It certainly hasn't been the start to the 2018 Formula 1 world championship season that Romain Grosjean had been hoping for.
Grosjean is still pointless after five races, one of only two drivers on the grid yet to score. His last two races in Baku and Barcelona have been blighted by mishaps that saw him spin out of the race and crash. The Haas driver admitted that it had been a luckless start to the year.
"It’s been a tough series recently, with tough luck," he said this week. "Obviously, yes, it’s a shame when your race ends on the first lap, but it does happen sometimes."
Grosjean was still seeking to look on the brighter side of things, pointing to his team mate Kevin Magnussen's competitive form in the Spanish Grand Prix.
“It was really good to see that Kevin had a good race and that the pace was there," he said. "The most important thing was that Kevin was fast.
"We then went testing [at Barcelona] and I had a good feeling in the car," he added.
"We’ve got 16 races to go," he pointed out. "There’s a lot more races. The car is fast at a lot of circuits. I’m very much looking forward to the next race.”
The next race is one of the most distinctive and iconic of the entire season - the Monaco Grand Prix.
"It’s probably one of the most difficult races to win," Grosjean said. "Everything needs to be perfect, from the first free practice to the end of the race.
"Every city racetrack is complicated," he explained. "In Monaco, you can’t make any mistakes or you’re straight into the wall. It’s hard to find the right limit of the car.
"You always have to drive underneath [the limit], unless you’re in qualifying on a very fast lap. It’s very tight there, and it goes very fast between the walls. It’s a great challenge."
The race will feature the first competitive outing for Pirelli's new pink hypersoft tyres. Grosjean got to try out the new compound in last week's in-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
“It’s a good tyre," he said. "Probably the best Pirelli has produced so far. I think they should work pretty nicely in Monaco. They were working very well in Barcelona.
"They’re going to be faster and I think the endurance of the tyre will be good enough," he noted. "The energy is much slower in Monaco [compared to Barcelona], so it should last for a good amount of time."
Grid position is key at Monaco, which makes Grosjean's three-place penalty for causing the accident that took out Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly on the first lap in Spain all the more painful.
“It’s probably one of the worst races to get a penalty," he sighed. "It is what it is. We’ve got to live with it. Our strategy will be to qualify as high as we can and move from there.
"I do remember Monaco in 1996 when Olivier Panis won," he pointed out. "He was the last Frenchman to win a grand prix. I remember that race, especially, as it was a crazy race.
"He started 14th and was one of only three cars to cross the finish.
"Of course, the history of Monaco, and all the racing cars, and the changes to the circuit over the years – we love it because Monaco is Monaco."
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