The Monaco Grand Prix is a Formula One motor race held each year on the Circuit de Monaco. Run since 1929  and joined the FIA Formula One world Championship 1950, it is widely considered to be one of the most important and prestigious automobile races in the world and, with the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, forms the Triple Crown of Motorsport. The circuit has been called "an exceptional location of glamour and prestige".

The race is held on a narrow course laid out in the streets of Monaco, with many elevation changes and tight corners as well as a tunnel, making it one of the most demanding tracks in Formula One. It is the only Grand Prix that does not adhere to the FIA's mandated 305-kilometre (190-mile) minimum race distance.

Monaco Grand Prix, round six of the 2016 Formula 1 season

Circuit Name: Circuit de Monaco

Race Laps: 78

Circuit Length: 3.337 km (2.074 mi)

Race Length: 260.286 km (161.734 mi)

Number of corners: 19 (11 Right, 8 Left)

DRS Zone: One Zones (Start/Finish Line Between Turns 19 and 1)

Circuit Direction: Clockwise

Pole Position 2015: Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:15.098

Pirelli used compounds

Pirelli will bring the following three compounds to the Monaco, to be held (May 26 - 29) on The Circuit de Monaco

Yellow soft: unusually, it’s the hardest compound of the weekend. Not so many chosen.
Red super-soft: a favoured race tyre, capable of quite long stints in Monaco.

Purple ultra-soft: chosen by many teams; the default choice for qualifying and expected also in the race.

The tires that Pirelli has said must be used at some point in the race:
One set of Yellow soft

One set of Red super soft

Each driver must have both these sets available for the race, and must use at least one of them.

The tires assigned for Q3 in qualifying:

Purple ultra-soft

THE CIRCUIT FROM A TYRE POINT OF VIEW:

The street circuit offers very little grip and a high degree of track evolution over the weekend.

Teams use a high-downforce set-up to ‘push’ the car onto the track as much as possible.

Wear and degradation is the lowest seen all year, making one-stop strategies possible even on soft compound tyres.

Tactics need to consider a high probability of the safety car and the difficulty of overtaking.

With little representative running of the ultrasoft up to now, free practice (on Thursday) is vital.

Lowest average speed of the year so tyre warm-up is a key skill for maximum performance.

HOW IT WAS A YEAR AGO:

Winner: Rosberg (one stop: started on supersoft, changed to soft on lap 37 of 66)

Best-placed alternative strategy: Hamilton, second with two stops. Pitted from the lead to take on new supersofts during a late safety car, but admitted later that it was probably a mistake.

The vast majority of drivers made just one pit stop: including Sainz who finished 10^thfrom last.

 PAUL HEMBERY, PIRELLI MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR:

“Monte Carlo will mark the first race for our new purple ultra-soft tyre, which offers the maximum performance and technology that we can put into a compound. However, the large numbers of this compound nominated by the teams for the Monaco GP shows that it is a serious race tyre rather than just a ‘qualifying special’. With the unique conditions of Monaco, and its own specific timetable, the teams will be looking to get a thorough read on the characteristics of the new ultra-soft during free practice. Only then will we have an accurate idea of race strategy, although with the difficulty of overtaking, drivers will be looking to minimise their pit stops.”

 Drivers / Teams compound choices

Monaco Grand Prix Winners (By year)

(Held under the FIA Formula One world Championship)

Multiple Winners (Drivers)

Multiple Winners (Constructors)

Numbers and Facts

Most wins (driver) 6 - Ayrton Senna 1987 – 1989 – 1990 – 1991 – 1992 – 1993

Most wins (constructor) 15 - McLaren 1984 – 85 – 86 – 88 – 89 – 90 – 91 – 92 – 93 – 98 – 2000 – 02 – 05 – 07 – 08

Wins from pole position 27 - Most recent 2014 (Nico Rosberg)

Lowest grid for past winner 14 - 1996 (Olivier Panis – only winner to start outside the top 10)

Most recent 1-2 finish 2014 - Mercedes (Nico Rosberg-Lewis Hamilton)

Most emphatic win (here) 1 lap - 1950 – 1964 – 1967 – 1982

Closest winning margin 0.215s - 1992 Ayrton Senna-Nigel Mansell

Rain-affected races 9 - 1960 – 1972 – 1975 – 1982 – 1987 – 1996 – 1997 – 2008 – 2012

Safety Car-affected races 11 - 2003 – 2004 – 2005 – 2006 – 2008 – 2010 – 2011 – 2012 – 2013 – 2014 – 2015

Red Flag (and result declared) races 1 - 1984

Fastest race 2007 - 78 laps @ 1hr 40m 29.329s (1984 red flag race finished at 31 laps in 1hr 01m 07.740s)

Slowest race 1950 - 100 laps @3hrs 13m 18.7s

Most pole positions (driver) 5 - Ayrton Senna 1985 – 1988 – 1989 – 1990 – 1991

Most pole positions (constructor) 11 McLaren 1984 – 86 – 88 – 89 – 90 – 91 – 98 – 99 – 2001 – 05 – 07

Monte Carlo, Monaco. Sunday 24 May 2015. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG, 1st Position, Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 2nd Position, and Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG, 3rd Position, on the podium.

What Happened last race here?

