What is the Triple Crown and who managed to conquer it?

Sponsored by

This is where the triple crown of motorsport comes into play, which can only be awarded to a driver who has achieved success in multiple racing disciplines.

What is the Triple Crown and who won it?

What is the Triple Crown in motorsport?

The Triple Crown consists of three races, each of which requires great skill from the drivers who race them and they must do so in three different motorsport categories. These are the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix. These are generally recognized as the three most prestigious races in motorsport and are typically held between the end of May and the beginning of June each year. The Triple Crown, however, is an unofficial title: in fact, no trophy is awarded to those who manage to obtain it.

The Indianapolis 500 is the oldest of the three races, as drivers first tackled the race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1911, 12 years before the inaugural 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Monaco GP is the most recent of the three races, as the principality first hosted its now famous race in 1929, when William Grove-Williams won in his Bugatti.

The triple crown is a notoriously difficult feat to achieve, partly due to the fact that the races are in different series and disciplines. The Indy 500 is part of the IndyCar season, Le Mans is a stage of the World Endurance Championship (and before that the World Sports Car Championship), while Monaco is a permanent fixture on the F1 calendar.

But it wasn’t always like this. The Indy 500 became part of the F1 calendar in the 1950s, but participation was limited because many non-American drivers and manufacturers opted out of traveling to the United States, where the race was held under different regulations.

That’s why, to this day, Graham Hill is the only driver in history to have achieved the much revered triple crown. Hill scored the first of five Monaco GP victories in 1963 and won the 1966 Indy 500 on his first attempt.

Le Mans proved more difficult for Hill to master. He competed in the endurance race every year from 1958 to 1966 and his best result during that period was second place in 1964 – he retired from the race on six further occasions.

Only in 1972, at the last attempt, Hill managed to win. Hill joined the Matra sports car team just as his F1 career was coming to an end, racing alongside Henri Pescarolo. The duo won the race by an impressive 11 laps over the team’s sister car.

From a team point of view, McLaren is the only one to have achieved the triple crown. Starting with the Indy 500, where the British team won the 1972, 1974 and 1976 editions, the team then achieved the first of 15 victories at the Monaco GP in 1984. The team achieved its only victory at Le Mans in 1995, when JJ Lehto, Yannick Dallas and Masanori Sekiya won for the team in its racing debut.

Who are the drivers today who can achieve the Triple Crown?

Fernando Alonso has made no secret of his pursuit of the illustrious triple crown, as the 2006 and 2007 Monaco GP winner turned much of his attention to other motor racing categories in the late 2010s.

This started in 2017, when the then McLaren driver skipped the Monaco GP to participate in the Indy 500. Despite a good performance in the initial stages, in which Alonso did not fall below 12th place, the race ended with one disappointment: his Honda engine exploded with 21 laps to go. Alonso then focused on Le Mans, competing in the 2018-19 WEC season for Toyota, with whom he won the championship alongside co-drivers Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima, taking two-thirds of the Triple Crown.

Juan Pablo Montoya is the only other current driver to have completed two-thirds of the triple crown, and he probably came closer than Alonso. Montoya won the 2000 and 2015 editions of the Indy 500, as well as the 2003 Monaco GP. Although Montoya won at the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans, he did so in the LMP2 Pro-Am class – hypercar is the category superior – meaning he did not achieve overall victory and therefore does not count towards Triple Crown glory.

Among current drivers, there are several who have captured a third of the triple crown. Among these, MoneyGram Haas F1 Team driver Nico Hulkenberg, who dominated the 2015 edition of Le Mans, together with teammates Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber.

Of course there are many current F1 drivers who have won the Monaco GP. Of those still active (Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez), Ricciardo perhaps has the best chance of attempting the extraordinary hat-trick. While others have played down interest in racing in the United States, Ricciardo is passionate about American racing culture and is known to have been courted by IndyCar teams when his F1 future looked uncertain in 2022. He was also close to joining the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2015, before his then team, Red Bull, blocked the opportunity.

Drivers who have achieved 2/3 of the Triple Crown

Other versions of the Triple Crown in motorsport

Since the Triple Crown is an unofficial title, its definition is much debated. For example, Jacques Villeneuve believes it should include the F1 World Championship rather than Monaco, a definition created by Hill himself.

If adopted, Hill would remain the only Triple Crown winner to date, while Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, Jim Clark, Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi and Villeneuve would all complete two-thirds of the title.

There is also a triple crown dedicated to endurance racing. The endurance triple crown is awarded to those who win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Rolex 24 of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring during their career. There are currently nine drivers who hold this particular triple crown, and it would be ten if it were not for the famous photo finish of the 1966 Le Mans race, in which Ken Miles lost the victory to Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon.

Is attending the Monaco Grand Prix live the object of your dreams? If yes, go up moneygram.com to have the opportunity to realize them in MoneyGram Monaco Dream Weekend.