After four consecutive victories, the championship-leading Ferrari team and its defending world champion Kimi Raikkonen are expecting to be the dominant force again in Monaco on Sunday.

The Finn, who leads this year's title race ahead of his Ferrari teammate Brazilian Felipe Massa, is convinced the Italian scuderia is in excellent shape as it bids for victory on a track where it has not always proved strong.

Only three wins in the last two decades at the Monaco Grand Prix suggests that Ferrari produces cars usually more attuned to running on open circuits rather than the cramped steel-barrier-lined roads of the Mediterranean principality.

But Raikkonen said: "We are going to be very competitive again in Monaco, I feel sure of that. But there is a lot of work to do and a long way to go before we can talk about championships."

While Raikkonen arrives in a calm and confident mood, his young rival, British tyro Lewis Hamilton, 23, is insistent that he can fire up his flagging title challenge with his first victory on his favorite circuit in a Formula One car.

He has collected impressive wins on the demanding streets around the harbor in all the junior formulae and just missed out on challenging for a win last year when he was a victim of team orders.

Fresh from spending an evening at the Cannes Film Festival with Miss Grenada Vivian Burkhard, with whom he was photographed, Hamilton has talked up his hopes.

"It is the Grand Prix every driver wants to win," Hamilton said.