Monaco Historique 2024
The Monaco F1 Grand Prix has always taken place at the end of May and, two weeks before this year’s Formula 1 race came another reminder of the glamour and excitement of the past, as the 14eme Grand Prix De Monaco Historique turned back the clock to the golden era of F1. The weekend is a tribute to, what some might say, is an age of smaller, louder, less sophisticated but more interesting machines, featuring plenty of legendary and championship-winning cars.
To help celebrate the Spirit of the Marque at Monaco, Classic Team Lotus took seven cars to the bi-annual event in Principality ready to take part in an eight-race program of events. The 220 car entry saw over 50 marques represented and this year the 33 strong Lotus contingent took the lion’s share of the honours, with three outright victories in Sunday's eight races. Including a fabulous win for Andy Middlehurst in John Bowers' Type 25.
CTL saw six of their seven entries make it to the chequered flag on Sunday and it was only a clash with an errant backmarker that put Joaquin and his Type 16 out of the race a couple of laps from claiming an excellent third. Marshall Bailey in the other Type 16 appropriately finished 16th in the Serie A2 race.
As Andy Middlehurst brought the Type 25 home to an exciting victory — his sixth at Monaco — in the 36-car strong Serie B race, Dan in the Type 21 followed him home in seventh. Following their appearance at the Stirling Moss Memorial at Westminster Abbey just four days previously, Teifion and the Stirling Moss/Rob Walker 1961 Monaco GP winning Type 18, finished an excellent 14th.
Chris Locke brought his Type 77 home in an excellent tenth place in the Series E race. Chris was supported over the weekend by his crew chief Chris Clarke who came all the way from California to experience Monaco for the first time and seamlessly slotted into working alongside Chris Dinnage and all the CTL crew.
The Serie F event for 1977-1980 Formula 1 cars was a hotly contested, rather dramatic race, that with three red flags rather messed up Lee Mowle's race in 78/2. At one time Lee looked like he might finish in the top five but was eventually classified seventh after just seven laps of competetive racing.
Ahead of the final race for CTL we managed to find a moment to get a Monaco Historique 2024 Team photo, sadly minus a few key members who we think were off watching the front-engined sports car race, which was however won by a Lotus Mark 10 so we can't complain.
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