The winners and strugglers in Monaco trackside viewing

The Aston Martin drivers are not having a good time. It’s FP1 for Formula 1’s 2024 Monaco Grand Prix, at the Loews hairpin.

Every time Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll squirt down the hill towards Autosport’s vantage point it happens. From our perspective on the outside of the corner, the green cars are having to traverse F1’s slowest corner as if it’s a 50p piece – hands jerking at the wheel, Stroll really wrestling his AMR24.

Unlike the Ferrari drivers – although mainly Charles Leclerc, bar his first time through here bringing him shockingly close to the barrier with a clumsy exit – the Astons are not super smooth. The problem is understeer – masses of it.

They’re not alone in struggling with this issue on the hard tyres early in the session – where later investigation will also reveal Alonso at this stage didn’t have his desired level of power steering support and Stroll lacked tyre temperature.

The Red Bull and McLaren cars aren’t much better through here. These machines are more stiffly sprung than most and so rattle over the bump approaching the hairpin’s apex, while the Mercedes duo are also having to provoke the rotation with sharper steering inputs to combat the understeer.

Alonso just hustles his car every time – and the problem is noticeably better after a lengthy spell in the pits for adjustments and reappears on the softs. Before he makes a similar move, Stroll attempts a line adjustment. He gets wider and wider until at one stage he brushes the barrier with his right-side wheels. But things do improve because of his bigger, sweeping entry.

The unique nature of the Monaco trackside experience means this is also the perfect place to watch an F1 drivers’ hands as they do what they do best. Turning the car’s fifth wheel is their craft and they all do it differently.

Here we can see, resplendent in Ayrton Senna yellow, Oscar Piastri’s silky smooth steering inputs. From outside, it’s nonchalant. Kevin Magnussen, meanwhile, is proving his reputation for having an uber-aggressive driving style – the first steering stab is devastatingly brutal.

For the second half of the one-hour session, we move around the hairpin to watch the cars plunge down towards the corner beneath Mirabeau and the run to Portier and the tunnel.

Here, Leclerc’s rotation smoothness really stands out. Not even Carlos Sainz in…