We know that motor racing is a glamorous sport, because that's what we're told all the time, but sometimes it is hard to see the glamour for the grit. Every now and then, you find yourself at some far-flung racetrack, putting on a cold, sweat-drenched balaclava for the tenth time, exhausted after driving for the fourth day in a row and wanting nothing more out of life than some dry clothes and a mug of tea. Glamour? Not this time.

None of us would be involved in Formula One if we did not enjoy the sport, but it can be easy to forget the image we project. As drivers, our focus is on winning races, and the way to do that is to concentrate our attention on aerodynamic tweaks, tyre compounds, test sessions, engines and such like. That leaves precious little time for the showbiz lifestyle people imagine we lead, because I don't think there is any driver who'd rather be drinking a cocktail when he could be making his car go faster.

Still, the old-fashioned image of the racing driver persists, fed by all those familiar images from years gone by. Think of Formula One, and most people conjure up the image of a speeding Ferrari dashing around the Monaco Grand Prix circuit with a playboy at the wheel - the same playboy who turned up in his yacht just before the race, jumped in the car without a care in the world and then reeled off seventy daredevil laps before dinner. We like to believe that myth, but the truth is that those types were not usually the most successful.

Historically, Formula One was the playground of the rich and famous, because you needed to be wealthy or remarkably talented to succeed. There was an almost aristocratic feel to the sport, with barons, counts, dukes and various heirs lining up on the grid along with a few monied types and a handful of gentleman racers, and that image has stuck. These days, though, that image is played up because so many people want to present our sport as one that is fuelled by glamour and exclusivity as much as it is by sponsorship and horsepower. The teams make themselves attractive to sponsors and then the sponsors want to get the biggest return from their investment. And, perhaps, there are a couple of drivers who like the world to think of them as daring playboys. Indeed, I wouldn't mind being one myself!

Image is ultimately what sells Formula One, and the Monaco Grand Prix is the prime example. It might be a faintly absurd place in which to stage a race, but Monaco is crucial to the health of Formula One. Think of this single race, and you'll find yourself thinking about wealth, glitz and glamour, and a circuit that winds its way past some of the best-known motor racing landmarks anywhere in the world. The Monaco Grand Prix is known everywhere on the planet.

It can be lovely, and if you're running well in Monaco the world can seem a perfect place. Unfortunately, last season that was not the case. In fact, it was a thoroughly miserable experience because the whole weekend was a disaster for everybody at Jordan. Ralf Schumacher and I qualified towards the back of the grid, ran around at the rear of the field for the whole race, and just about managed to avoid finishing last, with me cursing the car for its ill-timed reliability - I was hoping that it would break down in familiar style, but it just kept going for lap after lacklustre lap. The whole event was nothing more than damn hard work for pretty little gain.

Monaco's small size makes it a tough place to go racing under any circumstances, and when things are against you it can be very depressing and claustrophobic. The pit garages are tiny, the paddock is cramped and it can take an age to get from one place to another. It's a legacy of another era, when teams had less equipment to take to every race and the whole thing was a bit more ad hoc. In the modem era, Monaco's facilities are just not suitable, but you have to do the best you can, even if it does drive you mad. We have enough work to do on the car without having to do it in a garage the size of a lift.

The pit-lane is far too tight and it's crawling with guests, journalists and sponsors - Monaco is the one race of the year that everybody seems to want to attend. It's hard to move around without somebody wanting to talk to you. Although the attention is something we're used to, it tends to get a bit out of control in Monte Carlo. If you're not careful, you can spend too much time shaking hands, and not enough preparing your car.

Not that racing is the only thing that people have on their minds. The Grand Prix usually coincides with the Cannes Film Festival and the grid is always crammed with starlets and film stars, standing around and being seen in the right places. Anybody who thinks they are anybody turns up in Monaco for the Grand Prix weekend and a lot of them are far more interested in the business of 'see and be seen' than they are in the cars. It can be quite a feat to drive your car down the packed pit-lane without mowing down half the royal families of Europe! Thank goodness they've imposed a speed limit, or we could easily have had a rather gory diplomatic incident by now.

