The most important weekend in motorsport has all but arrived, two thirds of the 'triple-crown' takes place on Sunday starting with the Monaco GP and ending with the Indy 500 utterly wonderful. But as always the Monaco weekend is a bit of a double edged sword in many respects, because although we are treated to the drivers struggling around one of the most difficult tracks for the new turbo engines... they bring along a very crowded bandwagon. Monte-Carlo is constantly drowning in hangers-on and various 'famous' folk who turn up just so that they score some more TV time rather than for the actual sport itself. The sort of people who turn up in multi-million pound boats and swan around the paddock as if they own the place, all because they've conveniently got a film, CD or book coming out...
I could rant for a while, generally with great disstain for the overtly rich cretins that milk the cameras for all their worth, but it doesn't detract from what a special weekend this promises to be. A Monaco GP can go one of two ways - either complete inactivity because no-one can pass and no-one has enough tyre grip to give it a go. The other option is total lunacy, cars bouncing off the walls, off each other - and occasionally building forts out of the barriers. Sadly that particular barrier has been modified, so Maldonado will have to find somewhere else to hide this year. Hopefully, with the new regulations making traction so much more difficult and the reduction of rear downforce the infamous streets will be that bit more difficult to master. Does that mean Mercedes may be vulnerable to anything... well based on the only dry practice thus far... No...
The Venue
The Monaco GP has been on the calendar for many, many decades and since it's very inception has seen very few changes - and all of those have been added to the second half of the lap. I suppose it is a lot harder to alter a track which winds through a very compact Mediterranean principality - demolishing some casino or hotel crammed full of rich people isn't going to be popular. Even if you get a better corner out of it, so that's why it is the marina-side section which gets upgraded because all that requires is reclaiming land from the sea. Reclaimed land upon which the new-ish Rascasse section sits after it was built several years ago now.
Given how narrow the streets are and how compact the track is, St Devote is a pleasantly fast corner to open the lap - one that taunts drivers to go that little bit faster and repays them with an unforgiving armco barrier. If they stay out of the wall they are treated to a steep climb up to the highest point of the track, Massonet. This is another challenging corner with no room for error, arching past a bunch of shops full of needlessly expensive crap. Massonet feeds directly into Casino Square - named imaginatively after the fact there is a casino in the vicinity - concluding the fist sector of the lap. In contrast to many US and Australian street circuits this track has a magnificent flow to it - something the grotesque budgets these Tilke tracks have at their disposal can't manufacture.
After a short straight with a viscious bump half way down, we arrive at Mirabeau - a corner which has been the most problematic in the practice sessions thus far, a difficult breaking zone as the track falls and turns back on itself. Dropping down to the famous Loews Hairpin, the tightest corner all season, one that requires a special steering configuration lurking in the shadow of another hugely expensive hotel. The technical section continues with the double right hander of Portier - the scene of one of the most epic battles on the streets between Schumacher and Alex Wurtz. In which the latter ended up with no front wheels in the darkness of the tunnel... it still remains very suspicious to this day.
Portier leads to the infamous tunnel, plunging the drivers into darkness before launching them out into the steep descent towards the Nouvelle Chicane - one of the few remote overtaking spots on the track. One that knocked Perez off Raikkonen's Christmas card list... a role that Magnussen is trying to fill this season. In a former life this chicane just to be much faster, and without any barriers lining the harbour wall. After Nouvelle Chicane we come to Maldonado's favourite fort building corner, Tabac which just like St Devote is a magnificent corner. Tabac flows into the even faster entry to the swimming pool section which has no padded fort building materials on the exit.
The exit of the swimming pool is where the majority of the newer modifications took hold when they were introduced, taking away the inside barrier to allow the chicane to be slightly more forgiving. Towards the end of the lap more land was reclaimed to straighten out the approach to the Rascasse which is no longer the chicane it once was, but the exceedingly narrow hairpin around the cafe reamins. Alongside the pub on the Mulsanne straight potentially the coolest place to have lunch. The lap ends with the technical Virage Antony Noges bringing the cars onto the curved front 'straight', all completed in under 80 seconds...
The Form Guide
There have been theories that this race would be the best chance anyone had to beat Mercedes, because it isn't a power track or one dependant on aerodynamic grip. However that Mercedes also has superior traction and mechanical grip from the power delivery system. Which is why in FP1 which is on Thursday in Monaco - the same two cars were sitting on the effective front row. FP2 saw Alonso go fastest, but that was in a rain affected session with limited running, and doesn't count for much. What it does show however is that Red Bull will have to deal with Ferrari in the grand battle for third place. Outside the front row the battle is going to be titanic and when drivers are pushed as hard as they will be this weekend with no room for error and difficult cars to drive the chance of a mistake is magnified.
If anyone towards the front pays a visit to the barrier there will be no shortage of teams lurking to pick up the pieces... or shed some of their own. Although I might suggest that it will be those teams with smaller budgets and less well engineered cars who will be at even more of a disadvantage, and the ones most likely packing up their car in bin bags. Such is the beauty of Monaco - anything can happen, and the most unlikely scenarios may not be as far away as it seems. After all, like Massa found out last season, lightning can strike twice in exactly the same place throwing a major spanner in the works.
There isn't much of a form guide to work off for this weekend, even though FP1 and FP2 have already taken place, the whole weekend is a lottery - an accident in FP3 can put you out of qualifying on the most difficult track to overtake. The battle from 3rd to about 14th or so could go anywhere - it is going to be brilliant... one hopes.
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