The 3.3km course provides one of the greatest challenges to tyres, but
Bridgestone is confident that its softest compound will be up to the task after two days of simulation work at Paul Ricard.
"You need as much grip as possible and teams will run their cars with a maximum downforce set-up,” explains head of track engineering operations Kees van de Grint, “Rear traction is crucial with acceleration out of so many corners, but you have to be careful as understeer is not desirable with so much Armco about. There is a very high demand on the tyres as they are very soft, so we have also worked on minimising the wear rate as we want to allow the teams flexibility with their strategies."
Super Aguri's
Takuma Sato was happy with the tyres tested in France last week, but admits that Monaco remains unpredictable.
"We tested both options in Paul Ricard last week but, as Monaco is the only street circuit on the calendar and you cannot test on it, it is difficult to reproduce its conditions during testing," he explains, "The Monaco streets have such low grip that we shall be using the very soft compound tyre to maximise the mechanical grip. But, if you put to great a force on these tyres, they will not survive. We collected valuable data at Ricard, so hopefully we can make them work on our car, but it will be challenging on the super soft option."
THE TRACK:
Race Distance: 78 laps - Circuit Length: 2.075 miles (3.340 kms)
Conceived by Antony Noghès, and always held on the weekend following Ascension Day, the Monaco Grand Prix remains the most famous race on the
F1 calendar. First held in 1929, the street circuit is tight, twisty, bumpy, slow and totally unforgiving - an anachronism for today's
Formula One cars that gasp and crawl around its 3.340km lap.
However, Monaco remains the race that every driver dreams of winning. In terms of chassis set-up, the one overriding concern at Monaco is downforce. Overall speeds are low - cars may reach a maximum of 290kph through the famous tunnel, but the average speed for a lap is less than half that.
