The Automobile Club publishes the session hours in the spring; the race has started at three in recent years. The grandstands on the lap map are placed for orientation, since their footprint moves a little each year.
Which grandstand you buy decides what you see: the casino, the harbour, the pit stops or the start. Walk the lap on the Thursday, then sit on the Sunday knowing exactly what your seat faces.
Pick by what you want to see: the start (V), the pit stops (T), the casino (B), the harbour (K). Tap a stand on the lap or in the list.
The first corner, where the whole field arrives together on the opening lap and the late brakers meet. From the upper rows you watch the cars climb away towards the casino, and you look back down the start straight.
Go forLap one, from the first corner.
The postcard view: the cars pass the Monte-Carlo Casino and the Hôtel de Paris at the top of the climb, and this medium-sized stand has a screen for the rest of the race.
Go forThe casino behind the cars.
A standing zone on the harbour between the Nouvelle Chicane and Tabac, with bars and food behind you and a partial view of the track in front. Sold by the day, never in a package.
Go forA standing ticket in the middle of the noise.
The biggest stand on the circuit, on the water, looking at the exit of the Nouvelle Chicane and the Tabac corner with Monte Carlo rising behind. K1 and K2, nearest the corner, are the sections to ask for. The Saturday and Sunday seats here are among the first on the circuit to sell out.
Go forThe longest sight of the cars and the view across the yachts.
Three stands built on a pier out in the harbour, above the water and among the yachts, facing the pool complex. N is the most central of the three and sees both parts of the chicane.
Go forSitting in the harbour itself.
The swimming pool chicane, where the cars attack the kerbs and run on towards La Rascasse, with a partial view of the pit lane. Close enough to see the car move over the kerb.
Go forSpeed, from a few metres away.
Directly across from the pit boxes, so you watch every stop and every garage. The upper rows see the whole stretch from the exit of the Piscine to La Rascasse.
Go forStrategy: who stops, and when.
The hillside under the palace, standing only, with the whole harbour laid out beneath you and La Rascasse and the pit entry at the bottom of the slope. The view is the widest on the circuit and the mood the most relaxed, and it is often full, so come early with water.
Go forThe whole circuit at once, on a standing ticket.
The last corner before the start straight, slow and tight, with the pit lane entry directly opposite and the start and finish line in view. A small stand with a screen: a seat for the lights and the flag.
Go forThe start and the finish from one seat.
Grandstands C, M and X are also sold; ask the ticket office what each looks over before you buy one. The station is marked: every stand is a walk from it.
On Thursday only the support series run: Formula 2, Formula 3 and the Porsche Supercup practise, and the Grand Prix cars stay in their garages. When the day's last session ends the roads of the lap reopen to traffic and to walkers, at the hour the programme gives.
Walk it then: a little over three kilometres, an hour and a half with stops, and every grandstand you might buy is there to be looked at from the pavement.
Start at Sainte-Dévote below the station and climb Avenue d'Ostende to Casino Square. Drop past Mirabeau to the hairpin outside the Fairmont, through Portier to the mouth of the tunnel, then back along the harbour past the chicane, Tabac and the swimming pool to La Rascasse and the start line on Boulevard Albert 1er.
Buy your stand with your feet: the lap above says what each one faces, and on Thursday you can stand beside every one of them.
The Grand Prix cars run for the first time on Friday. Because 2027 is a sprint weekend the afternoon session is sprint qualifying, which sets Saturday's grid, so for the first time at Monaco a Friday session decides a grid.
Friday tickets are sold by the day and the stands are far from full, so you can move about inside your section and learn the sightlines before you need them. If you hold a three-day package, this is the day to find out whether the upper rows or the lower suit you.
Spend the evening at the top of the hill. Casino Square sits on the circuit, and once the last session ends the barriers open and the square fills. Watch it fill from the gardens opposite the casino.
Saturday is the sprint, a short race run in the first part of the day, and then the qualifying hour that sets the grid for Sunday. Overtaking is rare on these streets, so Saturday afternoon goes a long way to deciding the Grand Prix.
If you are standing, take the Rocher today: the hillside sees the whole harbour section at once and the crowd is smaller than on race day. Arrive early and carry water and lunch up with you.
After dark the bars on the harbour quays stay open late. Walk the quay once the track is released, and take an early train back to Nice: the carriages fill fast, and the station is underground, cut into the cliff.
The gates open early and the support races fill the morning: the second races of the junior series, then the Porsche Supercup. Then come the drivers' parade, the Prince and Princess's lap of honour and the anthem. The race is seventy-eight laps or two hours, and in recent years the lights have gone out at three.
Be in your seat an hour before the start and stay to the flag. Then walk, do not rush, to the station: the queue into it after the race is the longest of the weekend, and trains to Nice keep running every quarter of an hour or so.
Every ticket comes from the Automobile Club, and the Sunday seats on the harbour go first.
The Automobile Club sells every stand through its own site and its office at 44 rue Grimaldi, open on weekdays. Two-day and three-day packages cover the seated grandstands only; the Rocher and the standing zones are sold by the day. Buy the autumn before if you want a Sunday seat on the harbour.
Your ticket names the stand and its gate. While the track is live the waterfront inside the circuit is for ticket holders only and the roads of the lap are closed, so allow extra time to walk round to your gate. Monaco is steep: wear shoes for hills, and bring water and a hat for a bench in the June sun.
Monaco has few rooms and they go first. Fly to Nice: the city is 25 minutes away by train, with a departure every quarter of an hour or so, and Monaco's station has exits down to the port and up to the casino, both on the circuit. Or stay in Beausoleil, the French town on the hill behind the casino, a walk from the track.
Open the Nice guideThe coast on either side of the weekend.
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