From the Nouvelle Chicane all the way around to Rascasse, the image of F1 cars screaming around Monaco is framed by the beautiful blue water of Port Hercules, filled with snowy-white yachts and super yachts. This year, however, a couple of those yachts were orange and blue. Though a partnership with yacht-builder VanDutch, we had our F1 livery out of the water with a VanDutch 40 and VanDutch 55 painted to match the cars. They spent the weekend ferrying the team, drivers and guest around the Med – with a little bit of pleasure cruising thrown in.

It wasn’t a particularly joyful grand prix for F1 with the news, announced as most of the team were travelling to Monaco, that Niki Lauda had passed away. The three-times champion was an exceptionally popular figure, with everyone who knew him – and everyone knew him. We placed his McLaren helmet and 1984 Drivers’ World Championship trophy on display inside the Brand Centre. He will be much-missed.

The mantra often repeated is that Monaco practice is all about laps on the board. The more laps the drivers do, the closer to the walls and the faster they’ll be. Carlos missed most of FP1, with an Energy Store failure that left everyone scratching their heads after it stubbornly refused to come back online after the installation lap. His crew did a hugely impressive job – which nobody notices – to get the floor off, swap the unit, and get him back out for the last two minutes of the session.

In FP2 it was Lando’s turn: he first damaged then really damaged the bib (the part of the floor that projects out towards the nose) on the bumps and kerbs around the Swimming Pool. That required a floor change which cost him a large chunk of the session. That’s the nature of Monaco: you don’t have to hit a barrier for the circuit to bite.

Track time isn’t the only reason teams want a smooth weekend in Monaco. It’s a difficult environment in which to work because the garages are absolutely tiny. In terms of square metres, the amount of square-footage we had last time out in Barcelona contains ourselves, Haas, Racing Point and Renault in Monaco. The workaround is the garage goes up three storeys, with the engineers and much of the kit housed above – but the floor space for the cars, tools, tyres, bodywork etc., is really limited.

One of Monaco’s many idiosyncrasies is having FP1 and FP2 shifted forwards to Thursday, leaving Friday free. That’s a very loose term. It really means the crew have two reasonably easy days rather than one extremely long day. Elsewhere, it’s a late night after FP2: the cars are stripped and rebuilt – minus a few unnecessary testing-spec kilos. In Monaco most of that work in done over about nine hours on a Friday. On Thursday evening in Monaco the crew just tidies the cars up, takes off the rear assembly and gearbox… then it’s time for a barbecue.

While Monaco tends to be quite a tough assignment for the garage, spare a thought for the hospitality team in the Brand Centre. Last week they served more meals and welcome more guests than at any other race. Coupled to that, the eccentricities of Monaco means it’s a kilometre round trip every time they need to take a crate of supplies over to the garage – because the car crews rarely have the opportunity to make the trip the other way. There’s a real buzz around the operation, and everyone gets through on adrenaline – but come Sunday night, there’s some pretty tired people packing up the kitchen.

Sixth for Carlos was probably a little better than anyone expected – but it took a real team effort to get him there. The crux of the race came with the early Safety Car. With those in front of him pitting, the strategy required Carlos and Lando to stay out and go long. It played to our strengths: the car has good long-run pace. While Carlos was going quickly, Lando had to play tailgunner, backing-up rivals and giving Carlos the breathing space he needed to pit and get out in front. It may ultimately have cost Lando a place – but it gained Carlos two.