Formula 1 was at a low ebb following Alfa Romeo’s withdrawal at the end of 1951, and BRM’s telling decision not to attend April’s non-championship race in Turin’s Valentino Park had put the tin lid on it: F1 was a bust; and the Automobile Club de Monaco did not fancy entertaining the jumped-up/promoted 2.0-litre tiddlers of Formula 2.
This was a period of flux as the ACM sought to re-establish its race in the aftermath of war. The revival of 1948 had included motorbikes – an experiment never repeated. There was no race in 1949; and nor was there in 1951. The 1950 iteration had been the second round of the inaugural F1 world championship. This time around, however, a diverse grid of powerful two-seaters was deemed preferable to bestowed status.
Moss saw his chance and persuaded Jaguar Cars to have team manager ‘Lofty’ England ferry its 1951 Le Mans-winning C-Type – chassis 003 – across France. There it was joined by Tommy Wisdom’s privateer version. Aston Martin was more ambitious and sent three works DB3s, for Parnell, Lance Macklin and Peter Collins to drive.
The bulk of the 18-car grid consisted of privateer V12 Ferraris; mainly 2.7-litre 225S in various guises: Vittorio Marzotto, eldest of four racing brothers, drove a Spyder by Vignale; Antonio Stagnoli’s, which he shared with Clemente Biondetti, was also styled by Vignale but featured an ugly amalgam of cycle-type wings fared in with the bodywork; Eugenio Castellotti’s Barchetta was by Touring; and Frenchmen ‘Pagnibon’, real name Pierre Boncompagni, and Jean Lucas/André Simon would drive closed berlinetti, the latter pair sharing Luigi Chinetti’s entry. Stagnoli and Castellotti were entered by Scuderia della Guastalla of Milan, as was the more powerful 250S of Giovanni Bracco, recent thrilling winner of the Mille Miglia. Marzotto’s eponymous team had in turn entered a 340 American – the race’s most powerful at 4.1-litres – for Piero Carini.
French honour was to be upheld by a brace of Talbot-Lago, driven by Louis Rosier/Maurice Trintignant and Pierre ‘Levegh’, real surname Bouillin, plus the Gordini T15S of Robert Manzon. The latter was a 35-year-old former diesel fitter from Marseilles who had sprung to racing prominence in 1947 by finishing second in Angoulême’s Circuit des Remparts – a street race even more tortuous than Monaco’s – since when he had driven for Gordini.
He began his Whit weekend well by charging from the back of the grid to win the 65-lap Prix de Monte Carlo support race (for sports cars under 2,000cc) on Sunday in the Paris marque’s 1.5-litre four-cylinder model. (Moss had led for a time in a Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica before retiring because of a loose rear wheel.)
Gordini’s reputation was for nimble chassis lacking power and reliability. But this encouraging victory – plus the recent addition of a larger six-cylinder (a 2.3-litre in sportscar form) – suddenly made Manzon an outside shot for Monday’s 100-lap main race, for which he had qualified on the second row.