Today's press conference with Romain Grosjean, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel.

Charles, if we can start with you: you're the home town hero and the first Monegasque to race here in Formula 1 since Olivier Beretta in 1994. How excited are you about the weekend ahead?
Charles Leclerc: I am very excited. I mean, I have been waiting for this moment since [I was a] child. I remember watching the grand prix when I was four years old, in the exit of the first corner. I was in my best friend's apartment, watching down the Formula 1, dreaming one day of being part of it and this day has finally happened, so I definitely can't wait to be driving tomorrow here.

Which part of Monaco are you from?
CL: I'm living on the start-finish line, so pretty close to the track.

And what can we expect from you this weekend? You've had points in consecutive races. Just how good is the car and what can you do?
CL: To be honest, I'm a little bit confused with my expectations at the moment, because we expected a very difficult weekend in Barcelona and actually we had a second Q2 in a row, with one point then in the race. So, Baku, we expected to be competitive and of course there has been quite a bit of crashes in the race and we managed to have a good position thanks to that also, but in Barcelona we did not expect that type of performance, so it was definitely good to see that and it was a nice surprise. Hopefully we are also wrong on expectations here. It seems that it might be a little bit of a difficult circuit for us here because we need high downforce and this is a little bit of our weakness at the moment but we'll work on that and hopefully we can get a good result.

Thank you. Romain, clearly you've had a rough start to 2018 and Spain was another example of that. Can you just give us some insight into where you're at the moment, what you're thinking, what you feel you need to do break this run of bad luck?
Romain Grosjean: I think you're making a bit bigger a mountain our of a mole... thing, I can't remember the saying. Yeah, the last two races didn't go quite to plan. It happens that sometimes you go through tough times. What happened in Barcelona was just unfortunate that I lost the rear end avoiding a contact with my team-mate and that was it. The performance is there, the car is doing great and the team is doing an amazing job. Yeah, we don't have any points on the board but I'm not too worried.

Tell us a little bit more about the car. Do you feel it suits your driving style as well as you team-mate's for example?
RG: I think it's getting better and better. We've been qualifying, very often, in front of the midfield. It's super tight, so a tenth or two of a second, which doesn't make much different on the first few rows can lose you two or three positions. You need to get it perfect. I think it's getting there; we're working well, and I think it should be quite nice here and hopefully the next updates coming are going to be pretty competitive.

Best of luck. Thank you Romain. Lewis, we heard from Charles how excited he is to be racing in Monaco. You've won here a couple of times, you've been on pole position, can you just start by giving us an insight into what it is like to race around these tight streets, how crazy it is, how unique this track is?
Lewis Hamilton: Well firstly I feel like the people who might be watching need to understand why we all had our glasses on. It's so bright. These lights are... when I look at you now, all I see are lights, I can't actually see your face. That's why I've got these on; it's too bright. But, yeah, Monaco, it's such a dream to drive here. Every single year... I'm very fortunate to live here, but the wait you have from one year to the next... it's a shame that we only have one race here, because it's that spectacular to drive. But it's very intense. You have to be more diligent then your perhaps have to be anywhere else. It's the most technical and mentally challenging circuit of the whole season. There's also the heightened aspect of just wanting to shine at a track like this. Sometimes I'm running around or driving around this city in the off-season and it's hard to believe the speeds that we do - up the hill and to Turn 1 and out of the tunnel... Just yesterday I was running through the tunnel and telling my friend who has never been before and saying 'usually we're doing 200mph out of this tunnel', and he was like 'that's crazy'. It's hard for people to get even close to the imagination of what it's like, but it's really something quite special.

You've won the last two races, you're on a roll, but what can we expect from you and Mercedes this weekend, because it wasn't a good race for the team last year, so are you confident that you've ironed out the issues with this year's car?
LH: I think we learned a lot from last year. I think we are confident with our preparation. I think it's definitely been better than ever before. We came from the last race knowing that this is going to be one of the tougher races for us. If you look at the last race and the testing in February and then even in the tests the other day, the Red Bulls were particularly quick in the last sector - that's where they're always very, very strong - and so you can imagine that they will be incredibly quick here this weekend. Which is actually a surprise on previous years, because Ferrari were very strong here last year and for whatever reason Red Bull didn't get it together, but maybe this weekend they will. I do anticipate it's going to be a difficult weekend. Not one that is impossible but it's a lot closer and we may not have the pace of the others but we will find out tomorrow the true pace and identity of what we arrive here with. But I'm excited for that challenge either way. If you look at last year there were overcuts and undercuts, so everything is still possible.

