More than any other Grand Prix, Formula One returns to touch its own history at Monaco. It is not reality. It is surreal. It is extraordinary. It is unbelievable. It is crazy, but it is still fun. It's also the place most associated with the money and the deals that bankroll Formula One. Atlas F1's Timothy Collings pays tribute to the glamour and vulgarity of Monte Carlo, and recalls the days when a handshake was all that was needed to win a World Championship...

The last time I interviewed Ken Tyrrell, as opposed to sharing one of his jokes, enjoying a laugh, swapping anecdotes or the football scores, was in the harbour at Monte Carlo during one of his team's final Monaco Grands Prix before the take-over by BAR.

I don't remember the year, but it hardly matters. In Tyrrell's long career, time often stood still and it was not the calendar or a timetable that mattered, but speed, results and integrity. That interview, typically, was carried out sitting under an awning on ordinary white plastic garden chairs. The refreshments, on a blazing Monegasque day, were two mugs of steaming tea and a few biscuits.

Sadly, Tyrrell is not with us any longer. Formula One has been the sadder for his passing in 2001. He was a rock of steady principles and traditions in a sea of change. The selling of his team, after struggling for years and years to compete and survive, was a signal of the passage of time and the end of an era.

This last week, as the next Monaco Grand Prix has drawn ever closer, it has been curious and stimulating to recall Ken Tyrrell regularly in my own life as I made steady progress in the research and writing, together with my colleague and friend Stuart Sykes, on a book that celebrates the life and remarkable achievements of another man of great principle, Sir Jackie Stewart.

As the invitations to cocktails, dinners, balls and receptions have fallen through the front door in their smart envelopes, requesting the pleasure of my company on yachts, in bars, at restaurants and hotels, it has been satisfying to remember the days when people just turned up in Monte Carlo to race. People like Rob Walker, Ken Tyrrell and Eddie Jordan, whose wife Marie once showered on the beach, changed into an evening dress purchased at a charity shop and went to the principality's annual glittering black-tie bash.

One invitation received has requested our attendance at a function where we are promised a chance to gain close acquaintance with a certain team, its principal and one of its star drivers, to enjoy insights and privileges and to rub shoulders with the aura of glamour that is perceived to hang around such outfits at such events. It is not dressed up quite like that, but, roughly speaking, that is what is intended.

Since some of these modern Formula One drivers, their employers, managers and agents enjoy salaries and lifestyles that would have made Ken Tyrrell chuckle in disbelief during his heyday as a race-winning constructor and entrant for World Champions, it is hard not to smile. Remember, too, that Tyrrell hired Jackie Stewart on a handshake and in all their glorious years together they never once felt it necessary to sign any contracts.

Indeed, it was worth remembering too, in these days of pubescent global celebrity, when manufactured pop stars will last for only 18 months and footballers' hair-styles earn them more space than their ability, that Stewart spent much of his formative career as a young racing driver entered under the spectacular name of A.N. Other.... At that time, anonymity ruled.

Much of it is beautifully recalled and recorded in Mark Stewart's film 'The Flying Scot', about his father's career. The scenes in which Jackie Stewart returns to Ockham, and to Tyrrell's woodyard, to revisit the old hut out of which this great Formula One team had come, are compulsive. For a taster, it was worth glancing through a part of the dialogue...

Stewart: "It was the seventies when Ken realised that to go forward he had to be a constructor..."

Tyrrell: "We decided that we had to go and build our own car and we managed to do this in secret in our Surrey workshops."

Stewart: "Ken Tyrrell, I think was a father figure to everybody in the team. It was jokingly Uncle Ken, but it was more Father Ken really. He had an amazing ability to motivate people, to enthuse people and to give them excitement and energy and spirit."

Emerson Fittipaldi: "I think that situation was outstanding. You could see that Jackie's relationship with Ken Tyrrell was incredibly strong. They discussed...sometimes they had fights."

Helen Stewart: "Ken wasn't listening to Jackie sometimes and he grabbed him by the nose in the car to get his attention."

Stewart: "I actually never had a contract with him. The time I spent there, in my first year, I had a contract with him in Formula Three. But thereafter, in Formula Two, or in Formula One, we just didn't need it. I would have trusted Ken with my life, my money, or anything."

And that is worth remembering. It is not just about the celebrity and the stardom, nor the money and the boats, nor the close affinity with history, heart and hopes, that ever-lasting and endless series of glossy films that unravel life and lives down on the Riviera. It is still about racers, team owners and their drivers, Ken and Jackie, Frank and Juan Pablo, Ron and David, and the rest. Forget the contracts. When they slide into their cars on Sunday, it is not about money anymore. It all comes down to trust... Like it always did.