Stirling Moss won the Monaco Grand Prix in a Rob Walker entered Lotus-Climax for the second consecutive year.
He guided the nimble car to a win ahead of three much more powerful Ferrari 156 sharknoses. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest races of his career as he held off the attacks of the Ferraris of Phil Hill in the first half of the race and Richie Ginther in the second half to win by three seconds. The third Ferrari of Wolfgang Von Trips was classified fourth despite crashing on the final lap.
1988
On the streets of Monte Carlo Ayrton Senna set arguably the best qualifying lap of all time. In the dominant McLaren MP4-4 he set a lap 1.427 seconds clear of his second place team-mate Alain Prost with a lap of 1:23.998. He later described driving it as an out of body experience, during which he was looking down on the cockpit from above. After clocking the time he immediately returned to the pits and got out of his car, unnerved about what had just happened.
1995
Nigel Mansell took part in his last Formula One race at the Spanish Grand Prix, a boring procession, which saw him retire claiming his McLaren was undrivable. Michael Schumacher in the Benetton took a dominant win, after any hope of a challenge for the lead went up in smoke along with Jean Alesi's Ferrari engine on lap 25. Mansell had missed the first two races of the season as he hadn't been able to fit in the car, and on his debut for the team at the previous race he had finished 2 laps down in tenth. He hadn't seen eye-to-eye with Ron Dennis since signing his contract and his criticism of the car pushed their relationship over the edge. It was a sad end to a truly brilliant career.
2006
Fernando Alonso dominated the Spanish Grand Prix to win in front of 131,000 home fans for the first time. For everybody other than the Spaniards the race was entirely forgettable as the only excitement hinged on whether Alonso would make a third pit stop and be caught by Michael Schumacher. He didn't.
1972
Jean Pierre Beltoise drove a brilliant race on the wet streets of Monte Carlo to win the Monaco Grand Prix by over half-a-minute from Jacky Ickx. He took the lead at the first corner and none of the established names of the day, including Emerson Fittipaldi and Jackie Stewart, managed to get close. It was Beltoise's one and only grand prix victory.
