Ann Bradshaw, a journalist and press officer with three decades of experience in motor racing, and one of the most respected workers in the F1 paddock, follows the 2002 season in her post-race column, offering F1 fans an insight into the life of those who spend the GP weekend inside the paddock

I do not want to sound ungrateful and blasé about the life I lead, but if I never went to Monaco for a Grand Prix again I would not be sorry. It is a magical place to visit for 51 weeks a year, but if you are involved in F1 and have to work at Grands Prix, it is one of the most difficult and exhausting places to visit for a race. The Monegasque authorities do a grand job securing the circuit so no one who hasn't got a pass or paid a lot of money for a ticket can gain access to the hallowed street circuit. However, this does make movement round the principality almost impossible, and in the past due to fences and closed roads I have had to travel miles to complete a journey that should take minutes.

There is no nicer sight than that of the most expensive boats in the world bobbing up and down in a Mediterranean harbour, but when you have to access one of these with guests and the water is choppy then things are not that wonderful. I remember several years ago when Labbatts sponsored the WilliamsF1 team, one of the high points of the year was going to be a trip for their top executives to Monaco, where they were to stay on a boat. The dinners and cocktail parties had been organised and on Friday - the Monaco day off for the F1 teams due to it being a French religious holiday - they were invited to a special lunch at the team's motor home. No expense was going to be spared for this and Frank was going to be there to welcome them. Sadly this never happened, as the sea was so rough that they were all suffering from sea sickness and a lobster and champagne lunch was the last thing on their minds!

Nowadays the Media Centre is in a large building on the harbour side where the motor homes are parked, but this is a new addition. Since I first went to the race as a 'worker' in the early eighties I must have visited about half a dozen different sites for the centre. The worst without doubt was the fifth floor of a multi-storey car park just behind Casino Square. It was no exaggeration to say it was a walk of about a mile through the pit lane, over barriers, down tunnels and finally into a lift that was hopelessly inadequate for the world's press and the odd person who wanted to use the other four floors for car parking.

However, the people I feel sorriest for are the mechanics and in a strange way it is those belonging to the top teams that are worst off. There are no garages as such in the pitlane, there is just enough room to put up the computers and store the tyres. So every morning the cars and all the spares have to be pushed from the teams' trucks to the pit lane, and then back again after the last session of their day. The teams are crammed along the harbour front with the awnings as work shops and if the weather is warm these can become very hot and sweaty. The not so successful teams are banished to the multi storey car park between the main harbour and the one at Fontveille. Although this means for them a trip of about a mile each way, when they get back to the garage they have as much space as they want and so for once their working conditions are the best, even if not seen as the most prestigious!

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Now for the good side of the Grand Prix. It is often one long party with the invitations coming in thick and fast and making it difficult to decide which boat to visit when. Twenty years ago the most sought after invite was to the Champion boat. The spark plug company always held a cocktail party on Thursday night and the boat was berthed on the harbour wall with a great view of the Mediterranean one side and the Monaco skyline the other. Nowadays no self-respecting sponsor would go there without a boat, and for the journalists it is a matter of trawling round the harbour from one sponsored cocktail party to the next. As you can imagine sometimes things get a bit out of control and while people being thrown in the harbour are few and far between, shoes and other items of clothing have been known to be seeing floating in the drink the morning after particularly good parties.

I have to admit that I have returned to my hotel several times a little worse for wear after such bashes. The worst I can remember was when I had consumed a little bit too much champagne and had to ride my hired bike - this is much more user friendly there than cars and also safer for me than mopeds - from the harbour to the Abela Hotel in Fontveille. I managed to do this without being arrested, despite going down a couple of one way streets and being chased by policemen on foot, but when I finally came round the corner at the front of the hotel my balance gave way. Several 'friends' still tell me the sight of me lying in the middle of the road with a bike on top of me giggling was one of the funniest images of that race.

Above I mentioned the Abela Hotel. This was always a favourite with us as it was the right side of town for the paddock and whether on foot or bike, was only a matter of minutes to the motor home and this could be accomplished whether the track was open or closed. These days it is even more in demand as its current name is the Columbus and one of its owners is David Coulthard. It is what is known as a boutique hotel. I am not in the travel business so don't know what this means, but in any terms it is a wonderful place. I have not stayed there since it was upgraded but have visited the rooms and also had several meals there. It is a haven of understated elegance in what sometimes can be a brash over the top place. The décor is wonderful with the rooms decorated in muted colours. Mind you I did have one complaint last year that I passed on to the management, who I think were rather horrified at my observation. In the dining room, again very tastefully furnished, there is a table with a very appetising salad selection. The food is displayed in white china bowls with the openings set at an angle. The first thought that came to my mind was they resembled the vitreous china receptacles you see in French men's toilets! Before you think I am the sort of girl who sneaks a look in such places, let me assure any of you who have never been to France that these places never seem to have doors so the monsieurs doing what they have to do are on display for the entire world to see.

