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Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello completed another dream 1-2 for Brawn GP at the ‘Jewel of the Crown' race of the Formula 1 season - the Monaco Grand Prix. The result also means that six races into the season Button and Brawn are pulling away race-by-race from the rest of the pack in the Drivers and Constructors Standings respectively, and dare we say it already looks to have one hand on the World Championship.

It was a good race for Ferrari too, with Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa finishing 3rd and 4th respectively to mark their return to form, but surely too late to challenge for the title.

Monaco however proved to be a disaster for reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton, who followed up his disappointing 16th place qualifying performance with a 12th place finish outside the points on the track. Hamilton's teammate Heiki Kovalainen did even worse, crashing out in the 53rd lap of the race.

The visit to Monaco turned out to be a disappointment for Sebastian Vettel as well, with Barrichello increasing his lead over Vettel for second place in the World Championship to 12 points, as the Red Bull driver whacked into the wall at Ste Devote on lap 17.

The race started off without incident for a change as all 20 cars made it through not just the opening bend, but astonishingly the opening 10 laps of the race before we had our first incident.

The Brawns were fantastic off the line with Button pulling out a lead from the get go, and Barrichello relegating Raikkonen to third. The other Ferrari of Felipe Massa was pushed to the edge of the track by Nico Rosberg who climbed up a place at the start only to lose it back to Massa on the opening lap itself.

Massa looked quick in the early exchanges and was all over the gearbox of Vettel, trying to find a way through. He did so illegally cutting over a chicane and immediately let Vettel back through. Rosberg took advantage of that slip up to steal a place from Massa, but the Ferrari once again showed just how much it has improved powering its way back in front on lap 10.

Vettel, Hamilton and Adrian Sutil all pitted early, the former because of tyre-wear, the other two were probably running ultra-light fuel loads in an effort to gain track position.

Sebastian Buemi plowed into the back of Nelson Piquet jnr. ending the race for both as Ste Devote claimed its first two victims of the day.

At the front of the race a decent gap had opened up between the front three and Vettel who with those poor tyres was holding everyone else back. Raikkonen was finally making a move on Barrichello, before the first set of pit stops rescued the Brazilian.

By lap 28, all the top runners had made their refueling stints and the top three remained unchanged, with Massa picking up 4th place at the expense of Nico Rosberg.

Robert Kubica became the fourth retirement of a fairly incident free race in lap pulling into the pits.

Button lapped Lewis Hamilton on lap 37, showing just how much work the McLarens need to do to put out a competitive car over the rest of the season.

Finally around lap 50 there was some action in what was turning into a pedantic Monaco Grand Prix as the group of one-stoppers and two-stoppers all pulled into the pits to load up sufficiently to take them through to the chequered flag.

With the front runners following shadows, the excitement in the race shifted to the final points scoring positions as Nico Rosberg in 5th, Fernando Alonso in 6th had yet to visit the pits and an excellent charge from Giancarlo Fisichella saw his Force India climb to 9th as they went in search of that all elusive first championship point.

Rosberg and Alonso lost a place each after their stop, and though Alonso had a bit of a scare as a Force India charged around the outside of him coming out of the pits, but to his relief it was Adrian Sutil un-lapping himself and not Fisichella pulling into the top 8.

Despite Fisichella's best efforts he finished just over a second behind a very ragged Sebastian Bourdais in 9th.

Nakajima joined the non-finishers with two laps to go, but with no other incident in the race, Jenson Button collected his first chequered flag at Monaco, leading the race from start to finish.

Brawn look a cinch for the championship again and perhaps Barrichello won't be so disappointed finishing second behind Button this weekend, with the Briton more than deserving of his win.

Point Scorers

1. Jenson Button, Brawn-Mercedes 1:40:44.282
2. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn-Mercedes +7.6 secs
3. Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari +13.4 secs
4. Felipe Massa, Ferrari +15.1 secs
5. Mark Webber, RBR-Renault +15.7 secs
6. Nico Rosberg, Williams-Toyota +33.5 secs
7. Fernando Alonso, Renault +37.8 secs
8. Sebastien Bourdais, STR-Ferrari +63.1 sec

Photograph Copyright: Coldtrackdays.com

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