Button triumphs in Monte-Carlo

Jenson Button claimed his fifth race victory of the season with a faultless display of driving from pole position at Monte-Carlo on Sunday afternoon.

The Briton made a strong start and led proceedings pretty much from start to finish to extend his Championship lead to 16 points over team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who came home next, securing Brawn GP's second consecutive 1-2 finish.

The Brazilian leapfrogged ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen off the grid, but was unable to get as much from his super soft tyres as his Brawn colleague and had to settle for second on the podium after the first lot of pit stops.

Raikkonen finished third, his first podium of the season, and, capping off a decent day for the Scuderia, Felipe Massa was fourth having started fifth.

Nico Rosberg eventually brought his Williams home sixth, after showing a promising early turn of speed and having had to defend his position from Fernando Alonso in the final laps. The Spaniard was seventh for Renault.

The final point went to Toro Rosso and Sebastien Bourdais, with Giancarlo Fisichella ninth for Force India.

Raikkonen made a sluggish start off the grid, allowing Button to get away cleanly while also losing a position to Barrichello. Massa initially lost a spot to Rosberg as well, before inching past the German before the end of the lap.

Last year's runner up was a man on a mission and looked down around the outside of Sebastian Vettel out of the tunnel before trying again next time round, on lap 6, only to run wide across the chicane.

That forced the Brazilian to hand the position back to Vettel and in allowing the Red Bull by, Rosberg was also able to sneak through - dropping Massa to fifth.

Sebastien Buemi crashed into the back of Nelson Piquet at St. Devote on lap ten, ending both men's races, and Vettel's day was ended at the same spot seven laps later when the race winner from Bahrain smacked his Red Bull off the barrier.

The Brawn GP cars were struggling on the super soft tyres at this stage and while the Ferrari cars were able to close, there was still enough of gap for Button and Barrichello to pit and re-emerge ahead of the Prancing Horses.

A quick stop for Massa saw him get ahead of Rosberg, while a long first stint from Webber - very much a mirror of his strategy in Spain last time out - saw him make progress and move up to fifth.

Robert Kubica's day drew to a close on lap 30 when - having stopped on the second lap of the race - the Pole returned to pit lane and failed to return to the track.

Lewis Hamilton failed to make any real progress through the field after getting by Kubica and both Toyota cars early on. A minor scuffle with Nick Heidfeld forced him into the pits early and he then suffered the humiliation of being lapped by Button on lap 36.

A dismal weekend for McLaren ended on lap 52 when Heikki Kovalainen crashed into the barriers through the Swimming Pool complex.

Webber piled the pressure on the front runners in the run up to the second stops, but all the leaders re-fuelled without any scares which meant that all had a clear run to the end once Rosberg made his final stop from fifth with just 13 laps remaining.

And that is exactly what Button did - he eased home over the final laps securing an eight-second winning margin by the time he crossed the finish line.

Monaco Grand Prix - provisional race result

Pos Driver Team Time  

1 Jenson Button Brawn-Mercedes 1h40:44.882 2 Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes +7.6 secs 3 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari +13.4 secs 4 Felipe Massa Ferrari +15.1 secs 5 Mark Webber RBR-Renault +15.7 secs 6 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota +33.5 secs 7 Fernando Alonso Renault +37.8 secs 8 Sebastien Bourdais STR-Ferrari +63.1 secs 9 Giancarlo Fisichella Force India-Mercedes +65.0 secs 10 Timo Glock Toyota +1 Lap 11 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber +1 Lap 12 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes +1 Lap 13 Jarno Trulli Toyota +1 Lap 14 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes +1 Lap 15 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota +2 Laps Ret Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes +27 Laps Ret Robert Kubica BMW Sauber +50 Laps Ret Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault +63 Laps Ret Nelsinho Piquet Renault +68 Laps Ret Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari +68 Laps

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