Mark Webber wins Monaco Grand Prix for the 2nd time and re-writes history

Red Bull wins for the third time in a row and this is Mark Webber’s second win in Monaco in three years and his eight win in his career overall. It was a perfect race for Webber besides leading a train of cars at the end of the race as the top six finished within a few seconds. The history books were also re-written as for the first time in 62 years, the Formula 1 circus witnessed six different winners in the opening six races.

Nico Rosberg of Mercedes and Fernando Alonso of Ferrari completed the podium, with Webber team mate and defending champion Sebastian Vettel, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari filling up the grid.

Pole setter Michael Schumacher who started sixth due to a grid penalty race ended his race prematurely as he retired on lap 64 with a fuel pressure problem. At the end of the race Alonso leads the championship standings by just three points with Vettel and Webber tied and Hamilton down 13 points in fourth.

Being a narrow and closed street circuit where overtaking opportunities were minimal, the teams had to play the strategy card with some twists along that way. Just seconds after the five red lights went off; Romain Grosjean's race was over, with his Lotus initially clipping Alonso and squeezing Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes against the barrier.

A contact between the two broke the left-rear suspension of the Lotus, spinning Grosjean out. Neither Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi, nor Williams' Pastor Maldonado, were unable to take avoiding action, with Maldonado hitting the back of HRT's Pedro de la Rosa and calling out the safety car as he parked his Williams into a barrier. Vettel who began the race on the soft tyres, ran longer and benefited from Grosjean's accident. Vettel was forced to cut the first corner, and gained position by moving up to sixth after starting ninth.

Rainfall was suggested by a number of teams frequently during the duration of the race, though it never materialised until a slight drizzle during the closing stages. With Gaia cheating, most teams resorted to a one-stop strategy, as the Pirelli tyres lasted around Monaco longer due to slower speeds and lighter loads.

Rosberg made the move to the soft tyres first, followed by Webber and Hamilton two laps later, where Alonso was giving chase. He went in on lap 29 in third place, a lap later. The McLaren's stop was 0.6sec slower than Ferrari’s where the difference between Hamilton’s in lap and Alonso’s was a massive 3.4sec. The pit crew at Red Bull were faster than those at McLaren, and costed Hamilton a better position as he could only finish a best of fifth at a track that has a tendency for a lack of overtaking.

The other McLaren driven by 2009 winner Jenson Button, was a victim of Grosjean's accident as he was forced to get the long way round to avoid debris. He dropped to 14th from 12th, and retired eight laps from the finish after running into the back of Caterham's Heikki Kovalainen.

“I feel incredible. It was a very interesting race, reasonably straightforward at the start, just managing the gap to Rosberg. But then the weather was threatening at the first pit-stop window, but Rosberg went for it, and people had to react. The second half of the race was very strange because it was very hard to get the soft tyre warmed up. I had very low front grip, I had to manage things around that, and I had to make sure Vettel didn't get a gap of 21 seconds. That was not part of the plan. So I'm really glad to have won here again, a great victory for me,” said Webber

Rosberg was equally as happy as he said, “After the start it was about tyre management. I was surprised how strong we were, not only in qualifying but also the race. It didn't quite come together perfectly, but I'm very happy with second. I'm very pleased.”

Alonso who leads the championship said, “Our strategy was to finish in front of Sebastian and Lewis, and we did that. If you go race by race then the next one to look at will be Mark, but with every race there is the prospect of constant surprises. But here I felt good, I felt competitive, and I'm happy with that.”

“We still got points and we’re still just about in the fight. My plan was to jump Rosberg and challenge for the lead. I did the initial launch and then on that formation lap the guys told me to make a clutch setting change. I took their advice and it just didn’t go. There was no torque, no drive. We haven’t had a grand prix weekend where something hasn’t gone wrong” said a disappointed Hamilton, who also had to endure flying parts of the pit boards that were hitting him on the helmet.