Trulli Scores Maiden F1 Win in Dramatic Monaco GP
Sunday May 23rd, 2004
By Gary Emmerson
Renault driver Jarno Trulli produced a masterful drive to claim his maiden Formula One win as he took victory in a dramatic Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday.
Italian Trulli led from pole and held off the challenge of BAR-Honda's Jenson Button in a thrilling finish to a memorable 78-lap race in which only nine of the 20 started reached the finish.
Michael Schumacher's unbeaten start to the season was brought to an end when Juan Pablo Montoya collided with him in the tunnel, with the pair behind the safety car, and the Ferrari driver retired with a wheel hanging off.
The German had been attempting to set a record sixth successive victory at the start of a season and equal Ayrton Senna's six Monaco wins, and it was his first retirement since the Brazilian Grand Prix more than a year ago.
Schumacher's teammate Rubens Barrichello maintained his record of finishing in the points in every Grand Prix this season with the final place on the podium, but he completed a lonely race more than a minute down.
Williams-BMW's Juan Pablo Montoya, last year's winner, claimed fourth place with Felipe Massa coming home fifth for Sauber and Cristiano Da Matta collected Toyota's first points of the season in sixth.
Nick Heidfeld handed Jordan a boost with their points-scoring result of the season with seventh place and Olivier Panis ended eighth for Toyota. Minardi's Zsolt Baumgartner was the only other man to finish the race.
The start was aborted when Olivier Panis stalled short of his grid-box, and the Grand Prix got under way Trulli led the field with teammate Alonso jumping up to second ahead of Button. Takuma Sato made a quick start for BAR-Honda and moved up to fourth from seventh on the grid and Kimi Raikkonen also got ahead of the Ferrari of world champion Schumacher.
Jaguar's Christian Klien was an early retirement as he crashed into the barriers at the Loews hairpin having already lost his nose cone, while Sato held up Raikkonen and Schumacher with an engine problem hampering him.
And when Sato's engine expired on lap three Sauber driver Giancarlo Fisichella escaped a dramatic crash when his car was tipped upside down.
The Italian crashed into the back of David Coulthard's McLaren after being blinded by a plume of smoke, but miraculously walked away from the 90mph crash at Tabac. Coulthard joined him on the list of retirements with McLaren unable to repair his car, which lost the entire rear wing.
The safety car was deployed before the race got underway again at the start of lap eight. But Jaguar's day was over soon after when Mark Webber rolled to a halt after losing drive and Jordan driver Giorgio Pantano also retired.
Button was the first of the leaders to pit on lap 18 and five laps later Trulli came in from the lead. Alonso and Michael Schumacher pitted in the following laps with the Ferrari driver getting ahead of Raikkonen and Button.
Raikkonen was pulled out of the race by his McLaren team with a problem showing up on the telemetry and Alonso then crashed into the wall in the tunnel attempting to overtake Ralf Schumacher.
And behind the safety car, Schumacher, in the lead with Trulli having pitted, braked hard in the tunnel and Montoya was unable to avoid a collision and sent the Ferrari driver into the wall and out of the race.
Button continued to close in on Trulli to set up a tense finale to the thrilling race but could not get close enough to challenge, as Ralf Schumacher retired from eighth three laps from home. |
