It’s narrow in Monaco!

Bruce McLaren drives his McLaren M7C carefully through the narrow streets of Monaco (picture-above) ahead of the Thursday practice sessions of the 1969 Monaco Formula One Grand Prix. Those days, the teams were stationed in garages in town and the drivers or mechanics had to find a way to the circuit in the streets of the Principality.

Notice the huge double wing that was only used that day. It was supposed to deliver a lot of downforce, (in theory) very useful on the slow circuit of Monaco, but on Thursday evening, following the terrible Montjuic crash, the CSI/FIA decided to ban these high wings.

Bruce McLaren qualified his car in eleventh position, drove a steady race, without wings (picture-below), and finished in fifth, one lap behind winner Graham Hill in his Lotus 49-Ford. It was Hill’s 14th and final World Championship race victory, and his fifth Monaco win, a record that would stand for 24 years.