Monaco harbour's two F1 crashes ended in tragedy

Only two drivers have crashed into Monaco’s harbour during a Formula 1 world championship grand prix, and both Alberto Ascari and Paul Hawkins survived the plunge before later being killed in separate racing accidents.

That makes the pair of incidents stand apart even as Monaco prepares for its 72nd world championship race since 1950. In more than seven decades of F1 competition in the Principality, no other driver has ended a grand prix in the water.

Ascari’s crash came in the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix. The two-time world champion, driving for Lancia after winning the 1952 and 1953 titles with Ferrari, had inherited the lead when Stirling Moss retired with engine failure. But on lap 80 of 100, Ascari misjudged the chicane after the tunnel and went straight on into the harbour. He escaped from the sinking car and swam to safety.

The survival only sharpened the shock of what followed. Four days later, Ascari was killed at Monza while testing a Ferrari sportscar. The circumstances carried grim echoes of his family history. His father, Antonio Ascari, had also died in a racing crash, and both men died at 36 years old, on the 26th of the month, four days after surviving an earlier accident.

The only other Monaco harbour plunge in a championship F1 race came 10 years later. In 1965, Lotus driver Paul Hawkins also missed the chicane, went into the water and managed to get clear before the car sank.

Hawkins, too, would later die in competition. The Australian suffered fatal injuries after his Lola crashed and caught fire at Oulton Park in the RAC Trophy on May 26, 1969, 14 years to the day after Ascari’s death.

Those two crashes remain a stark part of Monaco’s history. For all the circuit’s changes over time, the record still shows that one small mistake in the Principality produced two of Formula 1’s most memorable escapes, and in both cases the drivers’ stories ended in tragedy away from the harbour.