1981
As usual too many cars came for the event at Monaco and there was a pre-qualifying session to weed out some of the drivers for the Monaco Grand Prix. By the time qualifying came around there was only twenty-six cars left and of those eliminated before qualifying were two Tolemans, two Marches and an ATS driven by Slim Borgudd, the drummer with the Swedish pop group Abba. Six more cars were weeded out during qualifying. Of the eliminated were Rebaque, Rosberg, Serra, Jabouille, Ghinzani and Gabbiani.
Nelson Piquet qualified the quickest and took pole position with Villeneuve next to him on the grid. As the race started, there was an early accident at the first corner involving de Cesaris and Andretti. Piquet led Villeneuve and Mansell. Mansell retired early with a faulty suspension and Reutemann joined him with a bad gearbox. Jones caught up to the front runners and passed Villeneuve and then chased Piquet. On the fifty-third lap of the Monaco Grand Prix, Nelson skid off and hit a barrier.
Jones took the lead until the sixty-seventh lap when he found a fuel vaporization problem with his car. He pitted, but afterwards his car couldn't keep pace and Villeneuve closed in. On the seventy-second lap Villeneuve took away the lead from Jones and crossed the line four laps later to win the Monaco Grand Prix. Jones was still able to manage to hold on to second place with Laffite coming in third.
The enormous power delivered by the Ferrari 126C turbo engine combined with inadequate suspension made Villeneuves win one of his finest. Gilles artistic control and daring in winning at Monaco made the legend of his #27 Ferrari famous.
| Pos | No | Driver | Team | Laps | Time/Retired |
| 1 | 27 | Gilles Villeneuve | Ferrari | 76 | 1:54:23.3 |
| 2 | 1 | Alan Jones | Williams-Ford | 76 | 39.91 |
| 3 | 26 | Jacques Laffite | Ligier-Matra | 76 | +1:29.24 |
| 4 | 28 | Didier Pironi | Ferrari | 75 | +1 Lap |
| 5 | 3 | Eddie Cheever | Tyrrell-Ford | 74 | +2 Laps |
| 6 | 14 | Marc Surer | Ensign-Ford | 74 | +2 Laps |
| 7 | 33 | Patrick Tambay | Theodore-Ford | 72 | +4 Laps |
| Ret | 5 | Nelson Piquet | Brabham-Ford | 52 | Engine |
| Ret | 7 | John Watson | McLaren-Ford | 52 | Engine |
| 10 | 4 | Michele Alboreto | Tyrrell-Ford | 50 | Collision |