STAR OF THE RACE Adrian Sutil, Force-India, DNF Adrian Sutil had a great race and was one of the few drivers to have an error-free race. So quite typical that he should get punted off by somebody else's mistake. He inherited a lot of places because he wasn't even in the Top 12 on the opening lap, but he did manage to nip craftily past Nakajima when Alonso stopped the traffic at the Grand Hotel hairpin. What was impressive was his ability to keep his car in front of Kimi Raikkonen in the latter stages - on Lap 36 he briefly set the Fastest Lap of the race. On Lap 49 we had the fantastic scenario of Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren being given the blue flag to give way for the Force India. Vijay Mallya will be upset at not scoring points, because you can't imagine this scenario repeating itself without the investment of another $100m. So Kimi Raikkonen really has cost them. The Force India team are over-reacting in asking the FIA to ban Raikkonen for the next race. The fact that the stewards refuse to take any action may be partly due to the fact that Sutil passed cars - inadvertently or not - under yellow flags brought out by the Alonso/Heidfeld incident. If he did indeed pass under yellows you have to wonder why they didn't so anything over the subsequent 60 laps. OVERTAKING MOVE OF THE RACE Lap 52 Rubens Barrichello, Honda on Mark Webber, Red Bull. Before this race I'd seen archive footage of Jack Brabham losing the Monaco GP by losing control of his car in the final corner, the Anthony Noghes turn. I'd never seen anyone overtake in anger between Rascasse and Anthony Noghes, but today it happened. It was an amazing pass, Rubens Barrichello gunning his Honda up the inside of Mark Webber's Red Bull. What's more, the enterprising Kazuki Nakajima followed through on the exit of the turn to add insult to injury. Earlier, Fernando Alonso had stuck his Renault up the inside of Webber as he approached Mirabeau for another amazing pass - but Rubens' effort was a one-off. WINNERS Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 1st Contrary to the views aired unremittingly by the ITV commentary team, Lewis won the race despite his early accident, not because of it. He also won because Ferrari had the wrong strategy for the conditions. Had the rain and Safety Cars come at different times then Ferrari's one-stoppers might have looked a lot better than they did. As it was, with a lot of fuel on board, from Lap 7 onwards Lewis was desperately slow. He overcame his speed disadvantage (up to Lap 29 he was consistently slower than Massa) to put in a brilliant middle stint and win the race there and then. He made one error, which like Massa, didn't cost him. That was still significantly less than the two World Champions in the race. Robert Kubica, BMW, 2nd Kubica took advantage of mistakes by Raikkonen and Massa to snatch a deserved second place. At one stage in the race it looked like he might even take a maiden victory. Felipe Massa, Ferrari 3rd Though he will rue what might have been, Felipe Massa can't be too displeased to repeat his best result at Monaco. From a purely selfish point of view, to score six points on a day when your team-mate stuffs it ignominiously into the back of a heroic underdog, is a bit of a result. The fact that he is virtually level on points with Raikkonen now will be very cheering to the Brazilian. He came into the race with damage limitation in mind and left it with a pole position and serious World Championship aspirations. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 4th Webbo scored more good points despite being overtaken by Alonso, Barrichello and Nakajima in the race. It was a victory for keeping out of trouble. When the circuit came to his car he put in some very quick laps, trading Fastest Laps with Lewis Hamilton. Sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso, 5th Like the Japanese GP in 2007, Vettel used the mixed conditions to his advantage. On a day when Force-India could have scored five points it's an important result for the team in the constructors' championship. Rubens Barrichello, Honda 6th It's interesting to see the good wet weather runners coming to the fore - Lewis, Rubens, Webbo and Vettel are all men who could have been expected to do well. Rubens made some remarkable passes without losing control of his car. His 257th race may not have been all that, but his 258th was a joy to behold. