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Monaco GP: 15th Victory for McLaren, 1st for Lewis Hamilton

In a dramatic, rainy Monaco GP, Lewis Hamilton made history with the McLaren team by securing his first ever Monaco F1 GP win, as well as McLaren's 15th win here.

The race saw plenty of accidents and unscheduled pitstops, with only 14 cars out of the 20 completing the race. As the session took longer than the planned 2 hours schedule for the race, under the rules, the race will stop at the 2-hour mark, which meant that the race stopped on the 76th lap (out of the scheduled 78 laps).

Heikki Kovalainen, who qualified 4th, was unlucky to get his car stalled right on the grid while the cars were supposed to do their formation/warm up lap. He had to be pushed into the pitlane by his mechanics and started from there, having to wait for all the cars to pass him before he can get out.

Lewis Hamilton had a great start to the race as he slotted himself ahead of Kimi Räikkönen to take the 2nd position. However, he touched the barriers and had to go in to the pitstop for an unscheduled change of tyres. This might have benefitted him as he could have an early fueling and change of tyres. It wasn't soon before Kimi Räikkönen was called into the pits for a go-through penalty because his tyres weren't fitted at the 3 minutes signal (before the race start).

Ferrari's Felipe Massa looked like he had the situation under his control until he made a mistake and went into the exit route, allowing BMW's Robert Kubica to overtake him to take the race lead. He recovered before dropping further in positions. Fernando Alonso had a few moments with the barriers, as well as contact with the other drivers, with the worst one including a 90 degrees nose plunge into Nick Heidfeld. While Heidfeld could continue the race without much damage, Alonso had to get a new nosecone.

David Coulthard was the non-recovering casualty of the race when he lost control of his car and it hit the barriers. However, sister team Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais must have been distracted by Coulthard so badly that he plunged his car right into the damaged Red Bull's rear, taking himself out of the race as well.

Giancarlo Fisichella's 200th grand prix start ended with a whimper as he DNF-ed with what seemed like a component failure. His teammate Adrian Sutil, who looked set for the first ever point finish for himself and Force India, was unfortunately taken out by Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen as the Finn lost control of his car at the spot where David Coulthard had his shunt during qualifying yesterday. While the Finn is able to continue after a change of nosecone (and ended the race out of point finish in 9th position), Adrian Sutil was not as lucky. He retired from the race and was reportedly "close to tears" (although tv images showed him looking like he was actually crying back in the pits).

That sparked a reaction from Mike Gascoyne, Technical Director of Force India, that Räikkönen ought to be banned from the next few races.

"Raikkonen always looked like doing stupid and in the end he did.

"If that was the other way around, and it was a little Force India driver hitting the World Champion, then he would be facing a one- or two-race ban. We've asked the stewards to take a look and act accordingly." he said.

Nico Rosberg was doing fine until he suffered a huge shunt which saw him rocketed from one side of the barriers to the other side and back in the tight circuit. While he emerged from the car fine, he looked to be in discomfort and was sent to the hospital for a routine checkup.

Nelson Piquet Jr failed to finish his grand prix again and looked to be really in danger of getting replaced. His teammate Alonso finished the race eventually in 10th position.

Sebastian Vettel, who started the race from 19th position after a gear box penalty thanks to the STR03 debut, did well to score a 5th position for the Toro Rosso team. Mark Webber finished 4th, while for the first time Williams' Kazuki Nakajima did better than his teammate Rosberg to score a 7th position finish. Heikki Kovalainen took the 8th spot.

Nick Heidfeld, who had a mediocre qualifying, finished the race in 14th position which was a really poor result since his teammate scored yet another podium for the BMWs. He would have a lot of explanation to do to Dr Mario Theissen for sure.

So Hamilton overtakes Kimi in the Drivers' Championship, while Räikkönen's teammate is just 1 point behind him. With the Montreal circuit coming up next on 8th June, will Ferrari be able to turn the tables on yet another track that benefits McLaren's design?

Results
01 L. Hamilton McLaren 2:00:42.742
02 R. Kubica BMW + 3.064
03 F. Massa Ferrari + 4.811
04 M. Webber Red Bull + 19.295
05 S. Vettel Toro Rosso + 24.657
06 R. Barrichello Honda + 28.408
07 K. Nakajima Williams + 30.180
08 H. Kovalainen McLaren + 33.191
09 K. Räikkönen Ferrari + 33.792
10 F. Alonso Renault + 1 laps
11 J. Button Honda + 1 laps
12 T. Glock Toyota + 1 laps
13 J. Trulli Toyota + 1 laps
14 N. Heidfeld BMW + 4 laps
Did not finish
15 A. Sutil Force India F1 + 7 laps
16 N. Rosberg Williams + 17 laps
17 N. Piquet jr. Renault + 31 laps
18 G. Fisichella Force India F1 + 40 laps
19 D. Coulthard Red Bull + 70 laps
20 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso + 70 laps

Times from PlanetF1.com

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.

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