1950 Monaco Grand Prix

The 1950 Monaco Grand Prix more commonly known as the Prix de Monte-Carlo et XI Grand Prix Automobile was a Formula One race that was held in Monaco on the 21 May 1950. It was the second round of the 1950 Formula One season with it being the eleventh edition of the Monaco Grand Prix.

Background
Heading into the second round of the season, Italian driver, Giuseppe Farina lead the overall championship by three points over Louis Rosier from France. Prince Bira was two points further back in the standings. This race was the eleventh edition of the Monaco Grand Prix with the last one that was held being in 1948 where Giuseppe Farina won in a Maserati. This time they were in the Alfa Romeo with Fangio and Fagioli. Louis Chiron was a real possibility for the fourth seat in the Alfa Romeo, especially after the third place finish in the previous race at Silverstone. In the end it was decided that for this race that Chiron would race in the Alfa Romeo.

Two new teams competed in the Monaco Grand Prix with Ferrari (who didn't enter Britain due to fees) and Simca. For Ferrari, they had entered three drivers in the main team with Peter Whitehead also competing in a private Ferrari. Maserati also had to change their slight lineup with Joe Fry being brought in for this race. In total seven drivers was competing in their first ever Formula One race.

Qualifying
Qualifying took place on the sunny Monaco track and compared to the opening round where the Alfa's struggled, this time they completely dominated the session as the first four drivers was locked in by Alfa Romeo cars with Argentine driver, Juan Manuel Fangio taking out the pole position for the race by seven tenths over fellow team-mate Farina. In fact it was an Italian dominance with the top ten cars all being Italian based. The only hiccup of the session being Yves Girud-Cabantous struggling the banks and ending the session early due to stopping on the track.

Race
The weather for the race was sunny and cool as 23 drivers went up to race for the Monaco crown. The opening lap saw three retirements with Louis Chiron, Joe Fry and Robert Manzon all retiring with issues with the car, with Manzon hitting the outside wall at Gazometre. Another driver who struggled to get off the line was Philippe Étancelin who struggled to get off the line before having to retire only two laps in with the electronics failing. After that initial start, the battle begin to start across the board with the main battle being between Luigi Villoresi and Raymond Sommer for fifth place.

This battle between the two drivers would push all the way until lap 10 of the race where Sommer made a error at Tabac and had to go into pits to repair some of the damage from hitting the wall. He was one of a few drivers that had touched the wall during the race. With the battle for fifth now gone, the next battle that was being watched was for sixth place between Prince Bira and José Froilán González. Both being in Maserati cars. This battle would go on for a while until lap 36 where Bira eventually passed Gonzalez for what was fifth place. Before then, Peter Whitehead got pass Pierre Levegh for 17th on the track in lap 14 while Yves Giraud-Cabantous steering cause them to crash into the Sainte Devote, ruling them out of the race.

On Lap 32, two driver's went into the wall at the same part of the track. Ferrari driver, Luigi Villoresi crashed into Portier. He was joined by Bob Gerard who also crash into Portier but could continue after needing to do a pitstop. Not that will matter as 28 laps later, fuel issues cause them to be out of the race. Two laps later, Raymond Sommer brakes failed, ending his race on lap 34. Lower down in the order, the battle between Toulo de Graffenried and Louis Rosier continue on as de Graffenried struggled to pass Rosier. This battle would rage lap 73 where for seventh place, de Graffenried finally passed them.

On Lap 66, Franco Rol had to retire with a fuel pump issue before another Maserati, this time Prince Bira also had to retire from the race. This one was due to a suspension error on lap 73. On Lap 83, Peter Whitehead passed Johnny Claes for at the time 11th place on the road with a pass at Portier as Levegh again made an error at Mirabeau as he struggled to finish the race. The race though would see three more retirements from the race, two of them being point paying positions with Alberto Ascari having engine issues on lap 95. Then on lap 98 while leading the race, Juan Manuel Fangio exhaust broke down giving Giuseppe Farina the win with two laps to go.

Giuseppe Farina would go on to win the race by 1.4 seconds over fellow Italian driver Luigi Fagioli as he opened up an eleven point lead in the championship. This was followed by Gonzalez who become the first South American driver to score points. Rounding out the point paying positions was Trintignant in the Simca-Gordini car and de Graffenried.

Championship standings after the race

 * Drivers' Championship standings
 * Note: Only the top five positions are listed. Only the best 4 results counted towards the Championship.