Background Reigning World Champion and
2009 race winner
Jenson Button went into the Monte Carlo round with a three-point lead over
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and a ten-point margin over
Sebastian Vettel. In total, seven drivers were in a position to take the lead of the championship had they won in the Principality. Following concerns over the tight and narrow nature of the circuit combined with new teams
Virgin Racing,
Lotus and
Hispania being between three and six seconds slower than the established teams over the course of a lap and therefore creating a very real possibility for a slower car compromising the flying laps of their faster counterparts, the suggestion was put forth to split the first session of qualifying into two groups of twelve cars, similar to the format used by the
IndyCar Series. However, at the
Spanish Grand Prix, one week before the Monaco race, the proposal was rejected by several teams. The FIA later set a maximum allowable lap time for qualifying, with any car that is slower than one minute and twenty-two seconds between the first and last corners facing penalties from the stewards. The concerns over slow traffic attracted criticism, with World Champion
Keke Rosberg saying "there used to be twenty-six drivers out there in the old days, and half of them were slow – not just half a dozen!", while
Lotus Racing's
Jarno Trulli said that he felt drivers and teams have no cause for complaint if anyone is held up, saying "they have had plenty of time among the teams about what to do for here [Monaco], and they didn't come up with a solution. So I don't think anyone should start complaining now." as a deterrent to cars cutting the chicanes. The new kerbs were clearly visible in the new yellow colour. Several sections of the circuit, including the pit lane and the northern half of the circuit from the Place du Casino to the tunnel have been re-surfaced.
Bruno Senna had damaged his
Hispania F110 during practice for the race in
Barcelona. As his team was unable to find the flaw in the chassis, he competed in Monaco with a damaged car, producing lap times two seconds slower than his team-mate
Karun Chandhok in free practice.
Free practice The first practice sessions were held on the Thursday of race week, as is traditional in Monaco.
Fernando Alonso was the fastest driver and the only man to break the barrier, though second-placed
Sebastian Vettel set a time of 1:16 even, with Renault's
Robert Kubica one hundredth of a second behind him. Virgin's
Timo Glock was the fastest of the new teams, three and a half seconds slower than Alonso and one second behind
Kamui Kobayashi, the last of the drivers for an established team. The first session was incident-free with the exception of
Karun Chandhok stopping on the circuit after completing just six laps when he brushed the barriers and spun at Massanet. Kobayashi also encountered trouble, running over the chicanes at the entry to the Swimming Pool and finding the barriers. Alonso was also sighted pitting for a replacement front wing. The second practice session was considered wet, though the rain was not heavy enough to justify the use of the intermediate tyres. Alonso once again topped the session, this time breaking the barrier with
Nico Rosberg and Vettel rounding out the top three.
Lotus' Heikki Kovalainen was the fastest of the new teams, one second adrift of
Jaime Alguersuari in eighteenth position. There were no major incidents, though the anticipated traffic problem manifested on several occasions, with the
Ferrari of
Felipe Massa impeding Kovalainen and his Lotus as the Finn was completing a flying lap. The third practice session opened with a heavy accident by Alonso, the Spaniard crashing his Ferrari at Massanet after completing just six laps; his fastest recorded time for the session would ultimately be enough for sixteenth. Virgin's Timo Glock also stopped with hydraulics issues after a sequence of installation laps and failing to set a time. Renault's Kubica was the fastest of the session, edging out Alonso's Ferrari team-mate Massa by four hundredths of a second and winner
Mark Webber third. At the end of the session, just half a second covered the top seven drivers. Lotus was once again the fastest rookie team, with Heikki Kovalainen just a tenth of a second quicker than team-mate Trulli.
Qualifying Following the practice session, Ferrari judged the damage to Alonso's car to be too extensive to repair in time for qualifying. This forced the double World Champion to revert to the team's spare chassis for the race and start from pit lane. With Alonso out, several teams – notably
Renault – sent their drivers out on the harder compound tyres, and the remaining six drivers to be eliminated were the six drivers for the new teams. Heikki Kovalainen was the fastest of them; it was the first time team-mate Jarno Trulli was out-qualified at Monaco by his team-mate. The Lotus cars were followed by the two Virgins and the two Hispanias. Despite his damaged car, Bruno Senna out-qualified
Karun Chandhok. The anticipated traffic problems did not arise, and Felipe Massa set the fastest time of the session. The second session was marked by an accident in the final few minutes, with Vitaly Petrov slipping into the tyre wall at Ste. Devote, though the session was not stopped. His time was fast enough for fourteenth although Nico Hülkenberg, Adrian Sutil and Sébastien Buemi all qualified ahead of Petrov, with Pedro de la Rosa, Kamui Kobayashi and Jaime Alguersuari also being eliminated.
Mercedes' Nico Rosberg was the fastest man in the session. The third and final part of qualifying was led by
Robert Kubica for over half the session, a whole second ahead of the opposition, before
Mark Webber managed to set a lap time of 1:13.826 to steal pole position away from him and continue Red Bull's unbroken run of pole positions with their sixth-straight start from pole. Kubica qualified in second place, with
Sebastian Vettel taking third ahead of Felipe Massa. Lewis Hamilton qualified fifth ahead of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher; team principal
Ross Brawn later expressed frustrations by a mistake by the team that saw Rosberg inadvertently block his team-mate.
Jenson Button,
Rubens Barrichello and
Vitantonio Liuzzi completed the top ten. Bruno Senna and Heikki Kovalainen joined the growing list of retirements, both exiting the race on the same lap with mechanical troubles. The safety car would again be deployed during the 75th lap and remain in place until the race's final corner when Jarno Trulli and Hispania's Karun Chandhok collided. Trulli attempted a pass at Rascasse that resulted in his Lotus mounting Chandhok's car and his wheels narrowly missing Chandhok's head. Both drivers walked away from the crash. The incident occurred just in front of race leader Webber, who avoided being caught up in the tangle. Webber went on to win a race with all but a few seconds of the last few laps run under safety car conditions during which Vitaly Petrov retired his Renault with brake problems. During the eight or nine seconds between Webber crossing the safety car line, with the green restart lights illuminated, and Webber finishing the race, Schumacher overtook Alonso in the final corner for sixth place to finish 5.7 seconds behind the winner. The rule 40.7 states that after the safety car has returned to the pitlane, drivers may only overtake once they have passed the white safety car line spanning the width of the circuit; in Monaco, this line is at the exit to Rascasse. Replays showing Schumacher's manoeuvre were shown shortly after the race and controversy started with Ferrari claiming that overtaking on the last lap was not permitted, according to rule 40.13, which states: "If the race ends whilst the safety car is deployed it will enter the pit lane at the end of the last lap and the cars will take the chequered flag as normal without overtaking." Mercedes announced its intention to appeal against the decision, although the penalty cannot be rescinded as it is classed as a drive-through penalty, a type of penalty which is not open to appeal. The team later chose not to pursue an appeal after the FIA agreed to hold talks on the subject of the safety car rules. The FIA later admitted that the rules suffered from a "lack of clarity" and sought to change the rules in order to clarify the regulations and make it easier for teams to understand exactly what was required of them in such a scenario. The safety car rule in Formula One is unique compared to other sanctioning bodies of motorsport in regards to last-lap yellow chequer finishes. Most sanctioning bodies require the safety car to lead the leader across the finish line on the final lap in case of a yellow chequer. In Formula One, the safety car does not lead the leader across the finish line on the last lap. ==Classification==