Webber Wins Monaco Grand Prix, Takes F1 Lead

Pole position, consistent fastest laps and a remarkable win for Mark Webber in the Monaco Grand Prix have turned the Australian racer from Sebastian Vettel’s teammate into a real title contender for the 2010 Formula One championship. The 33-year old completed his second perfect weekend in a row this season after leading the race in the Principality from beginning to end, to record his second win of the season.

Webber started perfectly from pole position to take 1st place by the first corner, while followed by his teammate Sebastian Vettel, who managed to overtake Renault’s Robert Kubica for 2nd place. Felipe Massa retained his 4th place, ahead of Hamilton, while Rubens Barrichello made a huge leap to 6th place at the start.

Less than one lap into the race however, Nico Hulkenberg hit the wall in the tunnel and caused the first safety car of the day, providing last placed Fernando Alonso the chance to make his sole tire exchange pit stop immediately. That would help the Spaniard gain more than 10 spots after the first pit stop session from the cars in front of him.

Only seconds after the SC was deployed, Jenson Button suffered an engine issue and had to retire. After the safety car went in, Alonso went on to overtake some 4 slow cars to end up in 16th place overall, after which the pit stop entries lifted him all the way into 6th overall.

Two further safety cars – caused by Rubens Barrichello’s hitting the barriers and a circuit related problem in Turn 3 – caused no major damage to the Top 10, where Webber led with no major difficulties ahead of Vettel and Kubica. Massa and Hamilton too chose not to take any risks and decided to settle for 4th and 5th, while followed by Fernando Alonso in 6th place and Mercedes GP duo Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg.

Force India’s duo Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi finished the race in 9th and 10th place overall, but not before Trulli and Chandhok colliding at the Rascasse some 4 laps to the chequered flag. That caused the 4th and final safety car of the day to come in and lead the F1 field to the finish line.

The greatest move of the day happened in the last hundreds of meters before the finish line, when Alonso was overtook by Schumacher in the Anthony Noghes corner as soon as the safety car went in, to steal 6th place. That move is still being investigated by the stewards however, as we're going to keep you updated with the decision.

Webber’s win in Monaco - handing Red Bull their second 1-2 finish this year - moved him into 1st place in the overall classification, where he is now level on points with teammate Sebastian Vettel (78 points). Fernando Alonso’s 7th place means the Spaniard is still 5 points behind 1st place, while followed by Button 3 points behind.