Hakkinen must draw on winning experience

The Finn, who won from pole last year, hopes to do the same again despite being third fastest in practice to the two Ferraris.

'If you have experience of winning at Monaco then you have a good idea of what is needed to do it again.

'Winning the race was the greatest experience of my career apart from winning the world championship. Nothing can compare with that. I have a lot of good memories of Monaco.

He knows he must be in the top two if he is to have a chance of winning.

'The front row is critical here, crucial. Not to be on the front row is a disaster.

Hakkinen also revealed it took him two days to get over the disappointment of crashing out in Imola while leading and that he goes into this treacherous street race not knowing really why he crashed.

'We checked all the data to find out if anything went wrong but nothing did, unfortunately.

'I was driving the car on the limit for too long. The fuel level was going down, the tyres were
losing grip and the car became harder and harder to drive and I was still pushing hard.

'I was always hoping they would find something wrong with the car but they didn't. I surprised the car snapped to the left the way it did, I was expecting it to go the other way and I didn't like it. But nothing went wrong with the car. It's weird.

'It took a couple of days for me to forget it - until testing at Magny Cours on Tuesday evening. Only then could I start to laugh about it and think what I should learn from it.

'There is no point to get depressed about it, there is going to be a lot of spinning in the rest of my career.'