All these famous visitors are very good for the magazine photographers, who can get a clutch of them at the same time, but I sometimes wonder how many of these people actually understand what it is all about. This year, one celebrity was standing around before the start of the race and somebody asked him who he thought would win. 'If it rains,' he said, 'I reckon David Schumacher will do it.'

One particular celebrity even made a habit of coming to races all season long. Throughout the year, we would see Sylvester Stallone wandering around, soaking up the atmosphere, taking notes and chatting to as many people as he could. He was making preparations for a film about Formula One, which, no doubt, will give the sport an even greater prominence in the US market that Formula One covets (particularly given that he is one of the biggest film stars in the world and would be producing the movie and acting in it). Among all the people in Formula One, Bernie Ecclestone is the main one making sure that the sport keeps on growing and, with an eye on that American market (which Formula One really needs to crack if it is ever going to live up to that world championship tag), it's probably safe to say that he helped Stallone out as much as possible. After all, he's smart enough to see that a glossy, big-budget feature film is just what the sport, and the ever-important sponsors, wants.

Bernie is the mastermind behind the packaging and selling of the whole Formula One brand. He's the pivotal figure in the success of the sport, just as he has been for the best part of two decades, striking deals with all the teams, arranging the television rights and generally creating the whole enterprise that billions of people around the world tune in to see on television.

Bernie has made a prodigious fortune out of motor racing and he became the highest-paid company director in British history when his salary peaked at £lm per week -not bad for a man who was once a second-hand motorbike salesman on the Old Kent Road. He has an instinctive understanding of the way the sport works, and it was his appreciation of how all the elements fit together that enabled the sport to grow to such an enormous and profitable level. We are the modern-day Ben Hurs taking part in a chariot race that is beamed around the world, but we are just part of the show and we know it. At the top of it all sits Bernie, looking down on the Circus Maximus that he created, and Monaco is the jewel in his crown.

The race will always find a place on any Formula One calendar because of its fame and its historical standing. With all those sponsors coming in droves, you can be sure of being invited to a series of functions in the evenings and, since these are the people who keep the money rolling into motor racing's coffers, it would be churlish not to attend. It's part of my job to represent my team and entertain guests as best I can, but the problem is that I normally have only half a mind on the job at hand. At Monte Carlo, you can't stop thinking about the problems you are going to come up against in the coming days.

Monaco is like that, not just for me, but for all the drivers I know. It provides a unique challenge and it preys on your mind. Some people love driving there because it's so unusual and some hate it for the same reasons, but everybody spends the weekend thinking about the challenges that lie ahead, rolling them over in their minds.

Driving there requires a greater degree of concentration than any other race on the calendar. There are myriad difficulties that can take you by surprise - barriers that you could clip and end your race, corners that force you to slow down to what feels like walking pace, and a surface so bumpy that you feel as if you are about to be thrown out of the car. It's impossible to test at Monaco, of course, and there is no similar circuit to allow you to prepare, so every year we have to re-familiarise ourselves with its idiosyncrasies. If you can get through the weekend without encountering some kind of trouble, you're entitled to feel very happy.

For sheer evocative power, there is only one name in Formula One that challenges Monaco's position and that, of course, is Ferrari. Put them together, and you have something remarkable - Grand Prix racing's most glamorous team competing at its most glamorous location. However commercial the sport may become, the sight of the red car charging through Casino Square is as evocative now as it ever has been.

The image of Formula One is built upon the legend of Ferrari and, for the moment, the reputation of Michael Schumacher. They embody many of the key ingredients that are then sold around the world. On top of that, you have teams like Benetton and Jordan, who have an appeal of their own.

As much as Michael Schumacher, or any other driver for that matter, means to Formula One, Ferrari is the heart of the sport, known all over the world. Whatever happens, people will always talk about Ferrari with a sense of awe. If the team wins a Grand Prix, the reports make the sports headlines in just about every country in the world -including, of course, the United States.

I would be lying if I said that I was more immune to the Ferrari legend than anybody else, and if the chance had come up I would love to have driven for the team. The feeling of having driven a Ferrari in a Grand Prix would be something you would carry for ever, something you could bore your grandchildren with for hours on end. Your photograph would be there in the record books and you would take your place in the team's coveted history. However hard-nosed we might like to imagine ourselves, there are not many people who would be able to turn their back on an offer to drive for Formula One's most famous team.

The trouble is that if you do take their offer, it comes with a caveat. Plenty of good drivers have discovered over the years that if you're not competitive behind the wheel of a Ferrari, your life can be hell. The attention is remorseless. One of the Italian newspapers carries at least one page of Ferrari news every day of the year, and many, many more after each race, so the drivers are always under a microscope, being probed for weaknesses. The fortunes of the Ferrari team have a quasi-religious importance for many people in Italy, so if you're winning races, then you're a hero, but when things are not going well, then the attention, and the criticism, can be unending. If the driver in question happens to be Italian, the pressure is far worse.

The value of the team will never change though, for Ferrari's strength lies in its history. The first time a child sees a picture of a racing car, it will almost certainly be red, and from that nebulous beginning comes the love for Ferrari. I am not sure whether Ferrari were lucky that they tapped into a subconscious connection between speed and the colour red, or whether the world has decided that a Ferrari is the perfect image of a fast car, but the result is the same. Think of a fast car, and you invariably think of a Ferrari, so when you apply that emotion to sport, you're bound to come up with images of speed, glamour, money and the golden era of motor racing.

Companies such as Mercedes and Ford also help to maintain that tradition, stirring up memories of how the sport was in decades past and reminding us of the feats of our predecessors, but it is the Ferrari name that matters most. Whatever the truth may be about the business of motor racing, the important thing is to make it seem chic and glamorous, and that is why Ferrari, with all the associations that go with that name, is so vital to Formula One. Without that single team, the image of Grand Prix motor racing would suffer terribly, which is why so many people are keen to see Ferrari succeed.

Strip away the mythology, though, and the present Ferrari team is an interesting hybrid, headed up by the same people who were at Benetton until 1996. In years gone by, it was Enzo Ferrari who ruled the roost, but the present team is largely run by Jean Todt, who is French, and the Englishman Ross Brawn. They have an Australian designer, Rory Byrne, German and Irish drivers and the car is largely paid for by Marlboro and Shell, companies based in America and Holland. Indeed, there's not much Italian about the roots of their car, except for the location of the factory. That, though, doesn't seem to matter much, and the track invasion after the team's 1-2 in Monza was one of the most emotional sights motor racing has produced in years. The name and the image of Ferrari are as strong, and as Italian, as ever.

In fact, manufacturers are becoming more important than ever in Formula One, and as that happens, the role of the driver is changing. In the mid-1960s, it was the driver who was the most important star of the show, but now we are becoming more like jockeys in horse racing who are hired to use their skills but are still not seen as the most important element in a winning package. We're well paid, of course, and the public still look to the drivers first, but there are a lot of people within Formula One who place the driver below chassis, engine and tyres on their wish-lists. Get the horse right, and then find a jockey to ride it. We're like jockeys in another way too, because we have to travel far and wide to do our job. One year I spent a total of twelve complete days in mid-air. That's nearly 300 hours on a plane, and that number is getting higher with each passing season as we test abroad with an ever greater frequency.

The truth is that, for most of the European races, I arrive and go straight from the airport to the circuit, then to the hotel, then back to the circuit, and I keep up that routine until the race is over and I go home. That goes for testing as well, so although I have been to many different countries, there is not much that I could tell you about them.

I have a wife, four children and a lovely house in Ireland that I like to spend time in, but my job means I am away for much of the year. Instead, I end up expending a lot of energy thinking of ways to get home as soon as possible. Only when I am back with my family do I really relax, which is important to me both as a driver and a person. The job of a racing driver is a pretty stressful one, and you need to turn off from those pressures and forget them. Relaxing, believe it or not, is actually very important in keeping me motivated and fresh for the challenge.

There is a rule that says you cannot test in the week before a Grand Prix. The knock-on effect is that now, after a three-day Grand Prix meeting, I normally come home for a day before flying off again to another test, in another country. After that, I get to go home for the weekend and then start to prepare for the next race, all assuming that I don't have to go somewhere else for a sponsor's engagement. It is, by anyone's standards, hectic.

There's training to be done as well, and other business work that needs to be taken care of, and it is easy to end up exhausted. That's when it's difficult to see the glamorous side to Formula One and that's why so many drivers concentrate on doing whatever they can to make their lives a little less hectic.

Take private jets-1 do! Of course they're a luxury, but they have become almost a necessity for a lot of the drivers in Formula One. If you add up all the time you would otherwise spend waiting at airports, checking in and then waiting through the inevitable delays, it can all add considerably to the workload and stress of the job, taking its toll on you before you even arrive at the track. With your own plane, you can leave when you want, land where you want and arrive feeling pretty good, which shows itself on the track. Like so much else in this sport, it has a glamorous exterior, but a very pragmatic core.

The fact is that, more and more, you have to be completely focused on looking after your own well-being. You need to be organised, thoughtful and fit, and none of that comes very easily.

Fitness training is vital, and it puts another restriction on our efforts to chase this promised glamorous lifestyle. I am not sure you would last long in Formula One if you went out nightclubbing and living to excess in the midst of a Grand Prix season. The man who goes out on a mighty bender before the Hungarian Grand Prix, for instance, would be the man full of regret when he got to the halfway mark of one of the toughest races of the year, sweating out his hangover in 40°C heat.

If you wilt, there's nobody to hold your hand, because motor racing is a very solitary sport once the race has started. It's not like being a footballer, where you have another ten guys to help you out if things aren't going well. A Grand Prix is normally the best part of two hours long, with no half-time break, and that makes it more like running a marathon than anything else - and marathon runners don't have to wear flameproof overalls.

Formula One is like any other athletic event, except that we do our sport sitting down. It's demanding, hard work, where the onus is on isometric tension -which means that, instead of using your muscles to move something, you are actually using your strength to hold yourself in position. A driver has to be fit enough to stay tense when there is a big load going through his body, and that uses up a lot of energy. In Imola, for instance, I lost two litres of fluid just through sweating - that's nearly four pints of water coming out of my body over the course of an hour and a half. It's a brave person who gives a driver a hug after a race. In August, I had a test at Jerez in Spain where it was 40°C and hardly ideal conditions. In order to keep myself from dehydrating, I had to drink seven litres of fluid a day or else I would have dried up completely. Being clad in three layers of fireproof racing overalls on a blazing hot day is as far as you can get from lying by the pool with your swimming trunks on and a cold beer in your hand.

How fit are we, though? I am often asked to compare a racing driver's fitness with that of other sportsmen, and it's tough to say because each sport places different demands on its participants. A long-distance runner might be useless in a game of football, for instance, because he would not be able to sprint fast enough over short distances. Swimmers train hard, but may not be able to run a marathon very well, while a weightlifter who can lift vast amounts would probably look pretty sluggish over a 400-metre race. What counts is concentrating on the demands of your own discipline. Mind you, I doubt that there are many other sportsmen in the world who could do more than a couple of laps in a racing car without their necks giving up and their heart rate going through the roof.

Driving a Formula One car is a constant battle. You accelerate, brake and corner so quickly that you are constantly fighting the extreme G-forces exerted on your body, pushing you from one side to another, trying to throw you out of your seat. While you are coping with that, you have to deal with the bumps that crop up on every circuit, especially Monaco, bumps that shake you so badly that, after an hour, you can start to feel mildly concussed. It is like riding a bicycle down a set of stairs for an hour and a half, or roller-skating over a cobbled street.