Fernando Alonso is confident of a strong performance in Monaco at the weekend, with the Spaniard believing McLaren has a car suited to the unique layout of the circuit and he expects to see where their chassis ranks compared to its rivals.
The tight and twisty nature of the circuit – which has an average speed of just 98mph – sees engine performance put to one side with chassis and balance proving the crucial factor in a quick lap.
In Spain, McLaren was the third quickest car through the slow and technical final sector, with only Mercedes and Red Bull quicker, therefore Alonso expects the race to play to McLaren's strengths.
"Monaco is such a special place; I don't think there are many drivers in the world that can say they don't like racing there," said the Spaniard.
"It's a real challenge to get the set-up right because of its unique characteristics, but often we see some unpredictable racing there because the nature of it tends to shuffle the pack up.
"I'm optimistic that we can dial-in our car because we have a very well-balanced chassis; it will be interesting to see how we measure up when the circuit's characteristics are more likely to play to our strengths."
Team-mate Jenson Button agrees, as long as the team can get their set-up spot on, something the Briton spent a lot of time on during the recent post-Spain in-season test.
"Monaco is a completely different ball game," said Button. "But one where the strengths of our car should shine through a bit more than in Spain if we hook up all of the elements, so I'm excited to see what we can do there.
"There are so many variables to come together, so it won't be easy, but our testing programme went well so I'm hopeful we can put a lot of that learning into practice in Monaco."
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