“At Monaco you get everything that you meet on a public road lampposts, trees, nightclubs, houses, hotels, curbs, gutters, you know it’s a proper road race in the true meaning of the word.”

-Graham Hill, five-time winner

The 1968 running of the Monaco Grand Prix was my first visit to the principality and, as such, I was filled with anticipation at witnessing a Grand Prix, on this legendary circuit. Not realizing at the time that this was to be a race containing a number of firsts, with my visit being the least of them.

Of course, Monaco still hosts a Grand Prix today, providing an atmosphere and setting unrivalled by any other circuit but, with three quarters of its lap virtually unchanged since the first race there in 1929, it is now far from an ideal venue—considering the demands of the modern F1 circus. Looking back, it can be said that at the time of my first visit, F1 was just starting on its journey to becoming the high-tech corporate leviathan it is today. While the 26th Grand Prix Automobile de Monaco will not go into the history books as one of the greatest races, it did—under unusual circumstances—provide “seeds of change” that would flourish in the years to come. And those fruits, if you can call them that, are still with us today.