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 7th More points for the Williams driver. On a day when the rookies were spinning (Glock), sliding (Piquet) or bumping (Bourdais), Kazuki kept it on the island. To be quick and safe on a day like today at Monaco, is to lay down a marker of future potential. Nakajima didn't run into the guy in front, unlike Nico Rosberg, and at one point put in a Fastest Lap. The omens are good. LOSERS Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 9th The World Champion didn't look like one in Monaco. Right from his tardy start Raikkonen looked as if he didn't fancy it. After seven laps he was 12 seconds behind his teammate and the championship leader proceeded to make a number of errors, the last of which ended Adrian Sutil's race. This didn't look like the man who'd been on such a charge at Mount Fuji in 2007, but then at the Japanese circuit there were acres of run-off. The Finn should have some kind of penalty imposed on him for the next race, though. This is the second race in succession that he's ruined somebody's GP. In Turkey his impact on Heikki Kovalainen's rear tyre gave him the puncture that lost Kovalainen any chance of a points finish. Once is forgivable, twice is not. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 8th Yet again bad luck robbed Kovalainen of a result as the software glitch on his McLaren sent him to the back of the field. In the race he got away with shoving Jenson Button from behind at the tunnel hairpim, but like the nice guy he is, he said sorry straight away. He managed to put in some awesomely quick laps, though why he didn't unlap himself whenhe got stuck behind the final Safety Car is still a mystery. Nico Rosberg, Williams, DNF He had the smallest of taps on Alonso to bend his front wing on the opening lap - and from there everything went rapidly downhill. Rosberg could easily have been fourth but ended up comprehensively trashing his car at the Swimming Pool complex. He may be the future of the Williams team, but they will want more of the car back after Canada. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 10th Alonso pushed his luck just a bit too far. He got away with a huge slide at the top of the hill into the Massanet barriers (that Coulthard and Bourdais didn't), but the Spaniard didn't survive a hopeful poke up the inside of Heidfeld into the Grand Hotel hairpin. For a man who'd pulled off an immaculate manoeuvre against Mark Webber earlier in the race, it was a massive disappointment. Nelson Piquet Jr, Renault DNF Piquet was lucky that his team leader had such a torrid time, he made more mistakes, but they were less conspicuous when all around him were sliding. The Brazilian needs a big result very soon. Timo Glock, Toyota, 12th It's quite remarkable that Timo Glock finished the race in one piece, even more so that he was in front of Jarno Trulli. Trulli's move to extreme wet tyres didn't work out on an afternoon whenyou'd have expected him to score points. Mark - Git orf me barra! Blundell Inspired by the glamour of the occasion Mark Blundell was on fire in the tax dodger's haven. He became a pundit and weatherman rolled into one. "It literally does look like there's possible rain on the horizon." He revealed that Felipe Massa is inflatable. "Massa's needed pumping up a little bit at the start of the season." He could tell when Lewis's race had started. "He just managed to take Raikkonen off the start line and that's where his race started." What were the conditions like? "Very grease conditions." How did Robert take second position? "Kubica climbed his way through." Were McLaren expecting an early return to the pits for Lewis? "Of course they'd have had something already written down on paper so to speak to know if something like this happened or occurred." Has it been a good start to the season for DC? "It's been terry dough - very tough for David." Not to be outdone by Blundell's supreme "Terry Dough" moment Louise Goodman joined in the fun. Speaking to Adrian Sutil in the pitlane she asked. "Towards the end of the race you were the meat in a Ferrari sandwich, did you even imagine that would be the case at Monza? Where's that BAFTA again..?
Sutil was in the right place at the right time combined with others misfortunes. Till the end. I was so rooting for him. However I thought the driver of the weekend was Nico Rosberg. Who got to where he was on his own.
The good thing about this, there probably isn't a soul on the planet that now does not realize that Sutil is good F1 material. In a strange way, people will remember that the WDC sadly knocked this kid out of the race, whereas they might forget if he actually finished fourth or fifth. Possibly Kimi just added to Adrian's value...................
