Hamilton Takes Victory in Monaco

Despite an early error in the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix which saw an enforced early pitstop after 5 laps, Lewis Hamilton and Mclaren showed their battling qualities by taking the chequered flag after a shorted 76 laps of the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix. BMW's Kubica came in 2^nd place ahead of Ferrari's Massa.

The race was dominated by the unpredictability of the weather which saw a very wet start to the race where Lewis managed to pass Raikkonen to take 2nd place behind Massa, but on the 5^th lap his Mclaren hit a barrier resulting in a puncture of the right-rear tyre.

But whereas most errors result in a negative effect, this most certainly worked in Mclaren's favour. The enforced pit-stop forced a spur of the moment strategy change with Hamilton being fed with enough fuel for extremely long middle stint and it couldn't have worked out better. After rejoining in 5^th place, Lewis' lap times gradually improved which saw him take the lead during the pit-stops of his rivals. The drying track then gave each of the manufacturer a big decision as to to weather to go for the dry or intermediate tyres as the threat of further rain continued.

Fortunately the rain never came with most of the leading drivers changing over to the dry tyres, the ever improving Lewis built a lead of nearly 40 seconds before he made his second a final stop staying comfortably ahead of second placed Kubica, but a lot of this work was undone after a heavy crash by Nico Rosberg brought the safety car out on lap 61.

The safety car was out for a good few laps which should have seen all lapped cars being allowed past the leading drivers to unlap themselves, but for some unknown reason Kovalainen and Heidfeld decided to stay back delaying the restart. Once the Mclaren and BMW drivers did finally go past to retake their positions, the race restarted with Lewis once again out-pacing Kubica and Massa.

Despite this strong drive, the driver of the day must surely belong to Adrian Satu of Force India who was running in 4^th place up until the 69^th lap, but he was forced to retire after current world championship leader Kimi Raikkonen added to his array of errors during the race by running into the back of him. Force India have confirmed they have asked race officials to look at the incident with the possibility of further action being taken.

The result now means Lewis Hamilton takes over the drivers championship lead from Kimi Raikkonen by 3 points, however, Ferrari still holds a 16-point lead over McLaren in the Constructors' Championship. The Canadian Grand Prix is coming up next – a race Lewis dominated last year.

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