The Local - Life In Monaco

The following article, by Mark Walton, appeared in the July issue of Car magazine and is reproduced here by kind permission of the editor.

When the cars have left, this is where millionaires tread. The nice chap on the next floor might just recently have been doing 180mph past your front door. You won't be bothered by taxes, but you could get arrested for not tucking your shirt in...

Throw a rock in the air in Monaco, and chances are it will land on a Formula One driver, whether it's a race weekend or not. Unfortunately, CAR was unable to prove this theory by experiment because throwing rocks is almost definitely illegal in Monaco, as are many other things in this tiny, Mediterranean principality. Like removing your shirt in public, drinking out of a Coke bottle in the street ('DROP THE BOTTLE AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP...'), and other ugly, heinous crimes.

Which is why it's even stranger that so many people actually want to live here. This 2.5 mile long, half a mile wide independent state, the second smallest in the world after the Vatican, has a population of around 30,000 people - and 80% of them are foreign. For all I know, the Pope has a place here, too.

Of course, the core reason for coming here is tax, because there isn't any (not of the income or inheritance varieties, anyway), but life here, even with all that money in the bank to cheer you up, is going to be a strange experience - they hose the streets down at night for Pete's sake! There is no graffiti to be found anywhere, none of the sparkling jewellery in the shops has a price tag: it looks like the place they kept The Prisoner, including the Mini Mokes. And there are over 300 white-gloved policemen prowling the streets, looking for a pair of scruffy jeans or badly kept hair, and dozens of security cameras watching you, wherever you go, waiting for you to slip up, make one little mistake. Like dripping ice cream on the pavement.

It scares me when I visit Monaco.

And if all this is going to be weird for your average southern European, trophy-wife-and-Bentley type, just imagine how unsettling it can be for your regular British bloke; even if he's a Formula One driver.

To solve these and other mysteries, we talk to Johnny Herbert, regular Brit (who happens to drive for Stewart F1) and Monaco resident for three years, on the day after the grand prix, and ask him what it's like to live in Formula One's capital city. We meet in Stars 'n' Bars, overlooking a grey, drizzly harbour.

First of all, I'm pleased to say that Herbert lives up to his straight-forward reputation, when I ask him why on earth he should want to live in a tiny police state full of mink-wearing women walking their bony little dogs - because of tax, of course. But there are other reasons.

'We could have moved to Guernsey or Jersey for the tax benefits, but then you might as well live in the UK - at least here we've got the weather, and the kids grow up speaking French.'

Not that moving here is as easy as you might think. First you actually have to find a place, when a one-bedroom flat might start at half-a-million dollars and the world's population of millionaires is trying to get in.

'Monaco's full up, chock-a-block, and the difficulty is just finding an apartment,' Herbert explains. 'There aren't any houses with gardens like in England - our place is just a regular, four-bedroom apartment: it has got a small kitchen with a marble floor, and this strange, grey tissue they put on the walls here - personally, I'd prefer a wall you can paint, but we've got the tissue paper.'

Then you have to register as a resident (not a citizen - there are only a few thousand of them, and their gene pool is exclusive - limited to people who have gold and Gucci where lesser mortals would normally sport body hair).

'To be a resident you need to get your Carte De Jour,' says Herbert, pulling out his identity card. A loud explosion appears to have gone off the moment his passport photo was taken.

'You have to reapply for it every year for the first three years, and then every three years for the three after that, or something,' he says, getting lost in the minutiae of the bureaucracy. 'You have to provide a bill to prove you're living here, a gas bill or something.'

Residents have to live in the Principality for at least six months of the year to qualify, which isn't a problem for Herbert because his family is permanently here. But for the feisty Young Turks of F1, constantly in and out of the country testing their racing machines or flying tasty, young fillies off in their promotional helicopters, it gets a bit tricky. I ask Herbert if he has heard the rumour that some drivers get their cleaners to flush the toilets and leave the taps running, to create the appearance of year-round domesticity.

Of course, Herbert can't comment, other than pointing out that simply sticking the telly on and putting a few socks in the washing machine would do the trick quite admirably.

The other strange thing about living here is the number of Formula One drivers you'll find as next-door neighbours - but, obviously, being a Formula One driver himself, that isn't so remark-able for Herbert. He sees a Formula One driver in the bathroom mirror every morning. When I ask where his colleagues are, he casually reels them off like fellow office workers who live down the street:

'The majority of them live round the back of Monaco, in Fontvieille (a man-made harbour, built in the '70s to provide a bit more lucrative real estate). Trulli, Zanardi and Fisichella are all at Beach Plaza. Mika's up in that tall, blue one over there,' he says, pointing up to Tracy Island's Thunderbird HQ on the far side of the harbour.

And do all the F1 boys get together in the winter season to while away those long, rainy Mediterranean afternoons?

'It's slightly different for me, because I've got a family here. David Coulthard's a bit more of a party animal. But when you go testing you see them all so, when you get back here, you all get back to your own little routines. We've all got our own things to do. Diniz, Frentzen and Schumacher are all in the same block as me, but we never see each other.'

If you think the idea of bumping into Ralf Schumacher in the lift is a little weird, imagine swapping recipes with Coulthard in amongst the fruit and veg section of your local Tesco.

'Yes, I bump into David at the supermarket occasionally. We usually stop and have a little chat - not about F1, we try to talk about other things. I also met Alboreto in there the other day.'

Ah yes, Michele Alboreto, Ferrari driver of the '80s - of course, it's not just the current drivers who live here: Keke Rosberg still lives here, Carlos Reutemann still has a home here, too. So is this a place to settle down for good, bring up a family and retire? Or is it just a stopping- off point while your career's in full flow (along with your cash)?

'I think Mika Hakkinen's thinking of staying here,' says Herbert, 'because the tax is so high in Scandinavia, and Keke's here, of course (Rosberg is Hakkinen's manager and mentor) but I couldn't live here for ever.

'When you first move here, people do say, "wow, you live in Monaco," but in the winter, when all the boats are gone and the armco comes down, it's just a like a little French fishing village. I mean, it's very nice, and there is no crime and no bank raids or anything, but it's very enclosed: there's no park to take the kids to.

'And the amount of money here, the number of Ferraris - I think I'm doing OK, but some people here have an astronomical amount of wealth. Relative to them, my life is normal - I get the kids dressed in the morning, have breakfast, watch some BBC Prime or BBC World, take them to school. Sit at home with my pipe and slippers,' he adds mischievously.

So, you don't have a luxury boat the size of a P&O ferry, then, Johnny?

'No, boats are an enormous waste of money. They're so expensive, and the depreciation on them is worse than a car.'

Johnny, this is Monaco - you're never going to fit in with an attitude like that.

This article appeared in the July issue of CAR
With thanks to CAR ©. All rights reserved.
This page prepared 21st June 1999.