Shoestring Millionaire
August 2001

It's the glitziest F1 race of the season, but a weekend in Monaco surely costs and arm and a leg. BMW Car shows it can be done on a budget.

Monaco. The gregarious multimillionaires playground where the world's largest private yachts rock gently in the harbour, crammed together tighter than the penthouse flats that surround them. The sun beats down relentlessly, sparkling off the Mediterranean and turning the glamorous and absurdly rich playboys and girls a very deep shade of brown. It's Grand Prix weekend and that means it's the place to be seen. The stars are out in force, ready to party and soak up the atmosphere. For many of them, the race is incidental, a noisy distraction to interrupt the socialising and serious business of sunbathing.

Not for the true fans, though. How do they get a look in? Space is limited, and as demand out strips supply, ticket prices are high, even by formula 1 standards. Spending the weekend here surely requires a second mortgage. Doesn't it?
Not necessarily. In fact, we believe there may be a way to see it for less money than an outing to the British GP at Silverstone, and that includes the cost of getting there.
It sounds impossible, but there are some raceday tickets available for just 300 francs (about £30), and that gives us a huge head start against the Northamptonshire equivalent, where you need a minimum of £95 to just see the race of £150 for the weekend. If you fancy the luxury of a grandstand seat for the race and qualifying, Silverstone will relieve your wallet of at least £245. That's not the end of it either, because after the 2000 GP mud bath debacle, there are now extra charges of at least £15 per person just to get the bus from the car park to the circuit.

To find out if it really can be done and what kind of view you get for your 30 quid, snapper Antony Fraser and I were forced out of our beds before 2am on the Friday before the race to catch the 5.15am Sea France ferry from Dover. These early crossings are a fair chunk cheaper than the civilised-hour crossings but, of course, these boats are empty so we would at least be able to catch a couple of hours shuteye on the way over. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that this was a bank holiday weekend and the boat was full of excitable and very loud kids. It was going to be a long day.
It may be the entire length of France away (about 700 miles from Calais), but on the quiet AutoRoute's you can really crack on. Driving in two-hour shifts, we were able to make remarkable progress in our 325Ci. We had hoped to take the 330d, as not only would that have been cheaper, but that was the car Jenson Button famously drove down in last year. The Daily Mail was outraged that he has been caught speeding at 141mph and absolutely disgusted when his dad told them he thought it funny. BMW probably couldn't believe its luck, publicity for a sporting diesel couldn't have been bettered. Not only was the world told it was the choice of Formula 1 drivers (actually, it was the quickest car JB was able to drive on BMW's insurance policy because of his age), it capable of decent speeds, too. The temptation to replicate his antics was tempered by the thought that we were unlikely to escape with a 5000-franc fine and a few autographs for the gendarme.
We weren't going slowly, though. The 325Ci soaked up the miles easily. Quiet, composed, air conditioned ad effortless, perfect for our sleep-deprived bodies. By 5pm we were in Monte Carlo, driving around the circuit. Full of traffic, it was hard to imagine that the following morning two very different BMWs would be reaching speeds of over 180mph.
After a 24-minute lap it was time to look for somewhere to stay, and here I had a cunning plan. Nice, only 20 miles away, has a multiple of cheap chain hotels, such as Campanile, climate de France and Blue Marine. Not only that, the return train fare was only 40 francs and there's a secure car park right next to it.

