Red Bull’s Mark Webber took his second win of the season at the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix, on the heels of his victory at Spain last week. This is Webber’s fourth career win and quite definitely the sweetest coming in the unique principality where every driver wants to win. Team mate Sebastien Vettel took second to make it maximum points for the team two races in a row while Renault’s Robert Kubica took a deserving third place (full results).

The race wasn’t easy by any chance for there were as many as four safety car periods which meant re-starts again and again. But Webber maintained his pace throughout the race never looking uncomfortable. The moment that it all mattered most was at the start of the race itself where he had to mind Vettel and Kubica both. But he was quickly off, ahead of Vettel which put the slow starting Kubica into third. From then on, safety car or no safety car, the Aussie wasn’t bothered as he disappeared into the distance again and again.

For others though, safety cars mattered a lot more. Most importantly for Fernando Alonso who started his Ferrari in the pits. He started on soft tyres and got them out of the way at the first safety car when Nico Hulkenberg crashed his Williams on Lap 2. Alonso got his supersofts out of the way and got on the medium tyres, running them until the end to finish in the points. It was a heroic race from his to rescue his championship bid as he finished seventh. He could have been sixth but for a cheeky move by Michael Schumacher on the final corner of the race. The Saftey Car had again just gone in and it left about 100 meters of track to joust for between the safety car line and the finish line. Alonso went slightly off the racing line and Schumacher pulled alongside him and then overtook after he crossed the safety car line. Or atleast that is how it seemed on TV replays as the matter is still under scrutiny (at the time of writing) by race stewarts.

Their team mates though had a paler race in comparison. Felipe Massa again drove a lonely race out of sight for most parts. He made a bid on Kubica on the first corner at the start but the Pole closed the door on him. He then spent the rest of the race fighting for and finishing fourth. Seen individually it is a good result especially after a bad Spanish GP but compared to his team mate, Alonso still wins hands down. Meanwhile Nico Rosberg looked good for fourth on pit strategy. While his competitors pitted and came out behind Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber, he built a gap to them and could have gotten out ahead had he pitted before the Japanese driver. But he left it one lap too late and lost out as Kobayashi’s Sauber stopped just before the German pitted. He finished eighth.

It was a bad day in office also for McLaren. One of their mechanics left a bung on Jenson Button’s radiator and his car overheated behind the first safety car. It meant no points for the other double race winner this season while team mate Lewis Hamilton finished fifth. At one point his race engineer asked him to look after his brakes, to which he gave an irritated response. Not sure if that went down well with the team.

Behind these drivers, the two Force Indias finished in the top ten. This is the first occasion this season that both Adrian Sutil and Tonio Liuzzi have finished in points. They made good on Williams’ loss for whom Rubens Barrichello had made a good start jumping to 6th from 9th on the grid. But he spun out causing the second safety car on Lap 32. The cause for it could very well be the loose drain cover which caused a third safety car but was later deemed safe enough.

But the battle for 14th between Karun Chandhok and Jarno Trulli ended in tears when with three laps to go, Trulli went for an audacious pass on Chandhok’s HRT and the Lotus ended up resting on the Indian driver’s car, almost taking his head off. The good thing was that both of them walked away safe but the bad part was Chandhok not finishing the race. He had done well to keep going and keeping ahead of Trulli for nearly twenty laps, and mind you, it was a high attrition race with only twelve cars running at the Chequered Flag.

In the drivers’ championship now, it is Webber and Vettel equal on points with Alonso (73) and Button (70) behind them. Webber is now a clear championship contender with only Vettel seeming to be anywhere close to his pace. The next race is the fast and free-flowing Turkish GP where Red Bull is expected to fly again and it will be a circuit where Vettel will be looking to mount a fight back before it is too late.