Monaco Grand Prix: An Epic Drama on Motosport's Grandest Stage

The qualifying session for the Monaco Grand Prix had ended with a couple of surprises.

Saturday saw both Ferraris qualify on the front row of the grid for the first time since 1979 at this circuit. Nico Rosberg also managed to nab sixth in his nimble Williams. Williams would be starting their 600th Grand Prix on Sunday. Lewis Hamilton seemed in dejected spirit at the close of qualifying. Mclaren was supposed to be striking back at this Monaco race, but it didn't look like this was going to be the case.

Then the rain came, as promised, for the race on Sunday. The teams were left with a huge headache of what they would start the race on in terms of tyres. The circuit was greasy, but not too wet.

Ferrari was certainly more occupied with choice than paying attention to the lights on the grid. Regulations state that the cars must have their tyres on by three minutes before the start of the formation lap. Kimi Raikkonen's car was in breach of this rule and it would cost the Finn later in the race with a Drive-Through penalty, forcing the Ferrari ace to cruise through the pitlane end to end at just 50mph.

At the start of the race, the cars made their way from the grid on their formation lap, and already there was a little drama. The fourth-placed Mclaren Mercedes of Heikki Kovalianen had stalled on the grid and would have to be wheeled into the pits to start from there.

When the race began, World Champion Raikkonen got bogged down in the rain and allowed Lewis Hamilton to scamper up on his inside, using the pit lane exit as the route. Amazingly, with rain pouring and visibility becoming worse each moment, there were no major incidents on the opening lap.

The thrills and spills began in the most intense fashion, however, with various drivers running into each other throughout the second and third laps. Kazuki Nakajima in the Williams had to stop for a nose change before four laps were up. He would not be the only one either.

Jenson Button and Timo Glock were not too far behind. By the time David Coulthard crashed his Red Bull on lap 8 the circuit was littered with flecks of Carbon Fibre body work.

Coulthard binned his car at the top of the hill heading into the Massinet corner. A monumental slide resulted in the Scot slamming into the barrier. Frenchman Sebastian Bourdais in the Red Bull B team car, the Toro Rosso, arrived at the same conclusion, pushing Coulthard further up the road.

Fernando Alonso in the Renault had been off the circuit too, at the same corner which ended the race for the two drivers already mentioned. Clearly, conditions were treacherous. Everybody was racing on the intermediate tyres at this point.

The Safety Car was deployed to clear the wreckage of the lap 8 accidents. It slowed the race down and Nick Heidfeld made a pitstop.

With the pace car period over the race began afresh. The front three drivers were Felipe Massa in the Ferrari who had started from Pole Position, followed by Lewis Hamilton and then in a distant and threatened third was Kimi Raikkonen. Raikkonen was coming under massive pressure from Robert Kubica, who looked very racey in the wet conditions.

Kimi Raikkonen had a torrid race and showed that his composure and focus in a chaotic race were once again found lacking. Just as in Australia, Raikkonen raced poorly in the changeable conditions and ran into people. He slid, knocked and generally cruised around the circuit in a most untidy fashion.

Nelson Piquet, Jr. too performed rather poorly. He had been sliding and slithering all over the circuit and looking very dangerous. When Renault stuck with the dry tyres for the Brazilian, the writing was on the wall. No more than four laps later, Piquet had stuck his car in the wall at St Devote, the first corner.

Elsewhere in the race, there were the usual wily customers. Adrian Sutil was driving a barnstormer of a race, making his way through the chaos and cars on merit and overtaking cars which on another day the limitations of his Force India would have prevented him from tackling.

Sebastian Vettel and Kazuki Nakajima were racing well too. Points finishes would be their rewards. Unfortunately, the heartbreaking story of the day was the damage done to Adrian Sutil's car in the dying moments of the race.

Exiting the tunnel after another Safety Car period (prompted by a large but harmless crash from Nico Rosberg), Kimi Raikkonen made another amateurish mistake, underbraking and bumping the Force India driver at the chicane leading up to Tabac. The irony of the situation was that Sutil prevented Raikkonen spinning into the same accident that ended Coulthard's qualifying on Saturday. Sutil was seen in the pitlane crying with disappointment after arriving at the pits.

Lewis Hamilton's race was made out of misfortune as it was two weeks before in Turkey. This time the negative was the tap into the barriers giving him a puncture very early in the Grand Prix. This problem allowed Hamilton to pit for new tyres and fuel up his McLaren.

Ferrari pitted their cars and fuelled them up to the finish hoping for more rain. The rain never arrived. The streets of Monaco dried and the race was done for Ferrari.

It was a fantastic Grand Prix which saw Lewis Hamilton retake the initiative in the Drivers Championship battle and showed the hole left at Ferrari by the exit of Ross Brawn.