Motorsport: After the Lord Mayor's show comes the dust cart

This week, in the big leagues of motorsport, was a bit like the morning after the big party.

My grandmother had a saying "After the Lord Mayor's show comes the dust-cart" and perhaps that saying is apt for this last few days..

The glamour of Monaco soon disappeared for most of the team personnel immediately the chequered flag dropped and the mechanics set about taking apart the garages and bringing the trucks to the pit lane to get all the tonnes of gear back to their bases.

The 'motorhomes' parked in the worlds most expensive paddock area on the harbour side 'Quai Antoine1er' were in full swing for a couple of hours but eventually the beautiful people floated away to prepare for the overbooked and overpriced restaurant evening or the party on the boat.

Many of those larger boats vie for priority, like cars trying to exit the car park at any other race meeting, to depart the crowded harbour so that they can take their precious cargo a few kilometres along the coast to San Tropez for the evening's festivities.

In fact Monaco even has a special diving division of the 'Police Maritime' who make huge money in tips and bribes by trying to untangle the maze of anchors and chains all caught up in the frenetic scramble to depart and that departure is sometimes more entertaining than the race itself with excited crews yelling at each other in a dozen different languages.

Some of the VERY beautiful people will have donned the black ties and evening gowns and attended the traditional and exclusive 'Réception en l'honneur du Grand Prix de Monaco' hosted by Prince Albert at the chocolate box palace atop the Principality.

The crowds of tourists drift away to the airports and freeways to get back to work on Monday morning and the massive floating Red Bull 'Energy Station', which took some three weeks in assembly, gets towed back to the port in Italy for strip down and within one month the town of Monaco resumes it's normal soporific heartbeat with hardly a trace of the Grand Prix.

Just a day after the race the cars were back at base, stripped and being prepared for the next Grand Prix taking place at Montreal with, for most, the Monaco experience becoming a rapid memory.

Tales of who did what and where, normally consigned to the "what goes on tour stays on tour" folder, will be expanded and some mechanics will be elevated to 'legendary' status for some incident or another, usually away from the track.

Over at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Takuma Sato, the winner of the 2017 event, will have had to endure up to twelve hours of media interviews, probably still reeking of the gradually souring milk with which he doused himself, then get back to the Speedway on Monday for the 'traditional' kissing of the yard of bricks before going to the 'Victory Banquet' where he will collect his replica trophy and the winners cheque, which for 2017 is estimated to be NZ$3.5 million, out of the total purse of around NZ$21 million.

Then Sato will have gone on a huge four day media tour with thoughts of the next event buried deep below the euphoria he still feels.

That euphoria will be with him for a few days but will be gradually displaced by the need to concentrate on the next event, taking place at Belle Isle on the Detroit river, today and tomorrow, just six days after the shenanigans of Indy.

His team, led by Andretti Autosport's Kiwi Team Manager and chief strategist on Sato's car Paul Harcus ('Ziggy' to one and all) will have driven the comparatively short distance to their Indianapolis base and started to change the cars from super speedway configuration to road course set up.

The normal season for both codes will then be back on track without the distraction of the season headline events.

With Formula 1 going to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, for the "Grand Prix Du Canada" one of the best kept secrets on the "must see" list of Grand Prix", the F1 cars will be back in their natural environment, a race track, as opposed to "like riding a bicycle around your living room" as three time World Champion Nelson Piquet once described it.

Be it Belle Isle or Montreal, thoughts from the teams, drivers and organisers alike will already be focusing on next year at the Speedway or that tiny gem of a Principality on the French Riviera, for they will be the place to be in just under one years time.

Good or bad, love them or hate them, both places are distinctively exceptional and no follower of either discipline can truly understand their sport until they have been there, done that.