Buzzin F1 - Formula One Blog

Lewis Hamilton took the chequered flag today at the Monaco Grand Prix for the Mercedes McLaren team, and is now leading the Championship.

The rain started to fall 20 minutes before the race was due to start but fortunately it stayed reasonably light. Heikki Kovalainen stalled on the grid and had to start his race from the pit lane.

Hamilton sneaked up the inside of Kimi Raikkonen to take second place behind Felipe Massa at the start of the race. Nico Rosberg in the Williams made contact with the back of Fernando Alonso at the hairpin on the first lap and on the next, Jenson Button run into the back of Nick Heidfeld.

Nico Rosberg pitted on lap five to have a new front wing as Timo Glock in the Toyota, lost the front end of his car and span, he kept the engine running and rejoined the track but had lost several places.

By lap six, David Coulthard who had been penalised five places for a gearbox change, had worked his way up into tenth place as the rain got heavier and Lewis Hamilton slid across the track and hit the wall, and headed straight back to the pits for a new tyre.

Haikkonen was in second place by lap seven thanks to Hamilon’s error with Robert Kubica on his tail. Hamilton rejoined in fifth place as a pile up happened at Casino Square. Alonso hit the barrier and damaged his suspension while Coulthard and Sebastien Bourdais made contact, bringing out the safety car. Coulthard and Bourdais were out of the race but Alonso rejoined as the safety car came in.

Alonso was on a charge as he overtook Mark Webber to go sixth and then tried to do the same with Nick Heidfeld, but the inevitable pile-up occurred sending him back to the pits for his third nose cone.

Raikkonen was in for a drive through penalty on lap sixteen as his tyres had apparently been fitted after the pre-race deadline, moving him back to fourth place.

Massa went off track after running wide at the end of the start-finish straight and Kubica took advantage and led the Monaco Grand Prix for the next ten laps. Massa kept his car running and was straight back on track and chasing Kubica.

Raikkonen ran wide and damaged his front wing and returned again to the pits where he took on enough fuel to finish the race

The Force India driver, Adrian Sutil was in fifth position as Massa pitted and Hamilton took over the lead. Timo Glock span, narrowly missing Jenson Button and Rosberg.

Giancarlo Fisichella did not have a good race and he went out of the race with a gearbox problem.

Massa was stuck behind traffic as Hamilton extended his lead ready for his pit stop. Meanwhile Alonso came into the pits and put on dry tyres after warnings that more rain is due in minutes.

Nelson Piquet also came in for dry tyres and on the next lap went straight on at St Devote and was out of the race.

Kovalainen, Webber, Sutil and Hamilton were all on dry tyres with Hamilton rejoining in the lead after his pit stop.

Kovalainen then hit the back of Button sending him spinning as Massa returned once again to the pits to try the dry tyres and leaving Kubica to take the second place.

Hamilton built up a lead of 39 seconds over Kubica until Rosberg smashed into the barriers at the swimming pool section bringing the safety car back into action as debris was swept of the track.

With only ten minutes left of the race, Raikkonen smashed into the back of Sutil taking the Force India driver out of the race but there didn’t seem to be a lot Raikkonen could do to miss him. The Ferrari driver rejoined, yet again, in ninth position.

Lewis Hamilton took the victory followed by Robert Kubica and Felipe Massa in an exciting race on the streets of Monte Carlo.

The race did not go the full distance today as it hit the two hour time limit

Here are the results: