Setting the scene for Monaco

One of the vagaries of the Formula 1 calendar is that Monaco has been held as the second leg of a back-to-back with the Spanish Grand Prix for the past two years. Given the difficulties of setting up the citadelesque motorhomes required in 21st century F1, its baffling that this is allowed to happen logistically. But worse than that is that one of the events not only of the grand prix year, but the worldwide sporting calendar, is bereft of the build-up that it is worthy of.

Instead, what we have is a breathless charge from Barcelona to Monte Carlo, whereupon we are welcomed not only by a half-finished paddock, but a half-finished track! Not that the Automobile Club de Monaco can be blamed for a truck fire at the entry to Ste Devote yesterday, a conflagration that also hit paddock preparations by preventing team trucks from getting in for a while. When you are building a Brand Centre on the tightest of schedules, that's a big setback.

It also left race organisers with some urgent patching-up to do. It was a little disconcerting to wander down the hill from Casino Square last night to find workers hurriedly laying new tarmac and a steamroller working overtime in the hope of patching up the damage caused by the fire. Then again, this is Monaco, which held its first grand prix way back in 1929 and has a lot of experience of making its streets raceworthy - even though last year's race was marred by Rubens Barrichello's clash with an unsealed drain cover.

This should be a common sight at Monaco © LAT

But for all that, it's still Monaco and the hammering noises emerging from the not-quite-complete paddock today are only a mild distraction from one of the most beautiful vistas in F1. What's more, there can have been few Monaco Grands Prix that have been so widely anticipated as this one, with the high-degradation Pirelli tyres promising to create one of the most dramatic races that the tiny Principality has ever staged.

Tyre strategy is proving to be difficult to anticipate. Just about every driver asked today had little more to say than "we don't know, let's wait until practice".

Some believe that the super soft is effectively a very short-lived qualifying tyre, with one super-fast lap followed by an immediate drop-off best measured using a sundial. Pirelli reckons that the super soft will last somewhere in the 7-10 lap range and that long stints will be possible on the soft. But some inside the teams aren't so sure.

As in recent races, the reality might not become clear until the race is already underway, meaning that how you use your three sets of primes and three sets of options in qualifying is key. The bottom line is, no-one really knows what is going to happen, other than a vague feeling of imminent chaos!

The other thing that could influence the race is the quantity of marbles thrown off by the Pirelli tyres. With nowhere to go, the marbles could make the track increasingly unforgiving as the race goes on, as Mark Webber explains.

"These marbles go quite a distance, so on a conventional circuit they can go quite a way," said Webber. "We could see a reasonable build-up in the race. Both tyres will probably get rid of their rubber, the super soft more than the soft, but there aren't too many places for the marbles to go.

"Maybe the barriers will move artificially towards us as the race goes on!"

Perhaps a artificially narrowing track is not such a bad idea in these days of DRS overtaking and deliberately high-degradation tyres. Collectively, the new rules package must be working because after an exciting race at the Circuit de Catalunya, everyone is now expecting something similar at Monaco. That's some achievement.

Costa is a victim of Ferrari's slow start to the season © LAT

But while some things change at Monaco, some things stay the same. On Tuesday, Ferrari quietly announced that technical director Aldo Costa was moving out of the race team - the inevitable consequence of Ferrari underperforming being a spot of bloodletting.

It's no surprise, especially considering Ferrari president Luca di Montezmolo's pronouncements during the build-up to the season that only the championship will do. But even without that pressure, Ferrari's start to the season is not up to its own lofty standards, as Fernando Alonso explained.

"We saw the difficult start to the season, we saw the difficult performance from the car, and we need a reaction," said Alonso. "We need something to make some direction change, and this was maybe the best thing and hopefully in the future we can be more competitive."

There is a feeling that failure will not be tolerated emanating from Ferrari. Perhaps that will play on the mind of a certain Spaniard who threw away a shot at victory last year with a chassis-damaging shunt at Massenet during Saturday morning practice. But knowing Alonso, probably not. He's too good for that.