Lewis fulfilled his life long ambition to take a Formula 1 car to victory in Monaco today and managed to re-take the lead in the drivers’ championship at the same time. 

Raikkonen’s afternoon was filled with a catalogue of errors and his ninth place saw him leave Monte Carlo with no points at all. 

Lewis had a fantastic start off the line, immediately claiming second place from Raikkonen by turn one. His race wasn’t without it’s own problems though as he hit the barrier at Tabac corner on lap five, puncturing a tyre. If anything though, his mistake proved the making of his race. The team chose to fill his car to the brim which allowed him to go much further on in the race, ensuring he came in to switch from intermediate to dry-weather tyres at just the perfect tme. 

Kubica ran a superb race in the terrible conditions and held his nerve to finish in a brilliant second place. Massa struggled on a drying track with his intermediate rubber and lost out to the BMW when he eventually switched to drys. 

Fourth place should have been Force India’s as Adrian Sutil had the race of his life, keeping up with the pace and staying out of trouble. That was until Kimi Raikkonen smashed in to the back of him at the chicane after a late re-start, just ten minutes from the chequered flag. 

With the rain falling everyone decided to go out on the intermediate rubbers with the exception of Nelson Piquet who went out on extreme wets. 

Kovalainen went nowhere as the formation lap begun as he stalled on the grid, meaning his race would start from the pit lane. 

Hamilton out-dragged Raikkonen in to Ste Devote to claim second place behind Massa. 

The start may have been incident free but the rest of the race was anything but. Hamilton was the first to falter five laps in when he slid in to the Tabac barrier. Although his tyre was punctured there was no damage to his rear suspension and, with a full tank of fuel he set off again to eventually claim the chequered flag. 

Alonso was next to head for an unscheduled pit stop after putting his wheel in to the barrier at Massenet. Again, no proper damage was done and he was able to rejoin the race. 

David Coulthard then fell foul to the same treacherous spot but he went in with a much greater force. As he was coming to a halt up against the barrier Sebastian Bourdais made exactly the same mistake and crashed straight in to the back of the Red Bull. 

After the safety-car went in once the cars had been removed from the circuit Massa led with Raikkonen, Kubica, Hamilton, Heidfeld and Webber behind him. 

Raikkonen was then informed of a drive through penalty he would have to take due to his tyres being fitted on the grid after the three minute warning. This promoted Kubica to second and Hamilton to third with the Finn coming out in fourth. 

Massa then handed the BMW the lead as he went straight on at Ste Devote after locking a wheel under-braking. He made a U-turn in the escape road to rejoin the track but Kubica had all ready gone past him. 

His team-mate was next to make exactly the same mistake just after Kubica came out from his pit stop expecting to tuck in behind the World Champion. Raikkonen wasn’t as lucky as Massa tough and had to return to the pits for a new front wing. 

Meanwhile Hamilton, who was still heavy on fuel had moved up to second place. The lead became his when Massa pitted on lap 33 and he set off to put enough of a gap between him and the Ferrari so that he could rejoin in the lead after his own pit stop. And that’s exactly what he did. 

Massa had jumped Kubica through the pit stops to claim second but he was beginning to struggle on his intermediate tyres. 

By lap 57 Hamilton had a 38s lead and the track was dry enough to make the switch to slick tyres. Everything was perfect for him as he pitted. Ferrari weren’t as lucky with their strategy and Massa dropped to third after pitting for the dry rubber a lap after Kubica. 

The second safety car of the day was deployed when Rosberg had a huge crash on the entry to swimming pool. 

The race was to run it’s two hour course and when the race restarted there were 11 and a half minutes left of the Monaco Grand Prix. It was just after the restart that the extremely unlucky Sutil had his fourth position cruelly taken away from him when Raikkonen seemed to hit a damp patch coming out of the tunnel and lost control of his Ferrari, smashing it right in to the back of the Force India of Sutil at the chicane. 

Webber was promoted to fourth in the Red Bull with Vettel claiming fifth in his Toro Rosso. Barrichello finally scored some points in his Honda as he came home in a fine sixth position. Nakajima managed to stay out of trouble and brought his Williams home in seventh. Despite problems along the way Kovalainen claimed the last point of the day.

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