Lap 33: The safety car comes in at the end of the lap.
Lap 31: Barrichello seems to have had a problem with his right rear wheel. It seemed to tuck underneath the Williams as he drove over the brow of the hill. He smashes into the barriers and ends up facing the wrong way. Horrible.
Lap 31: Safety car is back out. Barrichello has a nasty-looking shunt coming up the hill to Massenet.
Lap 30: Webber back up to full pace now, he sets the fastest lap of 1:17.372.
BBC analyst Martin Brundle: "If they carry on at this sort of pace, then Massa, Hamilton and Alonso can make some impression - certainly on Kubica."
Lap 29: Right then, it's Webber, 10.4 seconds clear of Vettel, who is followed by Kubica, Massa, Hamilton, Alonso, Schumacher, Rosberg and Sutil.
Lap 28: Rosberg comes in but that time he spent behind Webber has cost him dearly. He comes out behind his team-mate Schumacher.
Lap 27: Massa is in fifth now, Hamilton is sixth and Alonso seventh.
Lap 26: Webber leads Rosberg by 1.1 seconds. Problems for Trulli's car in the pits, they take an age to get the nut off his back wheel.
BBC pundit Anthony Davidson on Radio 5 live: "Timo Glock is 'crabbing' around the Monaco circuit - looks like the Virgin car has something wrong with the rear wheels. It could be suspension damage, but whatever it is, he is out of this race."
Lap 24: Lots of problems with the right rear wheel on the Virgin of Timo Glock. Smoke comes out of De la Rosa's car and his race is over. At the front it is Webber, Rosberg, Vettel, Kubica, Kobayashi, Massa, Hamilton, Alonso and Schumacher.
Lap 23: Webber pits and comes out ahead of second-placed Rosberg. Rosberg sets a time of 1:17.403.
Lap 22: In comes Vettel. Pedro de la Rosa is stick the pits.
Lap 21: Kubica and Petrov come in. Alguersuari also pits which will free up Hamilton and Alonso, who were behind him. Rosberg sets the fastest lap of 1:17.445.
Lap 20: Alonso and Hamilton come out ahead of Schumacher and Barrichello. Hamilton is being caught by Alonso. Webber is nine seconds clear.
Lap 19: Massa, Schumacher, Barrichello and Liuzzi all come into the pits. Webber sets the fastest lap of 1:17.593.
Lap 17: Hamilton comes into the pits as McLaren make sure he is ahead of Alonso. Interesting. Webber is 8.1 seconds clear.
Lap 16: Alonso is moving up. He goes around the outside of Heikki Kovalainen at the slow left hander at the end of the Tunnel. Brave, brave, brave. Webber has a gap of seven seconds. Webber has a fastest lap of 1:17.784.
Jenson Button: "I think it got a little bit hot on the way to the grid. We left a bung in on the left-hand side of the car that obviously you're meant to take out on the ay to the grid. That's cooked the engine. It got very hot under the bonnet and I had to turn it off. I didn't want to leave oil on the race line. It would have been fine if we didn't have the safety car. That was what ended it. At such a slow speed you can't get any air into it to cool it down."
Martin Brundle: "Apparently, yesterday Jenson had to throw the remote control for the TV out of the cockpit at Rascasse."
Martin Brundle: "Apparently, yesterday Jenson had to throw the remote control for the TV out of the cockpit at Rascasse."
Lap 14: Alonso takes Glock at the same chicane. Webber is 5.3 seconds in front now. No worries.
Lap 13: Another fastest lap for Webber, a 1:17.979. Alonso is up to 18th.
Lap 12: Webber is finding this as taxing as an interview with Lorraine Kelly. He's 3.6 seconds clear. Then it is Vettel, Kubica, Massa, Hamilton and Barrichello.
Lap 11: Webber sets the fastest lap of 1:18.325. He's flying and is 2.9 seconds ahead of Vettel. Alonso's race engineer Andrea Stella tells the Spaniard: "Good job on the backmarker. Let's stay calm."
Lap 10: Alonso finally gets around Di Grassi at the chicane at the end of the tunnel. He'll be happy with that.
Lap 9: Webber sets the fastest lap so far of 1:18.865, he leads by 1.8 seconds.
Lap 8: Alonso is desperately trying to get around Lucas di Grassi but the Virgin driver is not having any of it. Alonso will not be happy with this.
Lap 7: Webber gets a shift on when the safety car comes in and he leads Vettel by 1.4 seconds. Alonso passes Hispania's Karun Chandhok and is in 20th position.
Lap 6: The safety car comes in at the end of the lap. We are back racing.
Lap 5: The safety car is still out and there is no sign that it is going to come in just yet. Hamilton is worried about his front right wing and asks his team to check the data for it - McLaren say it looks fine.
Lap 4: As Hulkenberg's car is taken over the barriers, Webber tells his team that there is a "lot of debris" in the tunnel.
Lap 3: As Button comes down to Sainte Devote his McLaren has a lot of smoke coming out of it and the car grinds to a halt. That looks like an engine failure. Safety car still out. At the front it is Webber, Vettel, Kubica, Massa, Hamilton and Barrichello.
Lap 3: Jenson Button is out.
Lap 2: Hulkenberg was on the dirty side of the track in the tunnel and smacks into the left-hand barriers. Williams team-mate Rubens Barrichello moved up from ninth to sixth at the start. Rosberg went down to eighth.
Lap 1: Drama. The safety car is out. Nico Hulkenberg has a big smash in the tunnel. Alonso dives into the pits and changes to hard tyres. That's his mandatory stop done then.
