F1 - Hamilton takes Monaco victory as Ferrari suffer

Hamilton and McLaren made a fine return to form in Monaco

Lewis Hamilton achieved a life-long ambition by winning the Monaco Grand Prix in breathtaking style to retake the world championship lead from Ferrari rival Kimi Raikkonen.

The McLaren ace survived an early brush with disaster on a dramatic rain-hit afternoon on the tight and twisty streets, hitting the barrier at Tabac corner on lap five and puncturing a tyre.

Remarkably though, the mistake proved to be a blessing in disguise, as the unscheduled pit stop allowed McLaren to fill his car to the brim with fuel and delay his switch from intermediate to dry-weather tyres until the perfect moment.

His astonishing recovery combined with a disastrous day for Raikkonen who after an error-filled afternoon finished empty-handed in ninth place, meaning Lewis now leads the Finn by three points at the top of the drivers' standings.

BMW's Robert Kubica ran at the front throughout and beat long-time race leader Felipe Massa to a brilliant second place.

After dominating the early stages of the race, pole-sitter Massa's struggled as the track dried out on the intermediate rubber and then Ferrari lost out to Kubica when they eventually switched to dries.

Fourth place should have gone to Adrian Sutil, who drove an inspired race for minnows Force India, making no mistakes and lapping on the pace of the leaders.

But the young German was cruelly denied his and the team’s best ever finish when Raikkonen plunged into the back of him at the chicane after a late restart – just 10 minutes from the chequered flag.

It was the final dramatic moment on a chaotic afternoon on the tortuous street track.

The anticipation ahead of any Monte Carlo start is always high, but this year it was doubled by the increasingly heavy drizzle falling around the Principality.

And with rain predicted to continue falling for 20 minutes, all drivers bar Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr (extreme wets) opted to start on the immediate rubber.

Heikki Kovalainen didn't get that far, however, as he stalled from his fourth-placed grid slot as the formation lap got underway, meaning the McLaren driver would be at the back after starting from the pit lane.

It was better news for his team-mate at the lights though, as Hamilton outdragged a sluggish Raikkonen into St Devote to take second place behind Massa.

As the cars streamed up the hill and through Casino Square, there were no major incidents despite the increasingly greasy conditions – although that calm wouldn't last long.

Hamilton was the first to crack when he seemingly took himself out of contention for victory with a slide into the Tabac barrier five laps in.

Fortunately for him, the crash only damaged his right-rear tyre and his subsequent pit stop allowed the team to brim his MP4-23 up with fuel to potentially bring him back into play later on.

And such was the speed of the leaders at the front in the opening laps, he still rejoined in fourth position.

His old McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso then too picked up a right-rear puncture after sliding into the barrier at Massenet.

Red Bull's David Coulthard also got caught out at the increasingly treacherous corner and slammed significantly harder into the same spot after losing the back end of his RB4.

As the Scot's car was coming to rest against the barrier, the car of sister team Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais made exactly the same mistake and piled into the back of him.

The carnage brought out the safety car, immediately wiping out the 13s lead Massa had built up over an out-of-sorts Raikkonen.

So at the re-start the order read Massa, Raikkonen, Kubica, Hamilton, Nick Heidfeld, Mark Webber and the recovering Alonso.

The latter had promised to be aggressive on race day and lived up to his own billing with an incisive move down the inside of Webber under braking for Mirabeau to move back up to sixth.


Felipe Massa led in the early stages, but a strategy mix up meant he lost out

But Alonso was far too ambitious when he attempted to take fifth off Heidfeld, with his ill-advised move at the Fairmont hairpin resulted in the inevitable collision as the BMW driver turned in, ruining both drivers races and creating a momentary traffic jam at the slow corner.

Alonso wasn't the only one having a hard time though, as race control informed Ferrari that it had fitted Raikkonen's wet tyres on the grid outside of the allowed timeframe.

The world champion was hit with a drive-thru-penalty, which dropped him behind Hamilton and promoted a fast-charging Kubica to second.

