In the end it was an utterly imperious display by the two Silver Arrows, as Alonso crossed the line four seconds clear of his team-mate to register his second successive Monaco triumph and 17th victory of his career, in the process reclaiming the lead of the Drivers’ World Championship. Although Hamilton was naturally disappointed to have seen his Monaco record broken, he equally knows his time will come. With Massa taking third,
McLaren and
Ferrari maintained their 100 per cent lock-out of the podium positions so far in 2007, but that can be of little consolation to Maranello on a day when the scarlet machines were well and truly blown into the weeds.
Fisichella’s superb run to fourth marked Renault’s best result of the campaign to date, while Kubica and Heidfeld secured more solid points for
BMW behind in fifth and sixth. Wurz held on for a strong seventh, fending off Raikkonen to the close, as the Finn proved unable to repeat predecessor Michael Schumacher’s heroics of 2006 when the German had charged through the pack from 22nd on the grid to fifth at the chequered flag. Indeed, having now slipped to 15 points adrift of the championship lead, Raikkonen’s title credentials are starting to look distinctly flaky.
Speed took an impressive ninth-place finish for
STR, just outside the points after starting all the way down in 18th, with the Hondas of Barrichello and Button an understandably downbeat tenth and eleventh having run in the points for much of the race. Rosberg was an even more deflated twelfth after securing the second-highest grid spot of his
Formula 1 career the previous day, with Kovalainen, Coulthard, Trulli, Schumacher,
Takuma Sato and
Anthony Davidson completing the finishers, all two laps down.
This, though, was very much Alonso’s day. Leading up to the race, some had been beginning to ask questions about the reigning double world champion’s temperament and mental capacity given his team-mate’s stunning start to his maiden season in the top flight. Over the course of 78 laps, he answered them all with aplomb.
