Ferrari had an impressive qualifying session, and to most people’s surprise (even Ferrari’s I think) they locked up the front row, with Massa on pole and Kimi next to him. The McLarens were next, with Lewis in third and Heikki in fourth.

There was a lot of rain in the morning before the race, and then it rained again as the cars came to the grid, so the drivers had big decisions to make on the choice of tyres. In fact, Ferrari didn’t get the tyres changed in time (within 3 minutes of the drive off) and he ended up getting a drive through penalty. The other Finn, Heikki, stalled his car on the grid (caused by a software glitch that didn’t allow him control of his clutch) and had to start from the pit instead of 4th place.

When the race started, Lewis managed to get ahead of Kimi into the first corner and was just behind Felipe. Further back, Nico Rosberg tagged Fernando Alonso and damaged his front wing that had to be replaced. Also, Jensen Button who had had an excellent start and passed Rubens Barrichello and Mark Weber before hitting Nick Heidfeld and also damaged his car.

Lewis punctured his rear tyre when he hit the barrier in the 5th lap and had to go in and change his tyre. McLaren quickly changed their strategy and filled up his car so that he could go much longer into the race, and he reentered in fifth place. This was a masterful change, as shortly after this tyre change, the safety car came out when David Coulthard hit the barrier and then was hit by Sebastian Bourdais’s car. This allowed Lewis Hamilton to catch up with the leaders.

The next incident was Alonso hitting Heidfelds car. I don’t know what he was thinking, but he tried to pass Heidfeld in the hairpin, which was never going to happen. With these cars stopped in the hairpin, Rosberg slid into Heikki and damaged his second front wing.

When the race restarted, Kimi had to serve his penalty, and then damaged his front wing when he hit the barrier at Sainte Devot. This allowed Kubica to take second behind Massa, and then first when Massa made a mistake at Sainte Devot as well. When both Kubica and Massa took their first pit stop, Lewis moved into first place. Mark Weber, having an excellent race was now in fourth.

On lap 45, Alonso was the first to move to dry tyres, and Nelson Piquet changed to dry the next lap. This was a mistake for Nelson (who doesn’t have the car control of Fernando) and quickly hit the barrier and was out of the race.

When Lewis made his final pit stop, on lap 53, he changed to dry tyres and now had a 40 second lead over Felipe. Kubica then moved ahead of Massa again, when they both pitted and changed to dry tyres. The safety car came out again, when Nico Rosberg had a massive crash at the swimming pool. This ensured the field were together for the restart, and by this time, Adrian Sutil of Force India, with a miraculous drive had made it up to fourth, with Kimi now in fifth.

Kimi then lost control of his car under braking coming out of the tunnel and took out Sutil. It will be interesting to see if he receives a penalty for this, because you can be sure if the roles were reversed, Sutil would get one.

With the rain, the safety cars, and the incidents, the race finally ended short of its planned 78 laps when the 2 hour limit was hit. This was lucky for Lewis Hamilton as he discovered he had a slow puncture on his cool down lap.

The final positions were:

Pos  Driver        Team                     Time
 1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  2h00:42.272
 2.  Kubica        BMW Sauber          (B)  +     3.069
 3.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)  +     4.811
 4.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault    (B)  +    19.264
 5.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  +    24.657
 6.  Barrichello   Honda               (B)  +    28.408
 7.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota     (B)  +    30.180
 8.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  +    33.191
 9.  Raikkonen     Ferrari             (B)  +    33.793
10.  Alonso        Renault             (B)  +    1 lap
11.  Button        Honda               (B)  +    1 lap
12.  Glock         Toyota              (B)  +    1 lap
13.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  +    1 lap
14.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber          (B)  +    4 laps

Fastest lap: Raikkonen, 1:16.689

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                      On lap
Sutil         Force India-Ferrari   (B)    67
Rosberg       Williams-Toyota       (B)    58
Piquet        Renault               (B)    46
Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari   (B)    37
Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault      (B)    13
Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)    13

World Championship standings, round 6:

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
 1.  Hamilton      38        1.  Ferrari                69
 2.  Raikkonen     35        2.  McLaren-Mercedes       53
 3.  Massa         34        3.  BMW Sauber             52
 4.  Kubica        32        4.  Williams-Toyota        15
 5.  Heidfeld      20        5.  Red Bull-Renault       15
 6.  Kovalainen    15        6.  Renault                 9
 7.  Webber        15        7.  Toyota                  9
 8.  Alonso         9        8.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari      6
 9.  Trulli         9        9.  Honda                   6
10.  Rosberg        8
11.  Nakajima       7
12.  Vettel         4
13.  Barrichello    3
14.  Button         3
15.  Bourdais       2

The opening day of practice for the Monaco Grand Prix saw an impressive performance from McLaren and Lewis Hamilton, the British star all too aware that a victory in Monte Carlo this weekend is vital if he is to keep his championship challenge on track. And it was Hamilton’s old GP2 sparring partner Nico Rosberg who proved that you can always expect the unexpected in the Principality, as he lifted Williams clear of both Ferraris in the timesheets…

McLaren
Lewis Hamilton, 1m 16.216s, P2/1m 15.140s, P1
Heikki Kovalainen, 1m 16.248s, P3/1m 15.881s, P5
Hamilton said he was quite happy with the progress he and McLaren made on set-up and tyre evaluation, and how much he loves driving every lap here. He spent the morning on the same set of tyres to set second fastest time, then pushed hard for the quickest lap in the afternoon. Kovalainen was well up in the morning and reported a fair bit more to come after the afternoon as he wasn’t happy with the best lap he put together.

