Kimi Raikkonen's fourth career Formula One victory will always be memorable. Winning in the Mediterranean principality makes it that way.
"It's a special place," said Raikkonen, who won the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday for his second straight victory. "Everybody looks at you in a slightly different way when you win in Monaco."
"To win is always fantastic, but Monaco is a special challenge," added the Finn, who trails season leader Fernando Alonso of Renault by 22 points through six of 19 races.
PHOTO: AP
Nick Heidfeld was second with third for Mark Webber, both in a Williams-BMW. Heidfeld was 13.8 seconds behind with Webber 18.4 off the pace. Alonso was fourth, his first time out of the top three this season.
Seven-time series champion Michael Schumacher finished seventh. He is winless in seven straight races, his longest drought since joining Ferrari. His last win was in Japan last season.
"Everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong at the beginning," said Schumacher, who damaged his car is a slow-speed collision early "I got stuck behind the Minardi that blocked the track, and I had to change the nose on the car."
PHOTO: EPA
"Given everything that happened I have to be reasonably happy with my two points."
Alonso leads the driver standings with 49 points. Raikkonen moved into second with 27 -- 20 points in the last two races. Jarno Trulli of Toyota has 26 with Webber on 18 and Heidfeld on 17. Schumacher is in ninth place with 12 points.
Renault leads the teams standings with 63, followed by McLaren (51), Toyota (43), Williams (35), Ferrari (21).
There were no position changes over the first 23 laps among the top 15 cars. Raikkonen and the Renaults of Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella moved away from the rest by more than a second a lap.
Then things changed.
The Minardi of Christijan Albers ran into the wall coming down the hill after the Casino, blocking the track and causing problems. Michael Schumacher's Ferrari lost a front wing when he hit David Coulthard's Red Bull. The others behind came to a complete stop.
The safety car came on -- going off after the 28th -- as the gap between cars narrowed. Raikkonen had a problem with the safety car, missing an attempted pit stop.
"So we decided to stay out because we had many laps to go and I thought we would be able to pull enough of a lead before my pit stop," Raikkonen said.
Raikkonen built the margin to 34.7 seconds before he went in for fuel on the 42nd lap. He came out ahead by more than 15 seconds with 36 laps to go and held that to complete the 78 laps of the 3.34km street circuit.
Behind him Alonso had tire problems and saw the chance of a podium finish disappear.
"In the last 20 laps things became really difficult," Alonso said. "I did all I could to keep the Williams behind me. The rear tires were in poor condition and they could brake much later into the chicane."
"Alonso was just getting slower and slower," Heidfeld said.
Heidfeld moved past a slowing Alonso with six laps to go, and Webber moved with into third with three to go, both with daring moves.
"When your tires go, you lose everything," Webber said. "In this business when you have no rear tires you are going nowhere, and Fernando was going nowhere."
It was Heidfeld's top finish and Webber's first podium.
Juan Pablo Montoya, in the other McLaren was fifth followed by Ralf Schumacher's Toyota, Michael Schumacher and teammate Rubens Barrichello in eighth.
Schumacher is still attempting to turn around a poor season. He hasn't won in Monaco since 2001, his longest winless streak at any race on the circuit.
Earlier in the day, Raikkonen gained his third consecutive pole position. It may be the last time qualifying is spread over two days after the teams voted unanimously to change to Saturday qualifying only with a vote this week.
BAR-Honda was missing from the race as it served the second part of a two-ran ban.
The late Prince Rainier III was remembered before the race with a minute of silence. Prince Rainier died April 6 at the age of 81. He was a fixture at the race and missed only the 2003 race with illness.
Bruno Junqueira won a crash-marred Monterrey Grand Prix, during which previous winners Sebastien Bourdais and Paul Tracy knocked out each other from the race lead on Sunday.
Junqueira grabbed the lead for good on the 67th lap, overtaking England's Bjorn Wirdheim. A yellow flag slowed the action two laps later, allowing the Brazilian to cruise to victory.
Only 10 of the 19 cars in the field completed the 76-lap Champ Car World Series race.
Canadian Andrew Ranger finished second, 1.376 seconds off the lead. Countryman Alex Tagliani was third, 2.847 seconds behind Junqueira.
Another Canadian, Tracy, and defending champion Bourdais battled for the lead during the first half of the race before the two crashed on lap 48.
Running second, Bourdais tried to pass Tracy, but collided and rolled over his front tire. Tracy was knocked out of the race, while Bourdais was forced to pit and fell back to 12th.
Bourdais finished fifth, more than 9 seconds off the lead. England's Justin Wilson was fourth.
It was Junqueira's first victory since winning in Australia last October. He finished third at the season-opening race at Long Beach, California in April, and placed second behind Bourdais in last year's Champ Car standings.
The afternoon's first yellow flag came on just the ninth lap, when rookie Timo Glock of Germany fishtailed around the fifth turn and stalled. Four laps later another rookie, Ronnie Bremer, spun out and stalled on the grass to the right of turn six.
Brazil's Ricardo Sperafico lost a tire on the 32nd lap, hitting the wall. Things then stayed relatively clean for a while, but the yellow flags came out in earnest again late.
After Bourdais forced Tracy out of the race, Jimmy Vasser hit Mexico City native Mario Dominguez eight laps later, ending the day for both cars and triggering another caution.
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