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Alonso heads dominant McLaren 1-2

Fernando Alonso gave McLaren their 150th Grand Prix victory, leading teammate Lewis Hamilton to a dominant one-two around the streets of Monte Carlo

Alonso led home teammate Hamilton in a formation finish, having dominated the whole afternoon. Third-placed Felipe Massa was a minute adrift of the McLarens by the flag, and the rest of the field was lapped.

The world champion established a seven-second lead over Hamilton in the opening laps before hitting traffic. That allowed Hamilton to close in, and having run three laps longer than Alonso in the first stint, the young Briton was only three seconds behind his teammate following the pit stops.

But Alonso pulled away again as the stint unfolded - his lead extending to nine seconds before his final pit visit. He then eased off following the stop, and the McLaren drivers proceeded to cruise to the flag in tandem, a result that gives them a shared championship lead.

Although Massa was never in contention for victory, he had no trouble staying clear of the rest of the pack.

Giancarlo Fisichella had a similarly lonely run to fourth, a two-stop strategy working well for the Renault driver as he quickly escaped from the cars behind in the opening stint and gained enough space to make his additional stop.

A 45-lap opening stint helped Robert Kubica jump from the bottom of the top ten to fifth, ahead of BMW teammate Nick Heidfeld, who ran an inverted strategy and used the super soft tyres for the first 32 laps before making an early single stop.

Alex Wurz came from 11th to seventh for Williams, holding off the closing Kimi Raikkonen in the final laps. The Ferrari moved up to 12th at the start, but had to wait until the pitstops before making further progress.

Another excellent start took Scott Speed up to 13th and the Toro Rosso then had enough pace to run close behind Raikkonen in traffic throughout the race. He eventually took ninth after the team's most competitive race yet.

The Hondas ended up 10th and 11th on an unusual two-stop strategy with a very long first stint and short final run on super-soft tyres.

Nico Rosberg's two-stop strategy went badly wrong - stuck behind the heavier Heidfeld after losing ground at the first corner, he dropped straight back into traffic after his first stop and could only finish 12th.

In a race of remarkably little incident, only Vitantonio Liuzzi and Adrian Sutil found the barriers, while gearbox problems made Mark Webber the only retirement among the top ten contenders.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS

The Monaco Grand Prix
Monte Carlo, Monaco, Monaco;
78 laps; 260.520km;
Weather: Sunny.

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Alonso        McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1h40:29.329
 2.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  +     4.095
 3.  Massa         Ferrari              (B)  +  1:09.114
 4.  Fisichella    Renault              (B)  +     1 lap
 5.  Kubica        BMW Sauber           (B)  +     1 lap
 6.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber           (B)  +     1 lap
 7.  Wurz          Williams-Toyota      (B)  +     1 lap
 8.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              (B)  +     1 lap
 9.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  +     1 lap
10.  Barrichello   Honda                (B)  +     1 lap
11.  Button        Honda                (B)  +     1 lap
12.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      (B)  +     1 lap
13.  Kovalainen    Renault              (B)  +     1 lap
14.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault     (B)  +    2 laps
15.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)  +    2 laps
16.  R.Schumacher  Toyota               (B)  +    2 laps
17.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda    (B)  +    2 laps
18.  Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda    (B)  +    2 laps

Fastest lap: Alonso, 1:15.284

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                      On lap
Albers        Spyker-Ferrari       (B)    71
Sutil         Spyker-Ferrari       (B)    54
Webber        Red Bull-Renault     (B)    18
Liuzzi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)    2


World Championship standings, round 5:                

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
 1.  Alonso        38        1.  McLaren-Mercedes      76
 2.  Hamilton      38        2.  Ferrari               56
 3.  Massa         33        3.  BMW Sauber            30
 4.  Raikkonen     23        4.  Renault               16
 5.  Heidfeld      18        5.  Williams-Toyota        7
 6.  Fisichella    13        6.  Toyota                 5
 7.  Kubica        12        7.  Red Bull-Renault       4
 8.  Rosberg        5        8.  Super Aguri-Honda      1
 9.  Trulli         4       
10.  Coulthard      4       
11.  Kovalainen     3       
12.  Wurz           2       
13.  R.Schumacher   1       
14.  Sato           1       
       
All timing unofficial

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