MONACO GRAND PRIX
Venue: Monte Carlo Dates: 21-24 May (no action on Friday 22) Coverage: Live coverage of Saturday's final practice and the qualifying session, along with Sunday's race across BBC TV, radio and online. Find complete listings here

England's Hamilton is hoping for his first podium of the season in Monaco

By Andrew Benson BBC Sport in Monaco

World champion Lewis Hamilton is hopeful the unique challenge of the Monaco circuit could help him have his best race of a difficult season so far.

The McLaren car has been off the pace but the street track could play to its strengths and minimise its weaknesses.

"I do struggle in the high-speed corners - I'm probably losing 0.2-0.3 seconds overall," he said.

"In other areas I'm able to do a little bit better than other drivers. It gives us a fighting chance to do better."

It [Monaco] gives me a much better fighting chance in terms of getting the car up there Lewis Hamilton

The 24-year-old was third and second fastest in Thursday's two practice sessions and while these are a notoriously poor indicator of race form, Hamilton looked genuinely more competitive than so far this season.

The McLaren car is slow in the high-speed corners - Massenet, Tabac, and the first Swimming Pool chicane - because it lacks aerodynamic downforce compared with the front-running cars of Brawn and Red Bull.

But the McLaren is reasonably strong in the sort of slower corners that abound elsewhere on the track.

The track's nature also makes it one of the few where a good driver can make up for some of the deficiencies in his car, and Hamilton's driving style is particularly well suited to the circuit.

He won here last year, and felt he was robbed of a debut win in 2007 when McLaren forced him into an earlier-than-planned pit stop while he was chasing team-mate Fernando Alonso.

"Driving Monaco is a spectacular thing," said Hamilton, talking to BBC Sport.

"You can never compare it to any other circuit you go to or any other experience. It's such a huge buzz here it feels amazing.

"It gives me a much better fighting chance in terms of getting the car up there, but the others are strong, too."

Hamilton qualified only 14th for the Spanish Grand Prix two weeks ago after he failed to get into the third session of qualifying, the run-off for the top 10 grid places.

But he is optimistic that things should be different here on Saturday.

"Q3 should be possible," he said, "then when we get there we have to see how we can do. To beat the Brawns will be tough."

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