1960 - The spectators were all cheering for Moss, praying that nothing would happen to stop a well deserved victory. Nothing did. The checkered flag fell on the dark-blue Lotus, and Stirling Moss won the Eighteenth Grand Prix de Monaco at 67.68 mph by 52.1 seconds from Bruce McLaren, who was followed home by Phil Hill and Tony Brooks.
Moss was buried in roses. The little Lotus, which had gone so fast, sputtered around the city for its victory lap, and you could see only the roses and the driver's happy smile. The Grand Prix was over. The sky turned gray, and the rain began to fall again in a silver mist. And all that was left of the danger and the excitement now were three broken rose petals, glowing red in the dark street.
Fantastic ? Yes. But that is exactly what happens every year in Monte Carlo with the running of the Grand Prix de Monaco, since 1929 the greatest an most spectacular sporting event on the European calendar. Now that the Mille Miglia and the Carrera Panamerica are no more, this annual Grande Épreuve is the only existing road race worthy of the name, belonging with everything else in "the jewelbox of the Mediterranean" to a more romantic era.
American champion Phil Hill regards the Monaco circuit as a "Mickey Mouse" course. "If it were anywhere else", he says, "it would be a joke". But it isn't anywhere else. It is in the most glamorous city of the most glamorous country in the world, and for that reason is loved by the people, spectators and residents alike.
The tendency is toward nostalgia. Yet the hard fact is that the speed festival is a good today as it was thirty years ago. The difference is in the cars: they are smaller and they go faster.
But the festival was not yet completed. For now it was time for the traditional Gala. The drivers went to their hotels, scrubbed the grease and oil from their skin, doffed their racing overalls, donned their soup-and-fish and scurried over to the Hotel de Paris. Lance Reventlow, whose Scarabs failed to qualify, finds solace and haute cuisine with wife, actress Jill St. John at the post race Gala held in the opulent Empire Room of Monaco's regal Hotel de Paris. Traditionally, the Prince and Princess joined the celebration, but they didn't slow it down. The regal, ermine cool Grace made an entrance out of The Prisoner of Zenda, slow drum roll, crowd standing at attention but very soon she melted and joined the mad melee on the floor, which lasted until dawn.
Thousands who find no special thrill in watching automobiles either at rest or in motion, who would not dream of attending any of the airport and artificial road course races comprising the bulk of the season's events, flock to Monte Carlo every May.
