Button takes dominant Monaco win

Ferrari enjoyed its best race of the year so far to take third and fourth with Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, but Mark Webber's fifth place was little consolation for Brawn's usual main rival Red Bull, which saw Sebastian Vettel crash out early on.

Flawless starts from Button and Barrichello established the Brawn duo in first and second places by the opening corner, with Raikkonen fending off Vettel to hold on to third.

Both the Brawns and Vettel had started on the delicate super soft tyres, and it was the Red Bull that started to struggle first - soon lapping as much as three seconds off the pace.

That allowed Massa, Nico Rosberg and Heikki Kovalainen to close right in, with Massa crawling all over the Red Bull until he cut the chicane in avoidance when caught out by its early braking. The Ferrari then lost out to the opportunistic Rosberg as well as he let Vettel back past.

Rosberg got past Vettel on lap 10, with Massa and Kovalainen swiftly following, prompting the German to pit and fall into the midfield. He then slid into the Sainte Devote barriers while pushing to caught up soon after.

The Brawns began to lose pace around the same time, but Button coped much better with the situation than his team-mate. Nose to tail early on, the gap between the Brawns became 15s by the time the first stops were complete.

Button managed to make his tyres last until lap 17, and with Barrichello and Vettel having held up the rest of the pack between them, he had no trouble retaining his lead.

With both the Ferraris on relatively short first stints, they were unable to jump Barrichello despite his tyre issues, and from then on Brawn was set for a commanding one-two. Barrichello able to match Button's speed once both were on the harder tyres, but by then the gap was too great.

The Ferraris lurked close behind until falling away when it was their turn to use super softs in the final stints. They still did enough to resist the chasing Webber, who had to nurse his own tyres.

Rosberg and Fernando Alonso (Renault) lost touch with this group by running very long middle stints. The plan was to minimise the time on super soft tyres, but their slow times on heavy fuel mid-race cost them too much ground and they finished sixth and seventh.

Kovalainen would have been between them had he not spun into the Swimming Pool barriers at two-thirds distance. With his team-mate Lewis Hamilton making little progress from the back of the grid and finishing 12th, it was a depressing race for McLaren at what the team hoped would be its best weekend of 2009 so far.

Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais at last had something to smile about after narrowly beating fellow one-stopper Giancarlo Fisichella to the final point, although ninth was still hugely encouraging for Force India. Kazuki Nakajima was set to complete the top ten in the second Williams until he slid into the Mirabeau barrier with one lap to go.

Toyota and BMW's poor weekends continued with 10th, 11th and 13th places for Timo Glock, Nick Heidfeld and Jarno Trulli, and retirement for Robert Kubica.

Nelson Piquet and Sebastien Buemi were the first to drop out of the race - the Renault driver extremely frustrated after the Toro Rosso ploughed into the back of him at Sainte Devote on lap 12, taking both into the barriers.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS

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

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Button        Brawn GP-Mercedes     (B)  1h40:44.282
 2.  Barrichello   Brawn GP-Mercedes     (B)  +     7.666
 3.  Raikkonen     Ferrari               (B)  +    13.443
 4.  Massa         Ferrari               (B)  +    15.110
 5.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault      (B)  +    15.730
 6.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota       (B)  +    33.586
 7.  Alonso        Renault               (B)  +    37.839
 8.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  +  1:03.142
 9.  Fisichella    Force India-Mercedes  (B)  +  1:05.040
10.  Glock         Toyota                (B)  +     1 lap
11.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber            (B)  +     1 lap
12.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  +     1 lap
13.  Trulli        Toyota                (B)  +     1 lap
14.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes  (B)  +     1 lap
15.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota       (B)  +    2 laps

Fastest lap: Massa, 1:15.154

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                      On lap
Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes      (B)    52
Kubica        BMW Sauber            (B)    31
Vettel        Red Bull-Renault      (B)    16
Piquet        Renault               (B)    11
Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)    11

World Championship standings, round 6:                

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
 1.  Button        51        1.  Brawn GP-Mercedes      86
 2.  Barrichello   35        2.  Red Bull-Renault       42.5
 3.  Vettel        23        3.  Toyota                 26.5
 4.  Webber        19.5      4.  Ferrari                17
 5.  Trulli        14.5      5.  McLaren-Mercedes       13
 6.  Glock         12        6.  Renault                11
 7.  Alonso        11        7.  Williams-Toyota        7.5
 8.  Raikkonen      9        8.  BMW Sauber              6
 9.  Hamilton       9        9.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari      5
10.  Massa          8       
11.  Rosberg       7.5       
12.  Heidfeld       6       
13.  Kovalainen     4       
14.  Buemi          3       
15.  Bourdais       2       
       
All timing unofficial