Of course, we forgot to book in advance - every single one of them was full. Nearing exhaustion from being awake for so long, we eventually found a Novotel with one spare twin room, so we took it, as by now we were barely able to move. Unfortunately, it was opposite the airport, so we had to pay airport prices and the £110 bill blew our budget before we'd even seen the race. At that moment, however, I couldn't have cared. I collapsed on the bed and slept deeply for a couple of hours.
Batteries recharged and a shower and a change of clothes and we were ready to head back along the cost. Well, you can't come all this way and not sample the nightlife. We parked on the startline and wandered up the steep hill, past the boutiques and into Casino Square. Just down from there, at Mirabeau, is a row of bars that are now separated from the road by huge crash barriers and catch fencing. It made squeezing by and getting a drink a little tricky but no one seemed to care, the place was buzzing, you could sense the anticipation for the weekend ahead and while we supped on our Stella's, a succession of Ferrari F355s roared past on the other side of the fence. On the way back to the car, I literally bumped into Jackie Stewart, who was busy walking some guests around the circuit - and this was at 1am.
Next morning, after checking out of our extortionate hotel, we caught the train for qualifying, arriving just as the one-hour session got underway. It cost just 200 francs to watch this from Secteur Rocher, the rock upon which the Prince Rainer's Palace is built. You can stand wherever you like, from low down overlooking the final corner, to high up, with a panoramic view of the whole of the harbour. Our late arrival gave us little choice and a poor vantage point on one of the main pathways. It mattered little, as to hear the incredible sounds of the V10 engines bouncing off the buildings was a treat in itself.
Afterwards, we could have stayed for the Formula 3000 and Renault Clio races, but it would have been an anti-climax after witnessing the screaming F1 cars on the limit, brushing the barriers, and anyway, we had a better idea.
This region has some of the best driving roads in Europe and it would have been criminal not to use them as we still had to find another hotel for the night. This actually turned out to be easy. As we drove out of Nice into the surrounding hills, we came across a number of small, family run and crucially, cheap hotels and we were soon booked in for the next two nights, leaving us free to explore the tortuous climb of the Col de Turini. These hills are not only a test of driving skill but also of the machine and the 325i felt a little short of puff powering out of the tight hairpins of the Col, the mid-range torque of the diesel would have been better here, but the chassis, brakes and steering were well up to the task, so much that we drove some sections twice.
Raceday. The alarm clock rudely awoke us at the ridiculous hour of 5am, but if our experiences were anything to go by, this was necessary to guarantee a good spot. Two hours later, perched like seagulls on a cliff, we found it. Just above the Anthony Noghes bend we had a perfect view of the bottom half of the start/finish straight and the Ferrari pits. It was less than comfortable though, dusty and almost impossible to sit down. The crowd seemed to be comprised entirely of Germans and Italians who all only had eyes for the red cars.
Once in position, there was no going back, and it would have been impossible, every small space was filled with a body, whether a vantage point was up a tree or required the agility of a mountain goat to access it, someone was there. And this was a couple of hours before there was any track action at all.
Monaco is not a pretty town, the high-rise flats see to that, but it's at its best in the soft, watery, early morning light, before the full-on onslaught of the sun arcing across the sky. It was a relief when the cars came out for their warm-up, at last the show was up and running and we had something to take our minds off our feet and ankles, already aching from standing on the same spot. A Porsche Supercup race and another round of the armco-clattering Clio Sport Championship filled the morning whilst the Swiss Airforce aerobatics team performed a few tricks during lunch and, eventually, to massive cheers, the F1 drivers began appearing in the pit lane. The only way in from the paddock for them and the celebs was to walk beneath us where they were either greeted with cheers or boos, depending on whether you were Michael Schumacer, Puff Daddy or pole sitter, David Coulthard. The biggest cheer all day though, was saved for the arrival of the grid girls!

At the start, we could see the last few rows on the grid and the front of the field on a giant screen on the other side of the harbour. As the engine notes rose and rubber vaporised at the start of the formation lap, fingers pointed towards the screen. DC's launch control had failed him, and he was left stranded as the rest of the grid blasted past. The Secteur Rocher crows were having a good day.
With DC effectively out of contention, our attention focused to the boys in blue and white. On lap two, things looked good as Montoya had moved ahead of Irvine at the start and settled in behind his team-mate in fifth place. The giant screen showed that he'd posted the fastest lap of the race thus far and then almost immediately showed him crashing into the tyre wall at the swimming pool complex. Ralf Schumacer continued to bravely chase his brother and the other Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello until pulling into the pits and out of the race on lap 58. After nearly two hours of gruelling racing (for us and them), Schumacer senior sprayed the champagne and the Secteur Rocher clapped, waved and blasted their airhorns in delight.
Back at the hotel, we felt we'd earned a little siesta, but we were soon heading back to the famous Tip Top bar for Pizza and Peroni. The bars were still full, but it was much quieter than Friday night, there weren't even many parties on the boats. We found Jenson Button's new yacht and even that one was subdued (he'd gone to bed early, through exhaustion, apparently). After a quick drink in the still busy Stars and Bars, we headed out of town and back to the hotel.
Driving all the way home in one hit wasn't on after such a weekend, so we took the leisurely option of doing it in two, which also gave us the opportunity to detour off the AutoRoute and head up the N85 or Route Napoleon and through the dramatic Gorges du Verdon. After the tight confines of the principality, a chance to stretch our legs was a welcome change.
Did the sums add up? Could you do Monaco cheaper than Silverstone? Well, yes, but our Novotel experience meant we failed quite comprehensively. Fuel costs to get there and back amount to around £240, on top of which you have to add another £100 for the tolls and the £150 for the ferry crossing. If you share your car with three mates and book the hotels in advance, it's still possible to see the race and qualifying for little more than £200 each. Admittedly, it was tiring and our vantage point was uncomfortable, but it was still worth it. When you add to that the glamour, the glitz, the scenery, the roads and the partying, a soggy weekend in a Northamptonshire field just doesn't compare.

Article reproduced with the kind permission of BMW Car Magazine, published by Unity Media Plc. August 2001 edition.

Article written by Roger Green.
Photography : Antony Fraser