Super Sunday Returns

Ahead of us this Memorial Day weekend, after the disappointment of the far from stellar All-Star Race, is the greatest day in motorsports with not one, not two but three iconic races across multiple different racing series. Whetting the appetite even further, is the fact that we haven’t seen this trio of races on Memorial Day Sunday since 2019 with the F1 race being canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic and shifted a week earlier last year.

For racing aficionados, then, it doesn’t get to look much better than this upcoming Sunday (May 29).

First up, and obscenely early if you live on the West Coast, in the Principality of Monaco on the picturesque French Riviera we have the Monaco Grand Prix. The inaugural race was all the way back in 1929 and it was a part of the first official Formula One season in 1950.

The narrow confines of the street circuit make overtaking supremely difficult with former Brazilian F1 driver and three-time world champion Nelson Piquet describing driving the circuit as “like riding a bicycle around your living room,” an apt description if ever there was one. So, as you might expect when passing is at an absolute premium heightening the importance of qualifying. In fact, you have to go all the way back to Olivier Panis in 1996, some 26 years ago, to find the last time a driver won from outside a top-three starting position.

Panis started 14th, just for the record.

This will be race No. 7 of the 23-race 2022 Formula One slate and to date the season has been dominated by the Ferrari and Red Bull outfits with Charles Leclerc (two wins) and 2021 F1 champion Max Verstappen (four wins) hoovering up all the victories to date.

Shockingly, perhaps, after years of ruthless domination, seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team have struggled mightily, some distance behind the two previously named manufacturers. The British veteran sits in sixth place in the standings some 45 points — and a country mile — off the pace….