Qualifying Gamble Pays Off for McLaren

McLaren team boss Ron Dennis revealed on Sunday that his team chose to sacrifice race pace in the Monaco Grand Prix to give themselves the best chance of victory from the front row of the grid.

Drivers David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen used the majority of Thursday and Saturday's practice sessions to set the car up for qualifying rather than the race in a bid to secure a place on the front row.

And Dennis admitted that the tactics had paid off perfectly after Coulthard scored the team's first victory of the season after qualifying second behind Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya.

"We spent a lot of time monitoring the data," Dennis said after the race. "We knew that Michael's (Schumacher) tyre choice would give him a little bit of pace in the race. But everything was about getting off the line and of course getting off the line from the best grid position. We sacrificed some race pace to get the race win."

Coulthard's victory ended Michael Schumacher's four-race winning run and also handed McLaren their first success since Mika Hakkinen won the United States Grand Prix last year.