept the top five places.
Among the highlights of the event was a race-long duel between Paddins Dowling’s ERA and Matthew Grist’s Alfa Romeo Tipo B (pictured below), in the pre-1939 GP event that was eventually settled in Grist’s favor. Roger Wills (pictured above) topped the pre-1961 field in his Cooper T51-Climax, taking a four-second win over the Maserati 250F “Piccolo” of Frank Stippler, while Andy Middlehurst was the runaway victor in the 1961-’65 Grand Prix race with the Classic Team Lotus 25-Climax.
The Formula Three drivers proved to be equally as feisty as they were 40 years ago, with nose-to-tail dices throughout the field as Paolo Barilla ultimately took victory in his Chevron B34. In the sports car race, Alex Buncombe drove the Jaguar Heritage Racing C-Type to the win ahead of John Ure’s Cooper T24-Bristol.
