Driving through Monaco in a Formula One car is one of the greatest sporting challenges ever devised by mankind using nature’s contours. So I was a little taken aback at last Wednesday’s press conference when a couple of drivers — Felipe Massa and Nelson Piquet Jr — said they did not like the track. I thought that was an extraordinary thing to say, especially when Massa eventually planted his Ferrari on pole position.

This is the circuit where the driver makes more of a difference than anywhere else. It is the ultimate test of his skill, commitment and precision — enough in itself to relish the place, but the sensation of driving it never failed to remind me why I had become a racing driver.

Low-riding, stiffly suspended F1 cars are not designed to run on street surfaces with a crown in the road, drainage channels, pavements, manhole covers and random bumps. It means you cannot drive them in the technically perfect way you can at a conventional track.

The cars may look bolted down from the outside, but actually they are sliding the whole time, and combined with the track irregularities this means you have few chances of hitting the exact same piece of tarmac at the same angle and speed as the previous lap, so you are instinctively reacting the whole time.

If you ever visit Monaco, go to the top of the hill just before Casino Square, sit on the side of the road and imagine being in a bath tub peeping over the taps at 180mph with the world’s best drivers trying to steal your road. Only then can you get a feel for the scale of that challenge.

It is a track the drivers must attack, otherwise they will be embarrassingly off the pace. They have to commit big time into the braking areas, get on the throttle early and generally really hustle their car, which should be set up very “pointy” with plenty of front grip.

Maximum downforce is demanded for best braking and traction, too. A few extra kilos of extra downforce is welcome almost regardless of the inevitable associated drag.

But it is not as simple as that because the track rubbers-in as the year-long dust and diesel is removed and white parking lines are covered by Bridgestone’s finest racing compounds. The surface grips-up and so you are forever chasing a moving target.

Your flat-out banzai Thursday lap can be two seconds slower than your Saturday effort when you are into the groove and rhythm. It feels like an ever-faster fairground ride winding up into a frenzy with no time to take a breath — and every so often it uncoils when you hit the barrier.

When I provide a lap guide of this track for television I always struggle to get the words out before the car enters the next corner.

It is impressively easy to crash at Monaco, and it is disastrous when you do because you miss so much track time as others leave you behind. You want to be out there in that groove. There is just no time to think and plan like at a normal track, you are absolutely living on your instincts. There is no “the car is doing this so I’d better do that”, you are really doing no more than guiding it and reacting to the series of different signals streaming through your hands, feet, backside and eyes. To an extent it is easier now that they have paddle shifts for the gearchange. This is an enormous help at Monaco. When we had to change manually we would be going into the corner changing down with one hand and correcting the slides and twitches with the other. With the manual change we could never be 100% confident of a successful downshift so we had to leave a margin.

This is the first time in a few years that the drivers will be tackling Monaco without electronic driver aids, but from what we have seen so far it does not seem this will be much of a drama on a dry track.

As ever, the teams have adapted and found ways to make the cars friendlier in the traction and braking zones.

Only if it rains — and some forecasters are predicting the first wet Monaco GP since 1997 — will the lack of traction control make it really difficult.

In the post-qualifying press conference, Massa, Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton constantly referred to rain and how difficult they expect the race to be.

There is genuine trepidation — the painted lines and bumps and generally low grip can make fools of the drivers under braking or when powering out of the corners. Mistakes are all too easy and championship chances can be wasted. It is so difficult to judge whether the track will take a 50%, 75% or 90% attack.

Only when it is bone dry can you be reasonably sure of what might happen next.

As you build up through the weekend, getting faster all the time, you need to reach a crescendo in final qualifying — and this is where we see drivers transcending their cars.

Eight of the past 10 Monaco Grands Prix have been won from the front row of the grid, and so that part of the weekend is absolutely pivotal in determining the outcome.

Ferrari have not won here since 2001 and theoretically this should be a McLaren track.

We have come off a run of three circuits expected to suit Ferrari and while they have delivered the victories, there was definitely some surprise at how close Hamilton ran them in Barcelona and Turkey, the latter on a less-than-optimum strategy.

But the Ferrari lock-out of the front row bodes well for them today unless Hamilton is carrying significantly more fuel and therefore pitstops later. Hamilton, in a coded way, was suggesting this might be the case. If it does rain it is important to have a reasonable fuel load to create the biggest window for a pitstop if the track begins to dry.

David Coulthard starts 10th despite a massive crash in qualifying when his car mysteriously and dramatically turned right at 180mph under braking for the seafront chicane. As he speared off down an escape road into uncharted territory normally inhabited by marshals and lifting cranes, he would have been very scared. Like the rest of us. That awful helpless wait while heading, two wheels missing, to an inevitable impact and with all the time in the world to think about it.

Monaco is worth the risk though, and a really proper crash around here is a badge of honour for an F1 driver.