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Monaco / countdown / an Above Guide story
The nine months before race day.
When to book, when Monaco stops being an ordinary city, and when it goes back to being one.
01 / 10Booking
Before you book
The race is a season, not a weekend.
Tickets open around nine months out. The barriers go up six weeks before the cars arrive and take three weeks to come down afterwards — so for most of two months, Monaco is a building site with a very good view. If you are visiting for the gardens rather than the grid, that is the single most useful thing on this page.01
Nothing has changed yet
Booking
Twelve to four months outTickets open, the calendar is ratified and Monaco’s own hotels sell out — all while the city is still an ordinary one.
04 moments02
The city becomes a circuit
The build
Six weeks outAround 250 people spend six weeks turning public streets into a Formula 1 track — seven in the years the Historic Grand Prix runs as well.
02 moments03
Roads close at 06:00 Thursday
Race week
The weekend itselfThe barriers go in, the circuit closes to traffic and more than 2,000 people work the weekend, most of them volunteers.
03 moments04
Then it is a city again
Afterwards
Three weeks onDismantling takes about three weeks — half the time the build does. By late June the only clue is fresh paint.
01 momentsAfterwards
