Spain's two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso won his second successive Monaco Grand Prix yesterday to record his McLaren team's 150th success.
Alonso -- recording his 17th career victory -- beat team-mate Lewis Hamilton, his fourth successive second place in his maiden season, while Felipe Massa of Ferrari was third, his best result in the race.
Alonso led by seven seconds after 20 laps with Hamilton recording the fastest lap of the race at the time and Massa in third.
PHOTO: AP
It was the McLaren team's first one-two finish at the famous race on the unforgiving Mediterranean street circuit since 1989, the heyday of Brazilian Ayrton Senna, who won, and Alain Prost of France, who was second.
It was Alonso's second win this season, following his maiden win for the team in Malaysia, and the team's second one-two. They did the same by finishing in the same order in Kuala Lumpur.
Alonso's win lifted him to the top of this year's drivers' championship standings ahead of Hamilton on races won.
The result left both men on 38 points at the head of a title race that now looks as likely to be as dominated by them as was Sunday's processional 78 laps demonstration of supremacy around the harbor.
Massa was the only driver not lapped by the 25 year-old Spaniard and the 22 year-old Briton in the race.
Italian Giancarlo Fisichella was fourth for Renault, Poland's Robert Kubica fifth for BMW Sauber ahead of his team-mate German Nick Heidfeld.
Austrian Alex Wurz was seventh for Williams and Finn Kimi Raikkonen, who started from 16th position on the grid, came home eighth to grab a point for Ferrari.
The race did not produce a single notable passing move as Alonso came home in a winning time of one hour 40 minutes and 29.329 seconds, at an average speed of more than 260kph, on the 3.34km circuit.
The race began under a cloudy sky with intermittent sunshine and some breeze, but the threat of rain diminished as time passed. When the lights went out, Alonso made a smooth start and swept unchallenged down the road to Ste Devote and up the hill towards Casino Square ahead of Hamilton in second.
The order behind them settled down immediately with Massa third ahead of Fisichella, Heidfeld and the German-born Nico Rosberg in his Williams.
In front of a big crowd, estimated at more than 120,000, that included several well-known guests like Hollywood actors Jude Law and Johnny Lee Miller, former Juventus and Czech Republic soccer star Pavel Nedved and German tennis legend Boris Becker, the race soon turned into a routine procession.
Hamilton, seeking to become the first driver in his rookie season to win the Monaco Grand Prix, chased Alonso hard, but was more than seven seconds behind him before the first round of pit-stops.
These allowed him to lead for three laps from lap 36 to 39 until he pitted himself and Alonso regained the advantage.
The Spaniard stayed in front with few alarms until he pitted again for a second time after 51 laps.
This time Hamilton enjoyed a stronger position and after leading briefly he trailed Alonso by only 1.9 seconds after 57 laps with Massa 46 seconds adrift in third place for Ferrari.
It was by now clearly a one-team race, but in the end there seemed little chance of Hamilton passing his partner.
It was the McLaren team's 14th win in Monaco.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier