The kerb at the right-left chicane exiting the harbourside swimming pool complex has been beefed up to prevent drivers gaining an advantage by cutting the corner.
"That big yellow thing, don't touch it when you are in a Formula One car," Haas F1's French driver Romain Grosjean told reporters after first inspections of the street circuit. "It looks like a taking-off ramp."
Mercedes's triple world champion Lewis Hamilton, a former Monaco winner, said he was not sure why the kerbs were changed while team mate Valtteri Bottas described them as "quite extreme".
Force India's Mexican driver Sergio Perez added: "I think the one we had before was big enough and if you hit it, it would send you to the wall. So I think this one will probably send you to the grandstand."
Britain's Jolyon Palmer, who has yet to score a point this season with Renault, provided an alternative perspective.
"It's not as big as the walls that are around the outside of most other corners. So I think we'd prefer to have a kerb like that than a wall," he said.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ken Ferris)
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