Circuit de Monaco is a street circuit laid out on the city streets of Monte Carlo and La Condamine around the harbour of the principality of Monaco. It is commonly referred to as “Monte Carlo” because it is largely inside the Monte Carlo neighbourhood of Monaco.

The circuit is used on one weekend of each year to host the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix.
The lap starts with a short sprint up to the tight St. Devote corner. This is a nearly 90 degree right-hand bend usually taken in first or second gear. This corner has seen many first lap accidents, although these are less common since the removal of the mini roundabout on the apex of the corner before the 2003 event, making the entrance to the corner wider. The cars then head uphill, before changing down for the long left-hander at Massenet.

Out of Massenet, the cars drive past the famous casino before quickly reaching the aptly named Casino Square. The cars snake down the next short straight, avoiding an enormous bump on the left of the track, a reminder of the unique nature of the circuit. This leads to the tight Mirabeau corner, which is followed by a short downhill burst to the even tighter Fairmont Hotel hairpin (formerly known as both Station Hairpin and Loews Hairpin; hairpin carries name of hotel). It is a corner which has been used for many overtaking manoeuvres in the past. However it would be almost physically impossible for two modern F1 cars to go round side by side, as the drivers must use full steering lock to get around. It is so tight that many Formula 1 teams must redesign their steering and suspension specifically to negotiate this corner.

After the hairpin, the cars head downhill again to a double right-hander called Portier before heading into the famous tunnel, a unique feature of a Formula One circuit. (Until 2009 only one other circuit, Detroit USA in 1982-88, featured a tunnel, but the F1 series now includes racing at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, which presents a shorter tunnel at the exit of the pit lane.) As well as the change of light making visibility poor, a car can lose 20-30% of its downforce due to the unique aerodynamic properties of the tunnel.
The tunnel.

Out of the tunnel, the cars have to brake hard for a tight left-right chicane. This has been the scene of several large accidents, including that of Karl Wendlinger in 1994, and Jenson Button in 2003. The chicane is probably the only place on the circuit where overtaking can be attempted. There is a short straight to Tabac, a tight fourth gear corner which is taken at about 195 km/h (120 mph). Accelerating up to 225 km/h (140 mph), the cars reach Piscine, a fast left-right followed by a slower right-left chicane which takes the cars past the swimming pool that gave its name to the corner.

Following Piscine, there is a short straight followed by heavy braking for a quick left which is immediately followed by the tight 180 degree right-hander called La Rascasse. This is another corner which requires full steering lock; it will be remembered for a long time as the location of one of the most suspicious maneuvers in recent Formula One history after the 2006 season when Michael Schumacher appeared to deliberately stop his car in qualifying so as to prevent Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber — who were both following and were on flying laps — from out-qualifying him. The Rascasse takes the cars into a short, adversely-cambered, straight that precedes the final corner, Virage Antony Noghes. Named after the organiser of the first Monaco Grand Prix, the corner is a tight right-hander which brings the cars back onto the start-finish straight, and across the line to start a new lap.

Free Practice:
Gaining confidence on this track is very hard, it is a really tight track with just a very little margin for errors. Preparing the team for the weekend, was quite hard, since we had no real idea how fast the others would go and how stable their cars could behave during the race. We decided to take our focus off the qualifying session, and focus on the race, since overtaking is hard, our primary goal was to finish the race.

‘Gaining confidence was quite hard for me, the track doesn’t really suit my driving style, and creating a setup for Monaco is always hard. When we started getting quicker and quicker, the walls were also coming closer, with the occasional repairs needed about each 3 or 4 laps. The team worked really hard to patch the car up each time, and when we started reaching low 1 minute 16′s or even high 15′s, we knew we would be too slow to be a top runner, but fast enough to compete for points.’

Qualifying:
Not having focussed on the qualifying pace, was clearly obvious, with some people even running in the 1.14′s, meanwhile, we took quite some time to get the car outside, but when we did, we left a pretty good impression, with after a few laps, a weekend-best 1 minute 15.670, which placed us in the seventh position, and eventually starting from that position.

‘Qualifying went better than expected, we were hoping for a low 16, and be around position 12, but when we got on the track, everything just worked out great, managed to drive a new personal best for the weekend, which happened during qualifying, so both me and the team were really satisfied.’

Race:
Monaco, a race which tends to destroy a lot of peoples cars, not due to extreme wear of certain key components, but more of the difficulty of the track. Carrying more weight in the car, with it’s full tank, makes it slide more, which is the last thing you want on a track like Monaco. Sometimes even tapping the wall to gain a little more time, is not something you want to do during the race, and also besides keeping it out of the wall, make sure that people around you are doing the same.

‘Despite it being a track that doesn’t suit me, I had a lot of confidence going into the race. Starting from a nice position, and knowing that a lot of people will drop out during the race, we were hoping for the best.’

During the formation lap, there already was a certain tension amongst the drivers and the teams; Will they make turn one, How big will the carnage be, and more important, How much will it inflict the championship!
Starting from the seventh position meant we’d have the inside line on turn one. Which turned out to work quite good for us, going through turn one gained us one position already, and after that, we were just following the leaders. Being undamaged throughout the first couple of laps made it too obvious something had to go wrong, since there is no perfect race on Monaco. Scraping the wall of turn 12 was not good for the car, damaging the third-rear springs and the front-right suspension, though it did not do the pace any harm, instead, we started gaining more time. Choosing to drop back a bit and cruise at our own pace turned out to work quite well, we managed to maintain our lead over the ones behind, whilst not losing too much to the ones in front. Avoiding any cars, carefully approaching backmarkers and just drive the car gently helped us to the finish line, which brought us a great result!

‘Being chased all the time by Malcolm Rice was quite fun, we gave eachother plenty of room, but he never got a real overtaking chance. It was very friendly, and even towards the end, when we suddenly were in second and third position, due to Mickaël Folcher and Sven Hesse having to retire from the race, there still was no real pushing or forcing eachother. finishing with just five tenths between us showed we stayed quite closely even at the final few laps.’