11th GP - 1950

Practice: Due to the restructuring of Formula 1 there is no Monaco Grand Prix in 1949. 1950 is the introduction of the first FIA, F1 Drivers World Championship. Alfa Romeo are back as Squadra Corse with Fangio, Fagioli and Farina; Fangio taking pole position with a lap time of 1'50.2" and an average speed of 103 km/h. Ferrari are back with their new cars, Talbot are the sole competitors using a 4 litre atmospheric engine and from England, the two ERAs line up alongside a tiny 1100cc Cooper F3. Many drivers are still waiting for their cars to arrive; Chiron's Maserati is 'somewhere' in Italy, the Simca Gordini's of Trintignant and Manzon have been send by train transport, but are 'mislaid' somewhere at the SNCF of Nice, the Maserati's of Bira and de Graffenried are somewhere in transport, Villoresi and Ascari are still at the GP of Luxembourg. In short a lot of unhappy people aimlessly strolling about in the pit lane.

Race
This 11th GP  saw 19 cars at the start, but already in the second lap 10 cars were eliminated by a major accident.

Farina is off like a bullet, but is quickly overtaken by Fangio in the Alfa taking with him Villoresi in the Ferrari.

Farina follows until the Tabac corner, where he skids and hits the stairs with his wheels. Fagioli tries to squeeze through, skids and hits the fuel tank of Farina's car, while his own tank also leaks. Two giant jets of petrol inundate the Tabac corner. Gonzales arrives, hits the two cars, shoves both aside, his suspension is half broken and.. another leaking petrol tank, he continues...

Disaster in the Tabac corner, luckily no fire. Imagine!

Through this forcefully created opening squeeze Chiron, Sommer and Ascari and they press on. Rosier was stopped by a marshall just before hitting Fagioli's Alfa again, however Manzon sees too late the idle Talbot and hits head on, followed by De Graffenried hitting Manzon in the back.

Skating though a lake of petrol. All top drivers could have died

That was not all; Trintignant buries his Gordini in the Maserati, Harrison in turn hits the Gordini in a skid, whereupon Rol's Maserati pulverises the ERA. Last arrival: Schell, who re-designs his car between the stairs and the Gordini wreck. The Tabac corner looked like an inferno, people shoving and pushing wrecks away to create a small opening for the oncoming cars. Rubber soles of shoes disintegrated by the petrol and the soles were like walking on soft chewing gum.
Fangio warned by a yellow flag manages to slow down just before the pile up and squeezes through the small opening. The danger of fire was imminent, when driving a compressed engine at a walking pace, one has to keep the engine alive by short burst of revving. With every deceleration a 40cm flame bursts out of the exhaust pipe, with the fat chance of igniting the lake of petrol. Amazingly, nothing of the sort happened.
Gonzales who had hit and continued was leaking liberal amounts of petrol from his open filler cap and in the Gasworks corner received a spark from a passing car. His car and Gonzales became a living torch, he jumped out and rolled over and over to stop the flames. He managed, but was terribly burned on the back.

Ascari and Villoresi battling it out in the station hairpin.

Fangio takes a lap advance on the few remaining cars and wins his first Monaco Grand Prix. While behind him duels were going on between Ascari and Villoresi, Sommer and Chiron for 4th position. Fangio averaged 91,95 km/h and was the first driver ever to lap all the other contenders.