Monaco’s transcendental track laps enough to send you loopy

The Panhard has a tiny 848cc engine but hit a top speed of 230 km/h.

The great part about Monaco is that evading tax is the moral responsibility of every citizen.

Now, I’m not suggesting that’s why the majority of the 38,682 residents are current or former F1 drivers, but it can’t help.

Plus, after the race every year, you can just walk home for your shower and ice bath. (In the top suburbs of Australia’s top cities – there are only two – there are more saunas and ice baths going in than lines outside the Gucci, Pucci and Fiorucci stores at Chaddy).

Anyway, I don’t want to blow the fiscal fiend’s whistle on Mad Max, Alex Albon, Jenson Button, Giancarlo Fisichella, the Hamster, Chuck Leclerc, Nico and Keke Rosberg (no they are not a couple) or Phil Massa to name just nine, but for a country of 2.02 square kilometres they sure pack in the tax-evading petrol heads.

The other reason to go to Monte Carlo (the global HQ of Monaco), apart from the Bread Festival every September 17 – and let me tell you it’s tip top – is the 3.37km Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco. Held around the narrow backstreets of Bert Grimaldi land, the course features the Fairmont Hotel hairpin, the slowest corner in F1 (48km/h) then a tunnel where you come out of the darkness into the blinding sun at 260km/h.

Only two drivers have decided to wash their cars in the harbour during the race and in 2003 not one car passed another. To Nelson Piquet, driving a Formula 1 car round Monaco was like “flying a helicopter around your living room”.

Perhaps this is why the race has strange effects on drivers. I’m not making judgments here (we report, you decide) but in May 1988 after winning, Ayrton Senna reported: “I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by instinct, only I was in a different dimension. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more.

“It frightened me because I realised I was well beyond my conscious understanding.”

In many rallies these same words are channelled by my co-driver, Michael McMichael, of Stepney, down the road from the HQ of a different dimension, the Kensi.

Two years earlier, Alain Prost told journalist Clyde Brolin: “I was really flying and I could not see the speed. To me it felt like I was driving at 30mph. The whole weekend was like this. Your mind is still focused but it’s really happiness. It’s happiness. And you are fast …”

And yes, even then they had drug tests.

Last weekend there were only two cars in the race. Mad Max in the Red Bull and Fred Alonso, 41, (or 16 years older than Maxie). While Fred was over 27 seconds behind the clog at the finish, during the race they were neck and neck.

I know you’re really not interested but Esteban Ocon (who was born Bread Festival day, 1996) was third in an Alpine, with Hamo and Georgie Russell, fourth and fifth. Fred will be hoping for better than second this weekend in front of a home crowd at Formula 1 Gran Premio de España 2023.

Bored with F1? Then head over to Le Mans for the Centenaire des 24 Heures du Mans.

Bad news is more Kiwi drivers (three) than real people. We only have Ryan Briscoe in the wonderfully named Glickenhaus 007 and Jimmy Allen in the Oreca 07-Gibson.

Talking of car sales: Simon Kidston sold the first ever Bentley (and first ever international entry) to compete at Le Mans race for about $6m this week. In 1923, Canadian WW1 veteran John Duff and Bentley test driver Frank Clement entered it privately and drove a super race but the Chenard-Walcker was the Red Bull and the Bentley the Aston Martin.

The Bentley finished equal fourth after a stone pierced the fuel tank and pierced one of the lights. The fuel tank leaked, the light stopped working.

Then there’s the last Panhard to race at Le Mans. Feast your eyes on the most aerodynamic car ever conceived. The little 848cc engine only pumps out 58KW “but their remarkable aerodynamic qualities enabled them to hit a top speed of 230 km/h, as much as competitors powered by engines of twice the capacity”.

Just so you know, Australia’s best little car, the Kia Picanto, has 62KW of power and is good for 150km/h. This is one of two (Panhards, not Kias). Fresh, from the Le Mans museum to the Hôtel Drouot for auction today.

Spoiler alert, the Hotel Drouot is not a pub but a big auction centre. The Panhard was a runner in the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans. Yours this weekend for about $1.7m.

In other non-car auction news, actress Joanne Woodward, wife of our late hero Paul Newman (won his last race at 81), has put a collection of stuff up for auction this month.

There’s breakfast nook chairs ($2k), an oil painting of Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy ($100K), the prop handcuffs from Cool Hand Luke ($10k), a weird oil painting of a Young Woman Riding a Large Dog ($6k), another oil of a Young Girl with a Dog in a Forest (yup, I know but remember, no judgments here) and the only racing stuff, a pic of Paul with Michael Brockman (actor, stunt person and professional racer) at the 1994 24 Hours of Daytona Race ($2k).

And from our legal reporters: In the USA Hyundai and Kia have agreed to settle a consumer class-action lawsuit worth $300m because of a huge increase in thefts using a method popularised on TikTok and other social media channels.

Basically, persons on TT ran the “steal a Kia and Hyundai challenge” which clearly many septics took up. And it’s not been a good month for the South Koreans with what’s said to be the biggest class action in the known universe involving dangerous cars in Australia beginning in the Federal Court – with the owners of Hyundai and Kia cars looking for compo.

In fact, there’s at least three class actions, with Johnson Winter Slattery filing lawsuits against Hyundai and Kia, claiming that vehicles sold since 2011 were fitted with defective engines that violate Australian consumer.

Maurice Blackburn is suing over defective anti-lock braking systems that cause the cars to catch fire. Bannister Law filed class actions against the Koreans on Thursday, alleging misleading or deceptive conduct in breach of the Australian Consumer Law. Basically, they are saying the engines are so crook you need to get some money back just for owning one.

[e-mail]