This weekend 2 of the 3 races in Triple Crown of Motorsport will be run. The Monaco Grand Prix (first held in 1929) and the Indianapolis 500 (first held in 1911). The other is the 24 Hours of Le Mans (first held in 1923) which will be held on 10–11 June.

Graham Hill is the only driver to have completed the Triple Crown. 19 drivers in motorsports history have competed in all three legs of the Triple Crown and have won at least one of the events. Juan Pablo Montoya and Fernando Alonso are the only active drivers to have won two of the three events, needing to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Indianapolis 500 respectively.

There's also an American challenge of drivers trying to complete the Memorial Day Double, the Indianapolis 500, then flying to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600. The feat was first attempted by John Andretti on May 29, 1994.

Four drivers (John Andretti, Robby Gordon x 5, Tony Stewart x 2 and Kurt Busch) have attempted. Of these, Tony Stewart's 2001 effort stands as the best combined result, finishing 6th at Indianapolis and 3rd at Charlotte, becoming the only driver to date to successfully complete all 1,100 miles of both races in the same day. The most recent attempt was made by Busch in 2014. He finished in 6th place at the Indianapolis 500, and was the fastest rookie. However, he dropped out of the Coca-Cola 600 with a blown engine mid-race. He completed 906 miles.

Monaco Facts

A Classic Circuit

The first Monaco Grand Prix took place on 14 April 1929, and the race eventually became part of the pre-Second World War European Championship and hosted the second round of the inaugural Formula One World Championship in 1950, the race being won by Juan Manuel Fangio in an Alfa Romeo. However, there was then a four-year gap before Formula One racing returned to Monte Carlo in 1955. The Monaco Grand Prix has remained on the calendar ever since, with only Monza having played host to more races.

Although the basic layout of the circuit has remained the same since the inaugural race, several revisions have been made over the years, most notably in 1973 when the building of a swimming pool on the harbour front necessitated the use of a new section. The current final corners, La Rascasse and Anthony Noghes, were introduced in the same year in place of the Gasworks hairpin.


33 kilometres of safety rails

Safety first! Each year, a whopping 33 kilometres of safety rails are erected. This is on top of 3600 tyres for tyre barriers and 20,000 square metres of wire catch fencing. Also set up are 1,100 tonnes of grandstand seating for spectators and some 650 marshals are also stationed around the track on a race weekend. This is what happens when you have to turn a city into a full-fledged race circuit…


Mediterranean crashes

Quite surprisingly, only two cars have ever ended up in the Mediterranean from a Monaco Grand Prix. Alberto Ascari and Paul Hawkins were the two drivers who had their backs to the race track as they crashed into the sea.


Oldest Formula One competitor

The oldest F1 driver to race in the Monaco Grand Prix – incidentally a Monegasque racer – was Louis Chiron. He was 55 years old when he raced in 1955.


Two months of setting up

The Monaco Grand Prix requires around six weeks to set up the track before the race and three weeks to remove it afterwards.

they got out the cars before they sank and had a little swim, before a boat rescued them

Indy 500 facts


Indy 500 founder

Carl Fisher created the Indianapolis Motor Speedway because he realised there was an appetite for motor racing as cars became more commonplace.

He’d already made a fortune with his Prest-O-Lite acetylene lights for cars and his flair for promotion made him the ideal person to build a track.

The Indianapolis circuit opened in 1909, though early races were dogged by dust from the crushed stone surfaces.

To counter this, Fisher resurfaced the track in 1911 with 3.2 million bricks, which earned it the nickname ‘The Brickyard’.


Second purpose-built track

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway became only the second purpose-built motor racing circuit in the world when it opened in 1909, two years after Brooklands in the UK hosted its first race. This made it the heart of motor racing in the US – and it remains so to this day.

The 2.5-mile track was built as an oval and the first 500 race was run in 1911. It has also been used as part of the World Championship in two different periods, from 1925 to 1928 and again between 1950 and 1960.


The Borg Warner Trophy

The Borg Warner Trophy has become one of many traditions associated with the Indy 500. Made from sterling silver, it weighs 110lb (50kg) and stands at 65 inches (165cm) tall, making it almost as big as many of the drivers.

It was commissioned in 1935 at a cost of $10,000 and has been presented to the Indy 500 winner ever since.

Every year, the race winner’s face is created in silver and added to the trophy, which also has the faces of all the victors going right back to Ray Harroun.


Drink of milk

Rather than spraying champagne, the winner of the Indy 500 is usually seen glugging from a bottle of milk. This tradition goes back to three-time winner Louis Meyer, who often drank cold milk to keep cool on hot days.

He was photographed having a swig of milk after winning the 1936 race and the Milk Foundation seized on the opportunity.

Drinking milk become a permanent fixture for the winner of the Indy 500 from 1956.


500 miles

The 500-mile distance for the Indy event was arrived at when founder Carl Fisher and his partners decided spectators wanted a race they could watch between mid-morning and late afternoon.

It also handily made up 200 laps of the 2.5-mile oval track.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has four corners and four straights, and it’s used the same layout since it was opened in 1909.

This weekend is...

Le Mans Facts

WHY A 24-HOUR RACE?
The original aim of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was to create an endurance race for cars, the automobile industry still being in its relative infancy, which would prove their durability, reliability, quality and performance. A 24-hour race would be the ultimate test for man and machine.

DRIVERS COUNT IN THEIR HEADS
During the night and at speeds of over 300km/h, sometimes in wet weather, visibility inside the cockpit can be poor. Aside from the marker boards at the side of the track, to help them know when to brake, some drivers count in their heads along the straights in order to know when a corner is approaching.

THE BIGGEST WINNING MARGIN WAS 350KM
Well, 349.808 km to be precise. This biggest gap between the winner and the runner-up was back in 1927 when the winners streaked ahead in a Bentley and left the runners-up almost 350 km behind in a Salmson. That is a whopping 20 laps, and given that lap times were some way above eight minutes, the winning car was in the region of two and half hours ahead!

If you want to know the shortest margin watch the Le Mans 66 film


A RECORD SPEED OF AROUND 405KM/H (251mph)
Before two chicanes were added (first used for the 1990 race), the famous Hunaudières straight measured 5.8 km in length. In 1988, Frenchman Roger Dorchy, was recorded driving at speeds of over 400km/h. The fastest ever lap of Le Mans was set more recently in 2017, when Kamui Kobayashi took his Toyota TS050 HYBRID around the track in a time of 3:14.791! That's an average speed of 156.512mph

Most distance covered is 3362 miles (5410.713km)
Thats nearly one whole way around the world!
It was completed in 2010 by Audi R15 TDI-plus driven by Romain Dumas, Timo Bernhard and Mike Rockenfeller completing 397 laps of the circuit


THREE SAFETY CARS
Normally there is only one safety car at a WEC race but, for Le Mans, three safety cars are needed to cover the full 13.62 km length of the circuit. They are coordinated to be permanently equidistant and to ensure fairness when the race resumes.

THE CHAMPAGNE SHOWER WAS BORN AT LE MANS
American driver Dan Gurney, winner of the 1697 Le Mans, is the man responsible for starting the podium champagne shower tradition. He was keen to recreate a scene from the previous year when the cork accidentally shot out and sprayed the crowd. The following year, Dan shook his own bottle and the tradition has stuck.