MIGHTY Monaco, the gem on the crown of the Grand Prix calendar, is slippery, tight and twisty. And heck, it is hard to overtake. But Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen have done it before, so it is possible!
The magic of Monaco is that not only is it hugely challenging, but it’s also an equaliser of cars, so Mercedes won’t have a big advantage this weekend.
It is really going to be exciting and I expect great stuff from Renault (including Red Bull) and Ferrari.
At the Prancing Horse stable, Sebastian Vettel announced that he really must break the drought and will be going all out to pounce at the principality.
At Renault we are informed that, after very successful tests, they are launching the new upgraded B-Spec engine at Monte Carlo.
They will be short on numbers and therefore only promise one engine per team which will go to the leading driver.
Red Bull however, are using all their powers of persuasion to get a new engine for their ‘wiz kid’ Max Verstappen as well, who, by the way, was also quickest in testing after winning the Spanish Grand Prix.
With all this excitement who should be in the top ten this time around?
You can count on Nico Rosberg trying to extend his lead while Lewis Hamilton will try extremely hard to pull off the win.
This time, however, they will not have it easy and will no doubt work hard at their very special job.
I want to talk about McLaren. This may sound unusual, but there has been a big wake-up at Woking and the McLaren men are working day and night to get their Honda engines back on track.
I really do hope and expect that their hard work brings dividends in the form of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button being well up in the top ten.
They are both former world champions with tremendous ability and experience and this usually shines through at Monaco.
It is also time for both Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa to do better in their Williams Mercedes cars.
I have already spoken about the Renault engine cars and in particular expect Daniel Ricciardo and Verstappen to be in top form in their Red Bulls.
Ferrari is really wound up to beat the opposition with the hugely capable Vettel and Raikkonen.
If it doesn’t rain we should see a blisteringly quick race with the best of the best showing who can beat the rest.
There are no fewer than half a dozen world champions taking part (if you be so bold as to count Rosberg as champ this year) and the competition is intense!
Times: Qualifying at 1.50pm on Saturday and the race at 2pm on Sunday on SS5 and SS2 respectively.
Start learning to ‘parlez vous’ as there are two more French races after this – in Canada and France.
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