Why Red Bull is under pressure

Monaco is a wonderful challenge. I can still visualise every inch of the track in my head, even though it has been three years since I last raced there.

What makes it so special is that it's not changed too much since the first grand prix there. It is an incredible feeling climbing the hill to Casino Square, allowing the car to find its own line when it's tracking over the undulations. There's nowhere that it's flat out like Eau Rouge, but while that gives you an adrenaline rush through one corner, at Monaco you get it for the whole lap.

Track knowledge is crucial. There are certain corners - Tabac for example - where you can turn in what seems impossibly early, but the momentum of the car will mean you understeer away from the apex. You need to do it to find the final few tenths and some never manage it. It's a leap of faith.

In terms of pure achievement, I felt a greater sense of pride winning the Monaco Grand Prix twice than even my home grand prix at Silverstone.

This could be the most incident-packed Monaco GP for a long time. Pirelli's super-soft tyre is very fast, but goes off very quickly, so if you start the race on it you're going to have to pit early. In Barcelona, we saw people being willing to sacrifice a little in qualifying, but in Monaco I would want to qualify as high up as I could.

But it's still going to be a minefield. There are going to be a lot more blue flags, more pitstops and more marbles off line that will make the line narrower as the race goes on. And you wouldn't bet against the safety car appearing.

Overtaking is not easy. The key areas are the chicane and maybe into the first corner, which is where the DRS activation zone is. The track narrows as you pass the pits, so you have to be very well positioned to make a move there. If you do get stuck behind someone, you just have to be patient.

I was wedged behind Enrique Bernoldi's Arrows for 44 laps in 2001 after a software glitch put me to the back of the grid. In that situation, it's about damage limitation and you must be patient.

It's difficult to know what to make of Red Bull's performance in Barcelona. Clearly, there is always an offset between qualifying pace and what can be delivered consistently over a race, but it was extreme. In qualifying, Red Bull was dominant, yet Lewis Hamilton raced Vettel to the line. With a little more luck on his side, it could have been his second win of the year rather than Seb's fourth.

Red Bull is unlikely to have such a big qualifying advantage this weekend © LAT

It's hard to see Red Bull with such a big qualifying advantage in Monaco, so we could see McLaren and even Ferrari in the hunt. The relatively slow sector 3 at Barcelona is a useful form guide, and we saw Red Bull and McLaren at the top of the timesheets last weekend. Ferrari was also strong there in the first part of the race, although Fernando Alonso's times for that sector aren't so impressive because of his prime tyre struggles.

This could put Vettel under massive pressure. But write him off at your peril. At Barcelona, he withstood incredible pressure from Hamilton to win. Anyone who has driven a kart - or even on the M1 - will know what it feels like to have a faster car right behind you.

But Monaco is less of an aero track and, with a good mechanical package, the driver can make a big difference. That makes predicting the outcome impossible - other than to say it could be a classic.

David Coulthard is a proud supporter of the Wings For Life spinal cord research foundation. For more information, click here.