Damon Hill finished second for Williams after starting from pole position and leading the first 23 laps of the race, ahead of Gerhard Berger in a Ferrari car.

In total, sixteen of the 26 entrants failed to finish, including both drivers for the Simtek team, which subsequently ran out of money and withdrew from the sport before the Canadian Grand Prix.

Mansell had made a part-time return to Formula One in 1994 as a replacement for the late Ayrton Senna at Williams, but was passed over in favour of Coulthard for 1995 and opted to sign for McLaren instead.

He competed in the San Marino and Spanish Grands Prix in the wider MP4-10B, but struggled to match the pace of teammate Mika Häkkinen and retired his otherwise healthy car from the latter race with handling problems.

[8] Boullion, who made his Formula One début as a result, was loaned to Sauber by Frank Williams, who was keen to use the known quantity of his test driver to evaluate Frentzen's potential for a future race seat in his team.

On the Thursday before the race weekend, team principal Nick Wirth held a press conference in which he admitted that the outfit faced imminent closure unless it received money that had been promised by various sponsors.

[11] Wirth admitted that Simtek faced a budget shortfall of several million dollars needed to complete the season, part of which was due to him being the victim of "a broken deal".

[11] Due to the configuration of the Circuit de Monaco, with its low average speed and abundance of low-speed corners, allied to the low-grip nature of the public road surface, the teams all set their cars up to produce the maximum amount of downforce and mechanical grip possible.

[11][13] Lead Forti driver Pedro Diniz was given a new monocoque which weighed 4 kilograms (8.8 lb) less than the first two FG01 tubs to have been built, and Minardi débuted a new exhaust system on its M195 to increase the power produced by the Ford engine.

[17] Simtek's shortage of gearboxes was also apparent: lead driver Jos Verstappen's unit only allowed him to complete five laps before developing problems, but teammate Domenico Schiattarella set an encouraging 14th-fastest time.

[1] Alesi carried his form over from free practice, nudging the crash barriers lining the circuit on more than one occasion to set a provisional pole position time of 1:23.754.

[10] The Ferraris were split by Schumacher, who felt that the rain shower had prevented him from fulfilling his potential, as he did not complete his full quota of 12 laps as a result of the track conditions becoming slower.

[6] Frentzen impressed by setting the seventh-fastest time in his first Monaco qualifying session, despite having to take to the escape road at the Nouvelle Chicane after encountering the rain shower whilst on a flying lap.

They were split by Coulthard and the Ligier drivers, with Martin Brundle ahead of Olivier Panis, despite the former crashing at La Rascasse and removing his rear wing as the rain fell.

Minardi drivers Luca Badoer and Pierluigi Martini occupied the provisional eighth row of the grid, just ahead of Tyrrell teammates Mika Salo and Ukyo Katayama, both of whom complained of poor handling over the bumps and understeer, despite the expected benefits of the Hydrolink suspension.

Schiattarella spun at La Rascasse and attempted to execute a spin-turn at the blind entry to the corner, almost collecting Roberto Moreno's Forti in the process; he was given a $20,000 fine, suspended for three races, for "creating a very dangerous situation".

Behind Boullion, Andrea Montermini (Pacific) set the 22nd-quickest time, ahead of Moreno, who had to share his car with Diniz after the latter's gearbox failed, restricting him to 25th place, over four seconds slower than his teammate.

[1][11] Occupying the last spot on the provisional grid, Bertrand Gachot failed to set a time due to a sheared brake disc on his Pacific, which caused his left-rear wheel to fall off on his first out-lap, forcing him to abandon his car out on the circuit.

Inoue had spun and stalled his Footwork, which was being towed back to the pit lane by a recovery vehicle when it was struck from behind by the Renault Clio safety car – which was being taken on quick demonstration laps of the circuit in the hands of rally driver Jean Ragnotti, with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's press delegate as passenger – in the middle of the Piscine complex.

The impact was sufficient to overturn the Footwork and render it a write-off: the FA16 sustained severe rear-end damage to the engine and gearbox, whilst the tow rope, attached to the car's crash structure behind the driver's head, pulled the roll hoop from the chassis.

He was taken to The Princess Grace Hospital Centre for a brain scan and, although he was found to have sustained only a slight concussion, was not permitted to take part in the afternoon qualifying session as a precaution.

[6][21] The Footwork team principal, Jackie Oliver, was infuriated by the incident, and wrote an official letter of complaint to the Automobile Club de Monaco, the body responsible for organising the event.

The extensive adjustments required to tailor the car's pedal system from Berger to Alesi's preferred set-up meant that he left the pits with only two minutes and 38 seconds of the session remaining.

Häkkinen was another driver to be caught out by Irvine's crash at the end of the session, restricting him to sixth place on the grid ahead of Herbert, who was satisfied to qualify only a second behind Schumacher.

Frentzen, like Alesi, was scheduled to take over his teammate's car after his own proved too heavily damaged to repair, but the Sauber team's programme was interrupted when Boullion crashed, also at Massanet.

[22] As was traditional in Monaco, the race began at the relatively late time of 15:30, allowing Prince Rainier and his family to eat lunch before viewing the event from the royal box on the start-finish straight.

[27][29] Most of the pursuing drivers, led by Brundle, threaded their way through the stationary cars, but Irvine knocked off his front wing, Boullion sustained a broken diffuser, and Katayama, Salo, Morbidelli, Inoue and Schiattarella were all forced to come to a halt as they negotiated the obstacles.

[11] As the drivers completed the first lap, Hill led by 0.5 seconds from Schumacher,[29] who was followed in turn by Coulthard, Alesi, Berger, Herbert, Häkkinen, Irvine, Brundle, Barrichello, Blundell, Panis, Frentzen, Badoer, Morbidelli, Katayama, Martini, Boullion, Gachot, Moreno, Montermini, Salo, Diniz and Inoue.

[11] Morbidelli also made an early unscheduled stop to cure a serious tyre vibration caused by a section of tie-rope from a tyre-warming blanket becoming jammed in one of his rear wheels, the Footwork driver dropping to the tail of the field in the process.

[29] This was the third event to take place with electronic sensors monitoring every car for jump-starts, and at this stage of the race, six drivers (Barrichello, Brundle, Montermini, Frentzen, Morbidelli and Panis) were issued with ten-second stop-go penalties for this offence.