F1 Paddock Notebook - Monaco GP Wednesday

- Romain Grosjean will be racing with his spare chassis from Spain this weekend after his race chassis was damaged during the Lap 1 crash in Barcelona. The chassis for Monaco is the same chassis that was severely damaged in the crash in Baku before being patched up. The broken chassis from Spain is set to return to the track as a spare later this week.

- Both Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly have spoken about how they treat Monaco as a defacto home race, even with the addition of the French Grand Prix this year. “We have a couple of home races now, it’s good,” Ocon said. “Monaco is Monaco. It’s a beautiful venue and a beautiful track. It’s one of my favourite destinations.”

- Toro Rosso has brought a new floor update to Monaco ahead of the race weekend. Gasly will get use of it from FP1 on Thursday, but teammate Brendon Hartley will not get the update until final practice on Saturday.

- Hartley is also now on the verge of an engine penalty after the latest FIA communication confirmed he is onto his third Turbocharger and MGU-H of the season. Hartley is likely to face a grid drop for the next race in Canada when Honda brings its first major engine update of the season.

- Pirelli’s Hypersoft tyres are set to be put through their paces in anger for the first time on Thursday during practice. While teams were able to use them in pre-season testing, most completed limited running on the pink-ringed compound. It is widely expected to be able to last for the majority of Sunday’s race, with Kevin Magnussen saying it will be more durable than the Supersofts were in Barcelona.

- Sergey Sirotkin is confident Williams has resolved his seat issue that caused discomfort through the Spanish Grand Prix. Sirotkin spent some time at the factory between the race and Monaco to resolve the issue that left him in pain after the chequered flag in Barcelona.

- As per the FIA race notes, the track has been resurfaced between Turn 7 and Turn 15, and between Turn 19 and Turn 1. The fast lane of the pits has also been resurfaced.

- Esteban Ocon will try out the engine that suffered an issue which caused him to retire from the Spanish Grand Prix during FP1 in Monaco on Thursday. Force India remains confident the engine can be used again after pinning the issue on an oil leak.

- Track records are expected to tumble in Monaco on the Hypersoft tyre in qualifying, with Ocon predicting a one-second-plus gain over the existing benchmark of 1m12.178s, set by Kimi Raikkonen in Q3 last year.

- Romain Grosjean was quick to knock back concerns about his form, saying people were making a mountain out of a molehill. Haas team boss Gunther Steiner said earlier in the day there were no considerations to replace the Frenchman despite his worst-ever start to an F1 season.