I was very excited about going to the latest race because Monte Carlo is possibly the best race weekend of the season. It's not just another round of the championship but it's also something really great; it's a very special event.
I was really excited because I love the place. I love the atmosphere, I love the circuit and last year was my first time racing on a street circuit, my first time racing in Monaco, and it was a pretty good race: I was fourth after qualifying in seventh. Of course, I was aiming for a very good result, for something similar or even better. I was also hoping that I would finally have something good to write about here, too!
I don't really believe in luck: I think luck is something that you make for yourself with hard work, but I have to admit I was wondering about that after the season so far. And now that the Monaco weekend is over, it's something I'm wondering about even more...
When we got to free practice we were quite slow: we didn't have a good feeling with the car in the beginning so I wasn't able to push, and my gap to the top guys was big. The team did a lot of work to sort out the set-up before qualifying but even there, when the car was much better for me, I was still struggling to get back to the limit. Unfortunately, we also lost a bit of time in the garages so I didn't use my second set of tyres which made qualifying a bit worse than we expected.
Monaco can be like that: it's so difficult even if you have everything going in the right way and a perfect, clear lap to really get everything completely right, and of course you can never really get that clear lap because there are 26 cars on the circuit all the time and there is just not enough room for everybody. I know that it is the same for everyone, and everyone always says the same thing, but it is still true. In the end my lap was very close to my team-mate, but we were about eight-tenths off pole position.
![Luca Filippi - ART Grand Prix [Pic credit: GP2 Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/446077.jpg)
