The Grand Prix was canned, but a Ferrari was still caned around Monaco by a top works driver today.

‘SOME appointments in the calendar cannot be forgotten.’

So says Ferrari in explaining its part in a just-conducted short film shoot.

Today should have been the Monaco Grand Prix. Coronavirus put a stop to that, yet local boy Charles Leclerc still ensured a Ferrari was hurtling around its streets.

With full factory support, Leclerc got behind the wheel of Ferrari’s SF90 Stradale early on race morning to assist director Claude Lelouch with the shooting of a short film reprising the theme of another, very famous flick.

“Le Grand Rendez-Vous” is inspired by LeLouch’s famous ‘C’etait un Rendez-Vous” filmed in 1976 and subsequently lauded as a pretty nifty homage to fast cars.

The original was an eight-minute drive through Paris during the early hours of a Sunday morning in August (when much of Paris is on summer vacation), accompanied by sounds of a high-revving engine, gear changes and squealing tyres. LeLouch, and Ferrari, insist the epochal movie was made with a Ferrari 275 GTB, but dark rumours still persist that the actual film car was a Mercedes 450 SE 6.9L, with the Fezza’s soundtrack dubbed in.

No matter. This time there’s no doubting. The Ferrari SF90 Stradale, the Prancing Horse’s first series production hybrid model, and the Monegasque talent, are very mich front and centre in what is promised to be a breathtaking drive through the Principality’s winding streets and roads.

We’’d like to show you the footage, but it won’t be released until June 13. In the meantime, Ferrari has furnished some stills. And, as a treat, we’ve included the 1976 original. See below.

The promise is that the film evokes both the atmosphere of the beloved Grand Prix and Lelouch’s original.

Leclerc certainly let his enthusiasm run wild, the car reaching speeds of up to 240kmh on the closed roads.

Ferrari knew it would do the job, saying before the action began: “On the city circuit the SF90 Stradale will measure its unmatched performance for a Ferrari production car: 736kW (1000bhp), a weight-to-power ratio of 1.57 kg/bhp, and 390kg of downforce at 250kmh.

“The car’s name, a reference to the 90th anniversary of Scuderia Ferrari celebrated last year, exemplifies the symbiosis of transferred technology between Ferrari road and track cars, of which this recent model is the maximum expression.”

The brand cited what it is calling the first post lockdown French shoot as a symbolic restart of a gradual return to the ‘new normal’ after the pandemic and the restart for the film industry, impacted significantly by recent restrictions.

Ferrari said welcomed partnership in the film as a way of demonstrating support for its tifosi, clients and supporters as an expression of  hope that the world will gradually be able to absorb the painful and complex health crisis which has affected everyone, allowing us to begin to look positively towards the future, also in anticipation of the expected restart of the F1 season in July. 

Leclerc was joined at the film shoot - but presumably not in the car - by Prince Albert II of Monaco and Ferrari Chairman John Elkann