Mark Webber, sixth F1 winner in six races, rules Monaco GP
MONACO
(AP)
–
Mark Webber won the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday to make Formula One history, while Fernando Alonso took a narrow lead in the championship.
By Luca Bruno, APRed Bull driver Mark Webber celebrates after winning the Monaco Grand Prix. Team members and team principal Christian Horner jumped into the pool of their motor home after the win.
By Luca Bruno, AP
Red
Bull driver Mark Webber celebrates after winning the Monaco Grand Prix.
Team members and team principal Christian Horner jumped into the pool
of their motor home after the win.Sponsored Links
Webber,
who started from pole position, is the sixth different driver to win in
the opening six races of the season, a first for F1.
With
drivers favoring a one-stop tire strategy on the most difficult track
for overtaking, Webber effectively needed to make it to the first corner
in front and then negotiate a clean pit stop.
RESULTS: Monaco Grand Prix
"When
days like this come along you can't afford to let them go," Webber
said. "You have to grab them with both hands and feet and hold on like
hell … In 1983, (Alain) Prost led with two laps to go and crashed, so
you never get carried away here."
The
35-year-old Australian beat Nico Rosberg by 0.6 seconds and Alonso by
0.9 for his eighth career win — his second in three years at Monaco for Red Bull, which has won the last three here from pole position.
"I'm
feeling incredible," Webber said. "It was reasonably straightforward at
the start. It's just a matter of then getting back into a reasonable
gap (with) the weather threatening."
Alonso, who is bidding for his third F1 title, headed into the race level at 61 points with two-time defending champion Sebastian Vettel. He now leads Vettel and Webber by three points.
"It's
interesting to see the constant surprises we're having this season, you
never know who's going to be in pole and win the race," Alonso said.
"It's difficult in Monaco, but we managed the traffic."
Several drivers failed to finish, including Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher.
Vettel
drove brilliantly to finish fourth, after starting ninth, and Red
Bull's clever strategy of keeping him on the same set of tires for 46
laps worked to perfection.
"It was an amazing day for the team," Webber said. "It's great to win here twice, fair and square off the pole position."
McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton finished fifth ahead of Ferrari's Felipe Massa.
"My start was one of the worst I've had in a long time," Hamilton said.
Webber clenched his fist as he crossed the finish line ahead of Rosberg's Mercedes.
"Unfortunately,
it didn't come together perfectly, but I'm happy with second place
overall," Rosberg said. "I hope there's a lot more to come from the next
few races, it's just nice to see how we're progressing."
Although
the front six were relatively untroubled as rain splashed the Monaco
circuit late in the afternoon, there was chaos elsewhere.
"We
were praying for no more rain at the end because we know how difficult
it can be," Alonso said. "You see all the drops on the visor and you
don't know how fast that next corner will be."
The race was only seconds old when a crash took out four drivers, including Romain Grosjean, one of the prerace favorites after the Frenchman impressed in practice.
Schumacher
appeared to nudge his Mercedes into Grosjean as they jostled for
position, sending Grosjean's Lotus spinning sideways.
Pastor
Malonado's Williams was caught up in the mayhem and bashed into Pedro
de la Rosa's HRT as all three went out of the race while Schumacher
continued. Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi, whose Sauber was also damaged, failed to restart after making a pit stop for repairs.
"I'm very disappointed," Grosjean said. "I wanted to finish the Grand Prix, but it was a terrible start and that was that."
Button,
starting from 12th place, was caught behind the early traffic and
dropped down to 14th as Vettel squeezed through a gap. The German looked
to have possibly taken a shortcut when he overtook Kimi Raikkonen's
Lotus, but he was soon cleared by race officials.
The
top three positions stayed unchanged for the first third of the race,
with Rosberg tucking in behind Webber, followed by Hamilton. With
Grosjean out, the Ferraris pressured Hamilton.
With
rain looming, drivers pushed their supersoft tires hard — while Vettel
started out on soft, having saved some by sitting out Saturday's third
qualifying session.
After 22 laps, Webber led Rosberg by just over two seconds, and the pace of the race started to drop as the tires wore thin.
Rosberg was first to pit, switching to soft tires on lap 28.
Webber and Hamilton soon followed, also changing to the primes, with Alonso and then Massa doing likewise.
That put Vettel into the lead, 16 seconds ahead of Webber, and with Rosberg, Alonso, Hamilton and Massa behind them.
Button's miserable day saw him change tires halfway through but lose ground to Heikki Kovalainen as he emerged from the pits. A late crash saw the 2009 champion spin out of the race.
Vettel,
meanwhile, stayed out on his softs until lap 46, and when he came out
he was just behind Alonso and ahead of Hamilton, who nearly rammed into
him.
The top six were separated by only six seconds with 25 laps to go, but Webber still had a decent lead of 1.8 seconds on Rosberg.
Vitaly
Petrov lasted less than 30 laps before retiring due to electrical
problems in his Caterham car, and Mexican driver Sergio Perez got a
drive through penalty for entering the pit lane too late and was
sanctioned for impeding Raikkonen.
Schumacher, Frenchman Charles Pic (Marussia) and Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso) retired near the end.
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