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I must not forget the reason we go to Monaco is to race and over the years the track has been criticised by many drivers who feel such a temporary circuit has no place on a Grand Prix calendar when every year the safety features become more and more stringent. I think the best description of the circuit was from Nelson Piquet, who likened it to riding a bicycle in his living room. The track is narrow and twisty and here qualifying is even more important than anywhere else. While overtaking is not totally impossible, it can be incredibly difficult as was witnessed last year when David Coulthard in his McLaren Mercedes was stuck behind Enrique Bernoldi in his Arrows Asiatech for nearly half the race. I have to admit I had very little sympathy for David after Ron Dennis verbally attacked Enrique at the end of the race for not letting him by. They were fighting for position and, at the end of the day, it was the team's fault pole sitter David had been marooned on the dummy grid due to an electrical problem that stalled the engine. In such circumstances you pay the price and at Monaco it can be a very heavy one!

On Sunday the memories of that drama last year must have been well and truly banished from the mind of David. I have to admit I was disappointed Juan Pablo Montoya did not convert a great pole position into a win for WilliamsF1, but David is such a lovely person and a good driver so I was delighted to see him win in such style. It was nice to see such a popular win and, of course, was the first of the year not by someone with the surname Schumacher. It is still difficult to forget the debacle in Austria and so I was not surprised to see that two weeks on the fans were still booing Michael and Ferrari. Having said this, I think Ferrari put up a good defense for their actions, but at the end of the day F1 is a sport and we must never forget that. Ferrari obviously considers it a business and I suppose in view of the money they put in they have every right to do so. But they must never forget there are a lot of real enthusiasts who spend their hard earned money to watch a real fight and Ferrari robbed them of this in Austria.

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As I have mentioned before in my Atlas F1 column, I also work with BMW in the European Touring Car Championship and last weekend for the first time I visited the Brno circuit in the Czech Republic, which is a world away from the glamour of Monaco. Having said that I have to tell you as a home for motorsport it could not be faulted. This area of the country is beautiful with rolling hills that are heavily wooded and the track is just wonderful. However, the most important thing is it produced some amazing racing. We share what are known as the Super Racing Weekends with the FIA GT Championship, and Sunday's race in this series was fantastic. You have a two and a half hour race for this category and the latest one was a cliffhanger with five cars battling first of all for positions and then the lead. For me the biggest drama was the communications. We tend to take it for granted that when we arrive at media centres we just plug in and sign on. The telephone connections from Brno were a different system to that used by most of us and over the weekend I saw grown men cry with frustration as they failed to send and receive e-mails. As we have so often said about such things in the 21st century, we can put a man on the moon but we can't make a computer work in Europe.

In the Czech Republic there are some classic locally built cars that only real enthusiasts knew about before the iron curtain came down. I have a very good friend called Iain Cunningham who, like me, used to work for WilliamsF1 and he is such an enthusiast. He owns a Tatra, which before the weekend was really just a name to me. Suddenly it meant a lot more as when a Ferrari GT car spun in the middle of the track one of these majestic Tatra's was sent out as a course car and given the task of dragging the stricken Ferrari to the side of the track. I instantly rang Iain, who was enjoying the historic meeting in Monaco, and my opening words to him were "You are in the wrong place". Imagine my amazement when his instant reply was "Why are there lots of Tatras about?" I was then dispatched to photograph the car as well as a racing version one of the journalists had noticed in the paddock on the back of a trailer.

For F1 and for me it is now time to move on, most teams are doing their last big Silverstone test before the Grand Prix there and then it is off to one of my favourite Grand Prix locations, Montreal. In the next column I shall be telling you of some of my past experiences there and I can assure you they were not all related to cars on the track!

About the author:
Ann Bradshaw - Annie - began her motor racing career as a teenager, helping out her brother in local rally races in England, where she grew up. In the 1970s she organised motor racing events in England, and was later the press officer for the RAC MSA - the motorsport governing body in Britain. In mid 1980s, she became press officer to team Lotus, where she worked with Ayrton Senna. Shortly after, she moved to the Williams team and was working there for several years, when once again she found herself working with Senna. She worked with Damon Hill after the Brazilian's death, and moved with the British Champion to Arrows. She also worked with the Panoz team in the United States, before becoming a freelance press officer, now working with Compaq and BAR among others. Annie joined Atlas F1 as a regular columnist in April 2002.