What The Hell Was That??????

I would like to announce a reward of Rs 50 (not much, but what can you expect from a kid?) that will go to the first person who can explain to me, properly, WHAT JUST HAPPENED AT MONACO! The entire race was filled with incident and controversy. First Schumi's pole position being stripped, quite deservedly, if I may say so, and going to Fernando Alonso. It isn't the first time in his life Michael has tried pulling a fast one (can you say Damon Hill?).
Schumi made up for it almost as soon as the race started, moving up from 22nd position (and starting from the pit lane) to climb to 16th within a few laps. A one stop strategy further helped his rise up the standings.
Of course, that wasn't the only eventful part of the first few laps. Kimi almost overtook Webber right at the start, and then did so a lap later, in a daring move that could have found him slammed into a wall if he didn't do it fast enough. Kimi kept closing in on Alonso as the race progressed.
Alonso, tried to slow things down, hence causing Webber and Montoya to catch Kimi and cause problems. Then Alonso had a few problems of his own as the front four got caught in heavy traffic, which finally resulted in Alonso and Kimi lapping the 8th placed driver (and we thought it would be difficult to overtake at Monte Carlo!). In his effort to get past Fisichella, Webber's car stalled and started smoking. The safety car was called onto track.
This should have been Kimi's chance to catch Alonso. Instead, the Mclaren once again got into its vintage pattern of all speed, no reliability, stopping completely because it slowed down (if only my dad's car could do that. It would make him speed up when the bicycles look ready to overtake!). Anyway, as a McLaren fan, I can at least be thankful that this car had a little bit of the pace that last year's car did.

Anyway, by this time, Schumacher had made use of the two trips for the safety car (this would go up to 3 when 3rd placed Trulli pulled up some laps later) by closing in, and then overtaking when it became legal. Usual Schumi style, he took every half chance available to do so, not really mindful how risky the manouevre. Don't forget, this is the same guy who barged his own teammate Barrichello to overtake him on the last lap last year. Again, they found themselves in a race for fourth position, but on different teams this time.
In the end, Barrichello managed to hold on to fourth, with the top three comprising Alonso, Montoya and Coulthard, respectively.
Did you get all that? Nahh!!! Don't worry about it if you didn't. I am still trying to comprehend what happened myself. Only way to get a decent idea of the story of the race, if you didn't watch it, is to do so when the repeat telecast comes. In the meantime, the final result could help you get a fair idea of the way the championship standings are going.

POS	DRIVER	NATIONALITY	ENTRANT	TIRE	LAPS	TIME/RETIRE
1.	Fernando Alonso	Spain	Renault		78	1h43m43.116
2.	Juan Pablo Montoya	Colombia	McLaren-Mercedes		78	14.5
3.	David Coulthard	Britain	Red Bull-Ferrari		78	52.2
4.	Rubens Barrichello	Brazil	Honda		78	53.3
5.	Michael Schumacher	Germany	Ferrari		78	53.8
6.	Giancarlo Fisichella	Italy	Renault		78	1m02.0
7.	Nick Heidfeld	Germany	Sauber-BMW		77	1 Lap
8.	Ralf Schumacher	Germany	Toyota		77	1 Lap
9.	Felipe Massa	Brazil	Ferrari		77	1 Lap
10.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Italy	Toro Rosso-Cosworth		77	1 Lap
11.	Jenson Button	Britain	Honda		77	1 Lap
12.	Christijan Albers	Netherlands	MF1-Toyota		77	1 Lap
13.	Scott Speed	United States	Toro Rosso-Cosworth		77	1 Lap
14.	Jacques Villeneuve	Canada	Sauber-BMW		77	1 Lap
15.	Tiago Monteiro	Portugal	MF1-Toyota		76	2 Laps
16.	Franck Montagny	France	Super Aguri-Honda		76	2 Laps
17.	Jarno Trulli	Italy	Toyota		78	6 Laps
R	Christian Klien	Austria	Red Bull-Ferrari		56
R	Nico Rosberg	Germany	Williams-Cosworth		51	Accident
R	Kimi Raikkonen	Finland	McLaren-Mercedes		50
R	Mark Webber	Australia	Williams-Cosworth		48
R	Takuma Sato	Japan	Super Aguri-Honda		46

That's it for now. Alonso's success continues, and so does Spain's sprting renaissance. Can this period of good fortune for the nation carry on into the World Cup and the rest of the Formula One season? Let's wait and watch.