An F1 race track of the size of a country!

Now imagine! A beautiful country smaller than New York’s Central Park. Now imagine this very country building a WORLD CLASS street circuit and race track spanning one-third of this length, filled with 6 times more people than its population overnight! We are sure the F1 fans here know what we're talking about. The famous, prestigious, exclusive Monaco F1 Grand Prix.

After Vatican City, which is a mere 108 acres in size, Monaco is the 2nd smallest nation in the world - 499 acres in size. Since 1929, the European Principality of Monaco has been hosting the Grand Prix which brings close to 200000 people into a country with a mere population of 38000. The overall race track hasn’t changed since then, owing to the lack of space to do so. And hosting a Grand Prix here is nothing short of a logistical and engineering marvel.

The street circuit where we see F1 cars zooming past at 300 km/hr, is actually just a regular city road. So preparing for the weekend means all the road construction has to be done very carefully, with strict standards. In a matter of 3 weeks, a humongous amount of temporary construction takes place in order to house the viewers of the grand prix. The unique structure of Monaco - filled with skyscrapers - gives the audience plenty of places from where one can enjoy the grand prix. The circuit’s official capacity is merely 37,000 which makes it the smallest capacity circuit among all F1 circuits.

However, as a lot of people view the races from skyscrapers, the city houses 200,000 people during the grand prix. 21 kilometers of safety railings and 20,000 square meters of safety mesh are installed to protect the viewers from car accidents. The country builds a maze of temporary bridges and gangways while the race is on, as their most common roads are reserved for the grand prix. Imagine making totally new but temporary infrastructure for transport for a matter of less than a week. And then as soon as the race is over, the country returns to its normal self. The whole Monaco Grand Prix - in all its aspects is a feat of modern F1. Have you ever been to the Monaco Grand Prix? Tell us, about your experience in the comments.