The first major drama of the race came as early as lap two, when Tonio Liuzzi – one of the stars of qualifying in placing his
Scuderia Toro Rosso machine 12th on the grid – undid all his good work of the weekend by planting his STR-2 in the barriers at Massenet while under pressure from fast-starting team-mate
Scott Speed, already up four spots from his 18th grid position.
As the race began to settle down a little, Alonso held a steady one second gap over Hamilton, with Massa a further three seconds in arrears. Further back, Heidfeld was continuing to stave off the advances of a racy-looking Rosberg, while queues were beginning to form up behind both Hondas, as Webber and Kubica started putting the pressure on Barrichello and
Jenson Button found his mirrors full of Raikkonen’s
Ferrari. Equally intriguingly, a few spots further back was to be found
David Coulthard holding up
Heikki Kovalainen – not for the first time this weekend – as the two subjects of Saturday’s controversial qualifying incident looked set to turn it into seconds out, round two.
As the laps slowly ticked away, Alonso began to stamp his authority on proceedings by eking out a gap over his chasing team-mate, with Massa holding a watching brief back in third. Meanwhile, we still had the unfamiliar sight of a
Honda leading a Ferrari in 2007 as Raikkonen found himself unable to make any impression on the earth-themed car ahead of him around the most difficult circuit on which to overtake of them all.
Ten laps in, and the gap between the leading two stood at four seconds. Whatever
McLaren team principal Ron Dennis may have claimed afterwards about his two drivers ‘cruising’ from there on in, the on-track evidence suggested rather differently, as no quarter was asked and none was given. Indeed, the more Alonso extended his lead, the more wayward Hamilton’s MP4-22 seemed to get as he doggedly gave chase, and there was many a heart-in-the-mouth moment as Lewis slid the car around the corners mere millimetres away from kissing the barriers, something that at Monaco can invariably spell instant disaster.