Williams
Nico Rosberg, 1m 16.653s, P5/1m 15.533s, P2
Kazuki Nakajima, 1m 18.274s, P15/1m 16.372s, P9
Rosberg came to a track he loves well fired up, and was fifth in the morning and second in the afternoon. He felt Williams had a good baseline set-up and was able to push hard as he felt comfortable straight away. He also believes there is more to come. Nakajima struggled initially but got it together in the afternoon to move into the top 10.

Ferrari
Kimi Raikkonen, 1m 15.948s, P1/1m 15.572s, P3
Felipe Massa, 1m 16.292s, P4/1m 15.869s, P4
Raikkonen, who did two tests with the Monaco set-up last week at Paul Ricard, said it was a normal Friday for him, which came as a relief after his problems in Turkey. He missed his good lap on supersoft tyres, ironically after Massa had dislodged a track marker in the Swimming Pool complex, and struggled on new rubber. Massa, who did only one Monaco test (and one for Canada), also failed to do a time on the supersofts and admitted that McLaren were very strong.

BMW Sauber
Robert Kubica, 1m 16.834s, P6/1m 16.296s, P6
Nick Heidfeld, 1m 18.263s, P14/ 1m 16.426s, P11
A mixed day for BMW Sauber, with Kubica sixth in both sessions but Heidfeld troubled by a loss of power in the morning. The Pole was reasonable happy, but the German rued the loss of running time and data. He was encouraged, however, by the driveability of his F1.08.

Renault
Fernando Alonso, 1m 17.498s, P7/1m 16.310s, P7
Nelson Piquet, 1m 18.955s, P18/1m 17.246s, P15
Not a great day for Renault, even though Alonso was seventh in both sessions. In the afternoon he slid sideways at Ste Devote and wiped off his rear wing, shortly after Piquet had done something similar. The Spaniard was happy with the way his R28 reacted to changes, but the Brazilian was clearly struggling again as he learned the track in an F1 car and experimented with set-ups.

Honda
Jenson Button, 1m 18.153s, P12/1m 16.351s, P8
Rubens Barrichello, 1m 17.511s, P8/1m 16.418s, P10
With Barrichello eighth in the morning and Button eighth in the afternoon, Honda had a fairly promising day. Both drivers were cautiously happy with what they achieved during the two sessions.

Toyota
Timo Glock, 1m 17.942s, P11/1m 16.688s, P12
Jarno Trulli, 1m 18.360s, P16/1m 17.379s, P17
Glock loved driving Monaco in an F1 car for the first time, and while he said he was happy with the car he admitted that he needs more experience here to get the best from it. Trulli, the winner here in 2004, clobbered the wall at Portier in the morning and broke the rear suspension, and had a problem with the undertray in the afternoon which lost him more track time.

Red Bull
Mark Webber, 1m 17.798s, P9/1m 17.094s, P13
David Coulthard, No time/1m 17.131s, P14
Webber did all his scheduled work, but was dissatisfied with the outcome as the RB4 clearly does not yet suit the track. Coulthard’s day got off to a bad start when the throttle actuator failed on his out lap in the morning. He thought he had recovered ground reasonably well in the afternoon, however.

Force India
Giancarlo Fisichella, 1m 17.835s, P10/1m 17.251s, P16
Adrian Sutil, 1m 18.360s, P17/1m 18.176s, P19
Fisichella was happy with the balance of his VJM01 in the build-up to his 200th Grand Prix appearance, but lost his afternoon run on new tyres to an undisclosed mechanical problem. Sutil fought understeer and tyre graining all day, and eventually took off his front wing in a slow-speed shunt at Rascasse in the afternoon.

Toro Rosso
Sebastien Bourdais, 1m 18.245s, P13/1m 17.581s, P18
Sebastian Vettel, 1m 19.176s, P19/1m 18.225s, P20
A tough day for Toro Rosso, as their drivers worked on setting up their new STR3s. Bourdais always ran with plenty of fuel and believed they were not as far behind as appearances suggested. Vettel said he was fighting his car all day as he worked on set-up.

The Spanish driver has won at the principality for the last two years, although this season his chances look a lot slimmer as Renault have been unable to match the pace of Ferrari, BMW or McLaren.

But Alonso reckons that Monte Carlo could be a performance equaliser and he is hoping to achieve a strong result.

“We have progressed, but we are still behind Ferrari, McLaren and BMW,” the Spaniard said. “Even though Monaco is a circuit where the driver can really make the difference, a good car will always be an advantage and makes things easier.

This will be an interesting race, especially with the loss of traction control this year, and should provide a lot of incidents. In addition, the problems that McLaren was having in the slow corners in Turkey doesn’t bode well for them in Monaco.