While the pace was furious at the front of the pack, there was predictable very little passing in the 78-lap Monaco Grand Prix. Starting from Pole Position Fernando Alonso pushed hard and withstood Lewis Hamilton’s various charges throughout the race to record his second win of the season, just ahead of his rookie team-mate.
With no safety car in the race and the front runners all on the same two stop strategy, it was qualifying that dictated the race result. Alonso made a clean start and Hamilton went into defence mode and slotted into second. Alonso made the initial break as he pulled an advantage and despite Hamilton’s best efforts, Alonso dictated the pace to the chequered flag and made something of a point along the way.
Behind the McLaren duo, the rest were frankly no where. Felipe Massa started third and was never a threat in his Ferrari as he took the flag in third position over a minute adrift of Alonso. Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen had a quiet race from 16th position on the grid and brought his F2007 home in eighth position.
Giancarlo Fisichella and Renault will be relatively happy to start and finish in fourth position, albeit a lap down on Alonso. Fisichella’s cause was made a little easier as Nick Heidfeld was terribly slow for the first half of the race on the soft tyres and running just one stop, thereby backing up the field and allowing the Italian an unchallenged position.
Robert Kubica ran a one stop strategy in his BMW Sauber and had a solid enough race to fifth position. After losing ground at the start he was able to gain position as his rivals pitted.
Nick Heidfeld finished sixth despite starting the race on the softest – and this occasion – the slowest tyres. Losing two seconds a lap but getting the jump on Nico Rosberg, Heidfeld was soon half a minute behind Fisichella frustrating and ruining the strategy of Rosberg and some others also running two stops.
Alex Wurz stayed out of trouble to finish seventh in his Williams Toyota and pick up his first points of the season while Raikkonen gets a point but falls further away in the championship battle.
Scott Speed had a solid run in his Toro Rosso Ferrari to ninth position ahead of the Honda duo of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button. Nico Rosberg started fifth but after spending his first stint behind the fuel heavy Heidfeld, his race was effectively ruined and he would take the chequered flag in 12th.
Heikki Kovalainen was classified in 13th position as he ended the race in the pits. It mattered little for the Renault rookie driver as he was running in that position anyway after a difficult weekend.
There was little joy at Red Bull Renault as David Coulthard struggled with the handling of his RB3 and finished 14th while Mark Webber had his now customary gearbox failure whilst running in the points. While it was a bad race for Red Bull it was a terrible race for Toyota who showed no pace whatsoever with Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher. 15th and 16th two laps down pretty much sums up their performance.
At the back, Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson were the final runners for Super Aguri Honda while Adrian Sutil crashed out early on and Christijan Albers ran at the back until retiring his Spyker Ferrari.
It wasn’t a good race by any stretch of the imagination and in fact it was pretty tedious. But it was a great drive from Alonso who made his point to his young team-mate.