Hakkinen remains confident

The Flying Finn threw away a hard earned pole position when he overaccelerated at the start and surrendered the lead - and ultimately victory - to his arch rival from Maranello.

'You don't have to win every race to win the world championship. I had a really bad start, too much wheel spin and Michael had a very good one, but it is extremely hard to get in practice for the starts. When we start formation laps you are not allowed to do practice starts because you are not allowed to spin the wheels. Monaco is a place where you have an advantage if you are on pole position but I didn't use it.

'Obviously I made a start where you do not spin the wheels. I went off the line normally. It is not an excuse. It just didn't work out this time. I lost the start this time, unfortunately. Then during the race I maybe had a suspension problem at the front but I don't want to say too much until we investigate if a bit more.'

'I had inconsistent handling coupled with a very heavy steering load and that made the race difficult for me.

'It's a long race and things can happen so I was still optimistic but as the race went I realised the car was not exactly balanced perfectly. I had huge moments a couple of times and it was not very pleasant.

'At one stage I even thought I had a mechanical failure from the suspension.'