Nearly 20 years on from our F1 debut, and 10 years after our first World Championship, McLaren had yet to win F1’s most famous race.  

But in 1984, the MP4/2 had emerged as the class of the field and the team were confident going into Monaco, and their belief only increased when Alain Prost qualified on Pole.

It wasn’t going to be a procession, though: only one race in 1984 was wet, and it just happened to be the one where a slippery surface was going to cause maximum chaos. Afflicted by a misfiring engine, he was passed by Nigel Mansell, only for Mansell to slide off. As conditions worsened, Alain began gesticulating to the stewards each time he passed the pit lane, making it clear that he thought the race should be halted.

It was eventually stopped at the end of Lap 32 - at which point the heavy rain had reduced the field to nine cars. Alain had actually just been passed, but under the rules, the result was taken from the end of the previous lap, and he was declared the winner.

The driver that passed him? A rookie named Ayrton Senna.

In 1992, Ayrton Senna took his fifth Monaco victory, equalling Graham Hill’s record. He would add a sixth in 1993 but the 1992 race is very much the odd-one-out: rather than a performance of mesmeric dominance, this was a snatch-and-grab, with a sublime defensive drive at the end of the race.

Ayrton qualified third, a second behind the dominant Williams. At the start, Ayrton passed Riccardo Patrese for P2, and spent the early part of the race fending off the Italian. Nigel Mansell built a good lead in front, despite Senna’s best efforts to close it, and held it until Lap 70 when a loose wheel nut forced him to pit.

He re-emerged five seconds behind Ayrton, with fresh tyres and a car at least two seconds quicker than Senna’s MP4/7A – enough to make a move. Mansell was soon harrying Ayrton, and the mesmeric laps that followed are F1’s version of unstoppable force versus immovable object. F1’s own fan poll voted those final laps as the best moment in Monaco Grand Prix history. Ayrton had to be absolutely perfect… being perfect in Monaco was kind of his thing.

David Coulthard had a real affinity with the Monaco Grand Prix. He finished second for us in 1996, and took Red Bull’s debut podium finish a decade later – but he wrote himself into Monaco legend around the turn of the century, with Pole in 2001, sandwiched by victories in 2000 and 2002.

DC’s second Monaco victory demonstrated how critical the start is at Monaco. Juan Pablo Montoya had Pole, but David, from P2, enjoyed a dream launch. He shot up the outside into Sainte Devote (when it was wider and more accommodating than it is now), swept into first at the bottom of Beau Rivage, and held that lead for all 78 laps.  

It was not plain sailing. DC had Michael Schumacher breathing down his neck the whole way. The Ferrari driver had won the previous four races, and this was the final race in 2002 not won by Ferrari, and David, barring the laps around the pit stops, had the scarlet machine filling his mirrors for the whole race. He needed to get everything right: no missed gears or braking points, no half-slides, hitting his marks in the box just right. DC won because he drove the perfect race.

The 2005 Monaco Grand Prix was, as usual, held in May, but Christmas came early for Kimi Räikkönen, when he was handed the opportunity to ignore the usual conservative approach for a driver on Pole, and push to the absolute maximum – which is a very Kimi way to drive a Formula 1 car.

The race started in more usual fashion: Kimi got away well from Pole, and by Lap 20 had a five-second lead over Fernando Alonso. That’s when backmarker Christijan Albers hit the wall at Mirabeau. Then, as now, it was a choke point. David Coulthard managed to put the anchors on, and stop short of the stricken Minardi – but Michael Schumacher ran into the back of DC. The track was blocked, and the Safety Car was deployed. Alonso pitted, Kimi did not.

At the restart, Kimi had a lighter car but a very well-motivated Fernando Alonso (is there another kind?) behind him. The Iceman’s job was to pull away and build a suitable pit gap before he ran out of fuel. He put in 14 of the best Monaco laps anyone will ever do, built a 35-second advantage, and emerged an entirely undramatic 13 seconds ahead of his Championship rival. Thrilling.

Given the heavy rain in 2008, it’s tempting to assume Lewis Hamilton’s victory from third on the grid was the sort of wet-weather masterclass with which he was forging his reputation. It wasn’t quite like that. The race was chaotic, cars hitting barriers, hitting each other, and sliding into the runoff on every lap. Even Lewis tagged a barrier at Tabac in the early stages, and had to limp back to the pits with a bare rim on the rear right.

Having survived that scare, however, he was peerless, managing his pace on the rain tyres and switching to slicks at the correct moment. The race ran the full two hours but seemed to be both much longer and much shorter than that. At the Flag, a jubilant Lewis apologised for his early mistake, pointed out he’d more than made up for it, and suggested the team might enjoy a bit of a party later on that evening. We’ve had to wait 17 years for another one…

Lando won the Monaco Grand Prix the way you’re supposed to win the Monaco Grand Prix: put in a scintillating lap on Saturday, (in his case, the fastest ever lap of Monaco), start on Pole, retain the lead at Sainte Dévote and control the race from the front. In achieving these things, he was immaculate, but it certainly wasn’t easy.

Lando managed the race by setting a high pace and keeping a very quick Charles Leclerc at arm's length. It all got a little tense in the final quarter of the race, however. Max Verstappen was leading but out of sequence and with a pit stop still to make, backing Lando up into Leclerc, while hanging out for a late race Red Flag (always a possibility in Monaco). Lando came under intense pressure from the Ferrari driver but held firm and took a victory he described as fulfilling a childhood dream. He also took the Fastest Lap on his final tour, though by that point, everyone in the garage was too busy cheering to notice.