After four races with four different winners, the World Series by Renault travels to Monaco for the undoubted blue riband event of the season for the 15 teams and 30 drivers.
With Mikhail Aleshin, Salvador Duran,
Sebastian Vettel and Davide Valsecchi having tasted the champagne so far this season, the championship is already proving hard to predict and with the streets of the Principality often throwing up its fair share of surprises, victory could come from a number of candidates.
Leading the charge at the moment is Carlin Motorsport, who scored wins at both Monza and Nurburgring with Aleshin and championship leader Vettel, giving the British team a commanding 21 point lead heading to Monaco’s single race. For Aleshin, it will be a return to Monaco for him, although he will want to improve upon the 15th place he managed last season.
If past form proves an indicator, Carlin’s closest competition is set to come from Draco Racing, the Italian team having triumphed in 2005 and 2006 with Christian Montanari and Pastor Maldonado at the wheel. It remains to be seen whether Alvaro Barba or Milos Pavlovic can continue this run, although both the Spaniard and Serbian are also coming to Monaco with a benefit of a year’s experience.
Indeed, on a circuit that demands a little bit of prior knowledge and no mistakes, not least because the four lowest qualifiers will be unable to line-up on the grid due to the constraints on the size of the field, the likes of Fairuz Fauzy and Clivio Piccione could be well placed to utilise their GP2 experience.
For Piccione, the Monegasque driver will also be keen to impress his home fans with a strong run and having finished fourth in GP2 last season, the RC Motorsport racer is one of the favourites to triumph.
Other front runners should include Prema’s Ben Hanley, who put a torrid Monza round behind him to be on the pace in Germany, RC’s Marco Bonanomi, Interwetten’s Duran, KTR’s Guillaume Moreau and Victory’s Giedo van der Garde and Charlie Kimball.
![Sebastian Vettel - Carlin Motorsport [pic credit: Renault Sport Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/304209.jpg)
