Hamilton wins in the wet; Räikkönen rues a succession of mishaps

Drivers' Championship race nicely poised

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All things considered, it was not a particularly successful weekend in Monaco for Kimi Räikkönen.
      In no particular order, the Finnish Ferrari driver failed to grab pole position from his team-mate Felipe Massa, he finished out of the points in ninth place, he saw his principal rival Lewis Hamilton of McLaren win a famous victory and take the lead in the drivers’ championship standings, he incurred a drive-through penalty for the Ferrari team’s not being ready on the grid in time, and to cap it all he spun off once and later rammed Adrian Sutil (Force India), depriving the German driver of a chance to finish a very creditable fourth in a car that is hardly competitive in Formula One.
     
Hence it was doubly annoying for Räikkönen that the race - one of the most exciting seen in Monaco for many a year, partly thanks to the inclement wet-dry conditions that chilled and soaked the fans - was littered with other less expensive mistakes by other drivers.
      Hamilton, for instance, went wide on only the 6th lap and punctured a rear tyre, but so dominant was the McLaren that he was able to recover and open up a colossal lead over the chasing pack.
      Hamilton would have won by a mile, but for a crash involving Nico Rosberg (Williams) that brought out the safety car on the 61st lap.
      Rosberg overdid it in the chicane after the tunnel and thoroughly trashed his car, but emerged unhurt from the experience.
     
Heikki Kovalainen was again rather unlucky, in that he was obliged to start his McLaren from the pit-lane at the back of the field, despite qualifying in fourth place.
      His car refused to start for the warm-up lap. In the end, Räikkönen’s rear-end shunt with Sutil allowed Kovalainen to move up to 8th place for a single point.
     
After the dust had settled, the F1 Drivers’ Championship race looked very interesting.
      Hamilton leads with 38 points from Räikkönen on 35, one point ahead of Räikkönen’s Ferrari team-mate Massa (3rd on Sunday), with Robert Kubica (BMW-Sauber) two points further back in 4th.
      Kubica’s 2nd place in Monaco continued a string of solid performances, in which he has not finished lower than fourth since retiring in Australia in the season-opener.
      Heikki Kovalainen is in 6th spot with 15 points, and Nico Rosberg, who drives in German colours although he is the son of Finland’s 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg, is 10th with 8 points.
      Ferrari (69 points), McLaren (53), and BMW-Sauber (52) are well ahead of the other teams in the constructors’ race, but the fact that three rather than two teams are in contention is a pleasant surprise. Ferrari and McLaren have dominated the winners' list: Hamilton, Räikkönen, and Massa each have two victories from the six races so far.
     
The F1 entourage now crosses the Atlantic for the Canadian GP in Montreal on June 8th.
      For the time being at least, this will be the only Formula One event in North America, after Indianapolis chose not to organise a race this year.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Massa celebrates hat trick in Istanbul; Räikkönen has to be satisfied with third place (12.5.2008)

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