Thank you. Sebastian, thanks for waiting. Can we just reflect on two weeks ago to start with. It was a slightly frustrating weekend for you in Spain. You've tested at Barcelona since the race. How much progress did you make with the car?
Sebastian Vettel: I think it's fair to summarise that Barcelona was not a strong race for us. I think Saturday was actually pretty good, qualifying was very close, but in the race we fell a little bit behind. It was good that we had the opportunity on Tuesday and Wednesday to get into the race situation again and understand a little bit better with more time and more laps and I think that's what we did. There are a couple of ideas that we have and there are things that we believe may have cause a weak race or weak pace during the race. But for here it's not that relevant as it's a completely different track, but certainly going forward, time will tell whether we found a good direction.

Well, let's look at this weekend. What chance a repeat victory of last year and do you think the longer wheelbase of this year's car will have any impact on the performance?
SV: I don't know. We will see. I think cars with a longer wheelbase, they were still fine here last year. It's not that much different. It's not like all of a sudden you're sitting on a bus. I think the car, we've improved it in general this year throughout the races we've had, the feel that I've had for the car, how responsive it was etc, which should help us for here, but I don't think the wheelbase will play a big difference and if so I think our car is not longer than most of the other cars so it will be fine.

Questions From The Floor

(Livio Oricchio - Globoesporte.com) To all drivers. Pirelli are supplying here for the first time the hypersoft tyres. What do you project for the weekend here - would be very interesting?
CL: Yeah, we've had the possibility to try these tyres quite a few times during testing. It's a huge jump from the ultrasoft to hypersoft, a lot bigger than any of the other steps - but it's also quite a solid tyre. I think we will test it during these free practices and then see what to do for the race.

Sebastian, anything to add on the hypersoft?
SV: Well, I think we never had it this year, obviously, during races. Testing was cold - but I think the first glimpse we got last year during the Abu Dhabi test quite interesting. It was faster - so it's always fun when it's faster. I think it doesn't last that long but the stress around Monaco is very low for the tyres, if you compare it to a normal race track. So should be fine and should be faster, so that's why I think a lot of people went mostly for the hypersoft.

Lewis, do you think we could see some records fall this weekend?
LH: I would imagine so, yeah. They're resurfaced some areas of the track. It was already very, very grippy last year and I think the hypersoft is... I've only driven it, I think it was the end of last year maybe, in Abu Dhabi, just one quick run on it, so I don't really know much about it, so I'm excited to get back out on the tyre because I know at that time it felt great after lap whatever-it-was. So, I think around here it'll hopefully be a lot better than all of the other tyres that we've run.

Romain?
RG: Yeah, I tested them in last week's Barcelona testing and they were fast, and I was surprised at how consistent they could be on some occasions. Looking forward to trying them here - but definitely they're the tyres that give the best feeling.

(Scott Mitchell - Autosport) Lewis, you talked a little bit about the difficulties you're expecting here. And the change in process in Spain and how well the test was working. In terms of how transferrable that performance set was in Barcelona for here and at other races, how confident are you that you've made a fundamental gain, either in the setup of the way you're understanding the car?
LH: I feel with the last race, the whole weekend, yeah I think we took a lot of information from there. The whole first five races I think, we've learnt a huge amount, we know what our targets are, we much more understand our issues and we're working hard to address them - and I think we're working in the right direction towards addressing them. I definitely feel more confident moving forward that we are progressing in the right direction. Have we rectified everything? We'll find out. It just feels good, that there's a lot of work been going on: a lot of stress; a lot of strain within everyone's work. Everyone just trying to do their best and get us up front. Obviously our competition has been very, very strong through the first five races - but it is up and down from race to race. But I do think the first five races are always a really... it's always very difficult because it's just a learning curve. A very steep learning curve every year, even though we have that winter test. I can't tell you what's going to happen moving forwards but I'm confident that we're going to do the best job that we can to maximise our results.

Check out our Wednesday gallery from Monaco, here.