Again sorry for the slowness of posts over the last couple of days. I'm super busy at work but normal service will resume over the weekend!

1. McLaren are looking good

McLaren love this track, as does Lewis Hamilton. That combination should prove irresistible come Sunday afternoon and allow the Briton to close the gap to the Kimi in the Drivers' Championship.

In free practice Hamilton was comfortably faster (four-tenths) than his rivals and his team mate. While it would be foolish to read too much into free practice, this season it has been a reasonable indicator of race success.

It seems as though the McLarens are made for street circuits. After Barcelona many thought it was Ferrari that handled better on the high downforce corners. That's true and while Monaco is a high downforce track, how the chassis and suspension handle the bumps and jumps is more critical. Here the Silver car appears to have the advantage.

2. Ferrari have closed the gap

Make no bones about it Ferrari will be closer this year. In raw pace the car is probably not much slower than the McLaren it is just that Lewis has an extraordinary affinity to the street circuit.

The Scuderia have been working hard on the suspension and aero package. The hole in the nose is back with a minor enhancement. Two triangular winglets have been placed at the base of the nose cone designed to give a bit of extra energy to the airflow interrupted by the front wing pillars and divert it away from the underside. This should make the hole more efficient.

Although Kimi won on this track in 2005 that was in a McLaren. Last year he had a shocker of a race in the Ferrari. Ron Dennis will be hoping for a repeat of the latter rather than the former.

Ferrari's weakness is that the car isn't well balanced on the option (super soft) tyre. That means qualifying performance will be weaker than race performance (unless qualifying is wet).

3. Rain could decide the outcome

Sunday looks like it may herald potential monsoon conditions. Some weather forecasts predict that a couple of inches of rain will fall, which will make driving treacherous.

It promises to be exciting and teams will need to think carefully about strategy. A wet race will exponentially increase the odds of multi safety car periods. This will dictate strategy as teams must decide whether they want to stick a ton of gas in the tank to ensure as few pit stops as possible.

The counter force to this is the importance of pole, especially in the wet. Visibility will be exceptionally poor and a car leading from the front will probably be able to eek out a considerable early advantage.

The loss of traction control is also worrying drivers, particularly when driving over road markings, for example when entering the swimming pool complex. I suspect this fear is overblown. Sure it may cause at extra crash or two but it is nothing that top drivers won't be able to handle.

Bring it on ...

4. Williams, Renault and Honda to do well

At Monaco the driver can influence success more that at other tracks. In English that means who is in the cockpit is important.

Fernando Alonso has proved himself to be a Monaco master over the last couple of years so don't be surprised to see him haul his Renault into the top six on the grid. If safety cars turn out with abandon we may even see the Spaniard chalk up a podium.

Likewise Nico Rosberg loves this track. Expect him to do well as he showed during free practice on Thursday where he managed to beat the Ferrari. Sure that was on the option tyre (on which the red car struggled) but the raw pace is there.

Honda will likely be a bit further back than Williams and Renault but Jenson Button's smooth driving style works well at Monte Carlo especially if it is wet. Assuming there is water on the track Button and Honda will shine.

5. Force India will make qualy 2

Only kidding! This is the first race of the year where the Indian team hasn't put out a press briefing saying they are targeting Q2. Surely it means they'll break their duck.

Unlikely. With the demise of Super Aguri there is no disguising the fact that Force India is the slowest car on the track, especially with Toro Rosso introducing their new car at this round.

Trust me, Force India will firmly be at the back of the grid.