In Monaco, Lewis Hamilton, who last week was judged to be Britain's wealthiest sportsman with a fortune of £68 million (€84m), is not conspicuously loaded.
In this rich man’s favela, where ugly and randomly constructed buildings huddle on a hill, billionaires are more common than they would like to be.
Hamilton, though, is the luckiest man in Monte Carlo, or so he sounded when he spoke before tomorrow's Monaco Grand Prix. Wherever we are in the world he will say "this is one of my favourite tracks". Here, though, he means it, and not just because Monaco is home.
“It’s the most incredible rollercoaster ride,” he said. “It’s a circuit where you have to walk very slowly before you can run. There’s not a single part that doesn’t make my hair stand up on end. It’s the whole track.
“I wish you could feel what we feel when we go round here. When you go on the most scary rollercoaster ride, perhaps when you drop off a cliff and you go down that first bit, that fear factor, that initial part, lasts for just a second. But here it’s the whole lap. It’s scary but it’s cool. It’s all these different emotions in one.”
Talking about the Piscine (swimming pool) section, he says: “It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s insane how fast we go through there. The coolest thing is they allow us to race here. It’s the most real race there is. It’s a massive risk to try to overtake. But over a single lap, it’s the best.”
'Trashed car' The Monaco Grand Prix is totally ridiculous. Like the late and much lamented (in Formula One terms) Brands Hatch and Imola, the modern racing car has outgrown Monaco. There are no gravel traps or run-off areas on this street circuit and if the idea of holding a race here was put to the FIA today, it would be thrown out, accompanied by incredulous chuckles. This place is a haven not only from the taxman but also from health and safety regulations.
Mark Webber, the former Red Bull driver, said: “You’d never design a track like this now. It’s a law unto itself and it’s right on the edge for all of us. And it can make you look as stupid as hell, because at Monaco there’s no difference between a small mistake and a big mistake. The result is the same, a trashed car.”
Michael Schumacher described Monaco as unsafe but added that the risk was “justifiable once a year because it’s so much fun to drive”.
Hamilton, 29, mastered the challenge when he was very young. He won here in GP2 in 2006, was second in his F1 debut year of 2007 and won in 2008 but has not achieved a podium place in five years.
So he is a little like his hero Ayrton Senna, who won here six times but is remembered just as strongly for his failures – in 1984 heavy rain prompted the stewards to stop the race just as the Brazilian was about to catch Alain Prost. In 1988 he held a commanding lead when he hit a barrier. He went straight to his room, took the phone off the hook and wept.
Hamilton has sympathy for the Monaco newcomer Daniil Kvyat. “It’s going to be a nightmare. It’s going to be scary for him. It’s so fast. We go up the hill at nearly 200mph, and you can’t even see the corner as it drops down. You’re just looking at the sky and all of a sudden the corner arrives, and you can’t see round it. I’m just getting excited thinking about it. ” Guardian Service
