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Monaco wins Lonely Planet Award for Greatest Sporting Experience
2010-09-10 18:44
Monaco Grand Prix wins coveted Lonely Planet Award
If anything was needed to put Monaco
back on track after remarks by Formula One’s Bernie Ecclestone that the world
of Grand Prix racing ‘doesn’t need Monaco’ , it was this award.
Lonely Planet, one of the world’s most respected print and online Travel Guides,
chose the Monaco Grand Prix as a top prizewinner in their first ever Awards,
voted for by their readership and published in this month's Lonely Planet Magazine
Writing on the awards website, editor Bill Thomas agrees with practically every Formula 1 driver when he writes that
the real thrill comes from the narrowness of the track. Unlike other Grand Prix
circuits, the fact there are no run-offs onto grass or gravel makes this a
truly adrenalin-filled race. And unlike other GPs, drivers can gain those
all-important fraction-of-a-second advantages only by literally skimming the
barriers.
As for spectators, the thrill is just as awe-inspiring. Thomas writes in
his citation 'You can't view from anywhere other than up close at Monaco and
nothing can prepare you for the visceral blast of a Formula One car in this
setting. The sound – a fiendishly loud
shriek, punctuated by sharp pops and bangs and a deep whoosh of aerodynamics –
has you reaching for your ears to protect them, and it's doubled and trebled by
the buildings bunched tightly on either side.'
The award will be presented at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea on 29 September, as part of a special 'Night in Monaco' event. For the ACM and Michel Bouquier of Monaco's Tourism Authority, it's a well-deserved prize for what Bill Thomas calls 'the jewel in the F1 crown'.