Lewis Hamilton secured his first ever Monaco pole position during Saturday's qualifying. In the race, Nico Rosberg took his third consecutive win at Monaco, second win of the season, and the tenth of his career, while Sebastian Vettel finished second. Hamilton, who had led for most of the race, moved from first into third place following a "pit stop misjudgement" during a late safety car period, for which his team, Mercedes, later apologised. McLaren-Honda partnership scored its first points since Honda's return to the sport.

2015 Race Classification

Did you know?

✪ Lewis Hamilton will be looking for his 44th F1 career win aboard of course car ♯44.

✪ Hamilton has set 34 of his 52 pole positions to date on Pirelli tyres. It is 3 more than any other driver in the history of F1 (Vettel next-best 31)

✪ Hamilton is now just 16 pole positions from equalling Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 68 F1 GP pole positions. Since he has

been at Mercedes he has taken pole 26 times already. That is over 40% of all races he’s started for the team (26/ 62 = 41.9%)

✪ Hamilton has won (43) 25.0% of all GP he’s started (172) and is in the top 10 drivers races to win ratio of all-time. This is how he compares:-

1. Fangio 47.0%, 2. Ascari 40.6%, 3. Clark 34.7%, 4. M.Schumacher 29.7%, 5. Ja.Stewart 27.2% 6. Vettel 26.1% (42/ 161), 7.Prost 25.6%
2. Senna 25.5%, 9. Hamilton 25.0%, 10. Moss 24.2%

✪ Hamilton has led just 1 race lap so far in 2016 (0.4%). Last year he led 587 of 1,149 race laps (51%). After 5 GP in ‘15 he’d led 173 laps (59%)

✪ If Hamilton leads in Monaco he will then have led 87 F1 GP, 1 more than his idol Ayrton Senna. Only Michael Schumacher has led more (116)

✪ Nico Rosberg is aiming to become only the second driver ever to win the Monaco Grand Prix 4 times in a row (Senna 1989-92 [and 93])

✪ Rosberg run of 7 GP wins ended in Spain. It was best run ever in his whole motor racing career to date and is the fourth-best run ever in F1

beaten only by Michael Schumacher (8), Sebastian Vettel and Alberto Ascari (9)

✪ Rosberg’s has won 18 GP. Nobody has won more GP and not won the driver’s title at some point in their F1 career

✪ Rosberg (45 F1 podiums) has exactly half the number of F1 podiums of Hamilton (90)

✪ Rosberg in Monaco can beat Niki Lauda’s 24 pole positions

✪ Vettel in Spain beat Senna’s 161 GP starts

✪ Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas are the only drivers to have finished in the points in all 2016 Grand Prix to date

✪ Nico Hulkenberg is scheduled to make his 100th Grand Prix start on Sunday

CONSTRUCTORS’

✪ Mercedes aiming for an 12th pole in a row. Mercedes’ best-ever run of poles is 23 (Great Britain 2014 to Italy 2015 inclusive), and is beaten

only by Williams’s run of 24 poles in 1992 – 93

✪ Mercedes beat Red Bull Racing’s 57 F1 pole positions with pole in Spain

✪ Mercedes won its 49th F1 World Championship race victory in Russia. To date Mercedes has won just over one-third of all the F1 GP it has

has competed in (49 wins/ 132 races = 37.1%). Mercedes is now 2 wins behind Red Bull’s F1 career total of 51

✪ Ferrari has been represented on all 5 race podiums so far this season, a record no other team can boast

✪ Williams is the only team to have finished both cars in the points at all races so far in 2016

✪ McLaren in Monaco will celebrate their 50th anniversary of becoming a F1 constructor. The marque entered a Grand Prix for the first time

here in 1966 with Bruce McLaren driving the single-car entry. Originally it had been planned to enter two McLaren-Fords, one for McLaren

and the other for fellow Kiwi Chris Amon. McLaren retired on only the 9th lap with an oil leak. He had started P10 on the 16-car grid

 MONACO GRAND PRIX

✪ Mercedes will be aiming for a 4th successive Monaco Grand Prix victory. Only 2 other constructors have won 4 or more in a row in Monaco.

BRM won 4 in a row (1963 to 1966 inclusive) while McLaren won a record 6 in a row (1988 to 1993 inclusive)

✪ 20 years ago Olivier Panis became the only driver to win a Monaco Grand Prix from a starting grid outside of the top 10. Panis started P14

✪ The 1996 race is notable for other things too. Firstly, that just 3 cars were actually moving under power at the end, the lowest-ever number in

any Grand Prix. Secondly, it remains the most recent F1 Grand Prix won by a French driver. Thirdly, it marked the final win for Ligier in F1

✪ 50 years ago F1 celebrated ‘the return to power’ with the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix being the first race of the then new 3-litre non turbo / 1.5

litre turbo engine regulations. However, just 4 cars were classified as finishing, the lowest number ever in any Grand Prix before or since.

1998 Monaco Grand Prix. Monte Carlo, monaco. 21-24 May 1998. Mika Hakkinen (McLaren MP4/13 Mercedes-Benz) leads the field into Ste. Devote at the start.

World Drivers' Championship standings

 World Constructors' Championship standings

 Drivers penalty points: