Monaco GP Track Guide

From Mirabeau it is a short squirt of the throttle into Grand Hotel hairpin—the slowest corner on the calendar. The drivers are on full steering lock in order to get through the corner, and even with that they still struggle to get round.

Grand Hotel is often the scene of some chaos—particularly in 2000 when a clash involving Pedro De La Rosa seen the circuit completely blocked, and 7 drivers stuck at the scene. If a driver gets over-excited going into this corner expect the same this year

And the final corners of this sequence is the Portier corner, which is split into two sections. The first section is a very slow area, and one where the drivers use a lot of kerb in order to gain time. But if it's wet the kerb is to be avoided—something which Eddie Irvine failed to do back in 1996, taking out Haikkinen and Salo in the process.

The second part of Portier is very important as the speed gained on the exit of this corner determines the drivers speed the whole way through the tunnel down to the chicane—get it wrong like Ayrton Senna famously did in 1988 and the race ends here

Chicane

As the drivers exit the tunnel at around 290kmp, they hit the brakes at around 75m for the harbour chicane. The braking area for this section is very difficult as the track has a slight right kink in the braking zone and is very bumpy, giving the drivers a very difficult time scrubbing the speed off.

Drivers will be very brave to try and overtake here, but we have seen successful moves here in the past—Nick Heidfeld on Fernando Alonso springs to mind. Once the drivers get the speed off they turn the car left then immediately right, over the kerb and back on the power for the exit.

Tabac

Quite possibly the most important corner on the circuit as any time gained or lost through here is vital to the lap time. The drivers approach the corner at around 105mph, then dab the brakes, flick down one gear and straight back on the throttle.

It is a very impressive corner which requires a lot of bravery in order to be fast, and the barriers can be very tricky on both the entry and exit—it is easy to clip the barrier on entry and rip the front left wheel off (like Ralf Schumacher in 2005), or else run into the barrier on the exit.

Piscine/ Swimming Pool

The Swimming Pool section is one which is very impressive on entry then frustrating on the exit. Since the circuit organisers removed the walls from the first section it has become extremely fast, allowing the drivers to attack both the inside and outside kerb.

Once the drivers come through the first section it is immediately onto the brakes for the tighter, slower second section of the corner.

The drivers have to be careful on the entry to the second section not to clip the inside barrier—like Raikkonen did in qualifying in 2007. Then on the exit the drivers need to be careful not to run into the outside barrier, and if they manage that then they need a good traction to get them down to the final sequence of corners.

Rasscase/ Noghes

The final sequence of corners are very frustrating for the drivers and one of the corners where the drivers can gain or lose time. They brake as straight as possible going into Rascasse, turn the wheel as right as possible then blend the throttle on the way out of the corner—being careful not to clip the inside barrier on the exit of the corner.

Then it's past the pit lane entry and into the final corner Noghes.

This corner is very tricky as the track drops away from the drivers, making it easy to understeer into the outside barrier. Should the drivers manage to keep it away from the barrier, it is then a matter of getting good traction out of the corner for the run to the end of the lap

As for the pit lane here, it will cost the drivers 17.8 seconds, and being one of the shortest on the calendar it can see the teams doing a variety of strategies.

But usually the favourite here is a one-stopper, despite the fuel consumption of 2.58kgs a lap, because tyre wear here is not an issue due to the slow average speed, meaning the drivers can run longer.

Expect the front runners to do a two stopper with a long middle stint, while those from ninth downards to run as long as possible on a one-stopper

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