Indeed the Pole quickly set his sights on deposing the other Ferrari and on lap 14 made his intentions clear by posting the race’s fastest lap, some 0.7s faster than Massa had just gone.

This time wouldn’t have been relayed to Massa, though, before he went straight on at St Devote after locking a wheel under braking.

But in a move reminiscent of his former team-mate Michael Schumacher, ironically while in the lead of the last wet Monaco race in 1997, cleverly decided not to take the turn and instead did a U-turn in the escape road to rejoin the track.

Nevertheless Kubica still sailed through to take the lead of the race and he and Massa would go on to trade fastest times as the rain began to ease off.

Kubica was the first to pit on lap 26 and looked set to drop to third behind Raikkonen as he exited the pit lane, before the Finn copied his team-mate's earlier mistake at St Devote

Whether distracted by the appearance of the BMW or simply having a moment all of his own, the world champion wasn't as lucky as Massa and broke his front wing to prompt a second unscheduled visit to the pit lane.

While the Ferraris and Kubica were creating all the commotion at the front, Hamilton had moved up to second with his car still heavy on fuel following his early stop.

He inherited the lead when Massa pitted on lap 33 and knew he had to had to charge to open enough of a gap before his own pit stop to re-emerge still in front.

And that is exactly what the 23-year-old did.

In a Schumacher-style show of consistently superior speed over a long stint, Hamilton was supreme in the drying conditions and was regularly over a second, often more, faster than Massa.

In turn, the Brazilian, who had jumped back in front of Kubica at the stops, was struggling for speed on his immediate tyres.

By the time Hamilton eventually pitted for his crucial stop on lap 57 all the cards had fallen in his favour – he had opened up a 38s lead and the track was now dry enough to switch to slick tyres.

It was a call Ferrari made too late and Massa would drop to third after pitting for the dry rubber a lap after Kubica.

That seemed that at the front, but there was one final moment of drama when Williams's Nico Rosberg crashed heavily on the entry to the Swimming Pool corner, littering the track with debris and bringing out the day’s second safety car.

It became clear that the race would now run to its two-hour maximum mark and so at the re-start there were 11 and a half minutes between Lewis and a dream Monaco win.

There was also that time between his great friend Sutil and a giant-killing fourth place, but Raikkonen broke Force India’s dreams when he seemed to hit a damp patch coming out of the tunnel and lost control of his F2008, slamming into the back of the German at the harbourside chicane.

Hamilton would have no such late dramas and duly crossed the line for his first Monaco F1 win three seconds ahead of Kubica, with Massa third.

The Sutil/Raikkonen collision promoted Mark Webber to a well-deserved fourth place for Red Bull Racing ahead of his Toro Rosso stable-mate Sebastian Vettel, who had moved up virtually unnoticed through all of the chaos to the points in the STR3's debut outing.

Rubens Barrichello profited from the various incidents to finish a fine sixth for Honda – finally bringing to an end his 22-race points drought which stretched back to the 2006 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Williams rookie Kazuki Nakajima kept his nose clean to finish seventh, while Kovalainen managed to score the final point following his problems on the grid.


Raikkonen was running in fifth until he crashed into the back of a flying Sutil

Monaco GP result - 76 laps
1. HAMILTON McLaren
2. KUBICA BMW +3.0s
3. MASSA Ferrari +4.8s
4. WEBBER Red Bull +19.2s
5. VETTEL Toro Rosso +24.6s
6. BARRICHELLO Honda +28.4s
7. NAKAJIMA Williams +30.1s
8. KOVALAINEN McLaren +33.1s
9. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +33.7s
10. ALONSO Renault +1 lap
11. BUTTON Honda +1 lap
12. GLOCK Toyota +1 lap
13. TRULLI Toyota +1 lap
14. HEIDFELD BMW +4 laps
R. SUTIL Force India +9 laps
R . ROSBERG Williams +17 laps
R. PIQUET Renault +29 laps
R. FISICHELLA Force India +40 laps
R. COULTHARD Red Bull +69 laps
R. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +69 laps

Fastest lap: HAMILTON 1m19.006s

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