Lap 1: What a start from Vettel. He is up to second despite Kubica trying to block him off. Webber has a clean start and leads into Sainte Devote.
1302: Alonso in the pit lane... on soft tyres.
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1259: Just the cars on the grid now. The formation lap is about to begin.
1258: A late change in the office. The colleague who went for Webber has now defected to Hamilton. Can he do it from fifth on the grid?
1257: Interesting spot from David Coulthard on the BBC coverage. He saw a slight flaw in Mark Webber's sensational pole lap - the Australian seems to scrape his front right tyre on the barriers, footage also shows him checking it for damage afterwards. It could well be nothing but worth keeping an eye on as he has to start the race with the same tyres."
Martin Brundle asks Adrian Sutil if he will start on the harder tyres: "Probably yeah, but even if you make up position on tyres you have to pit and then there is a big queue behind you, so either way you probably end up losing the positions."
Peter in Stillwater, Minnesota via text: "They wanted me to work overtime. Not with Monaco on the BBC!"
1254: Who are you going for? Here in the office there are two votes for Kubica and three for Webber. We've got 78 laps over 161.879 miles, we're almost there people.
TheRealEmKayEf on Twitter: "Hoping for a Monaco miracle... Alonso to win? Fingers crossed!"
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1248: Should Webber win, it will be the first time an Australian has triumphed there since Jack Brabham won in 1959. Last year, Jenson Button won for Brawn GP on the way to winning the 2009 world title. The last Briton to win back-to-back Monaco Grands Prix was Graham Hill in 1968 and 1969. Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher is one of five previous Monaco winners on this year's grid. He needs one more win to join Ayrton Senna on six victories.
1245: Brundle speaks to actor Gerard Butler on the grid, although he says he is concentrating on interviewing the Sugababes. You and me both fella. Lo and behold, Brundle gets his wish, there they are. Hollywood? You've got Hollywood.
McLaren's Lewis Hamilton: "You don't need as much guts to get close to grass. But here you have to have serious heart and serious passion to get close to those barriers. There are no run-off areas here. The slightest mistake or error and you go into the wall. There is no margin, you make a mistake and your race is over. I enjoy it, -this track gets your heart racing. There are only 24 of us in the whole world that can drive this track and there are only a few of us that can do it well; to have won here is a really amazing feeling."
BBC Sport pundit David Coulthard: "If Fernando Alonso was 11th or 12th on the grid and people at the front had critical issues with the soft tyres, he would have a real chance of doing some damage but because he's 24th on the grid, he's effectively out of the race. I started last in 2001 and spent 40 laps behind a slower car until he pitted and then I could go at my own pace. I finished fifth."
1238: Grid walk time. Marvellous. Force India's Adrian Sutil, wearing quite a large pair of sunglasses, is not telling Martin Brundle too much about his strategy for the race. It's all very crowded down there. Barrichello says his Williams is struggling aerodynamically, mechanically and with the engine and traction. Apart from that though, everything is fine.
BBC Sport pundit David Coulthard: "The question is can the drivers who qualified in the top 10 on super-soft tyres make them last during the race. If the tyres go off then they'll have to pit and then the concertina effect of the cars means you could come out and end up behind a slower car and you lose your advantage. But the bottom line is that all the top 10 have run the soft tyre so realistically all the people that you are competing against to win the race are all in the same boat. What you'd effectively want to do is run as long as you can and either pit at the same time as those you are racing or worst-case scenario if your tyres are in a really bad shape pit one lap after they've pitted because you will lose time if they come in and put on a new set and you stay out."
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner on BBC One: "Our key focus this afternoon is winning the race, this is the key pole position of the season with such a short run down to the first corner. I think Mark's qualifying lap was the best of his career so far, he just got into a rhythm and it was absolutely awesome, the margin was remarkable especially around such a short circuit like Monte Carlo. Robert Kubica's pace has been a big threat all weekend, it's collectively a good result for Renault but we need to make sure we turn that into points. Sebastian Vettel dominated at the start of the season but Mark has really found his stride. He has his mojo back and his confidence is high, he is relaxed and when you are like that then the times come, he is just in the zone and feeling good. Seb is trying very hard and sometimes you have to relax a little bit and the times will come. But we are in a good position as a team."
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 It's all glamour in Monaco isn't it? |
J-Lo! Sugababes!! I can't cope.
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NGReeves on Twitter: "I have a uni exam tomorrow, but that's not stopping me from watching the race today. Kubica to jump Webber on the start."
Apparently the last person to jump the pole sitter here in Monaco was David Coulthard on the way to victory in 2002.
Apparently the last person to jump the pole sitter here in Monaco was David Coulthard on the way to victory in 2002.
Grant in Bristol via text: "The first corner is essential for Webber. If Kubica beats him to it, then he'll have a tough race. Should be exciting to see what Alonso can do."
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1216: Shirt watchers, here's a run down on what the telly boys have got on for us today. EJ is in polka dots, with purple-rimmed glasses while David Coulthard has a turquoise number... and those tight white jeans. We've also had a another glimpse of the traditional football match in Monaco featuring some of the F1 drivers. The clip we see is of Alonso spanking a volley into the top corner from the edge of the box. What a strike. Arsene, sign that boy up.
ubermint on Twitter: "I could be revising for my exams, or finishing off my assignments for uni, or working on my compositions. I'm not, obviously."
Paul, not-in-the-library-he-should-be, St Andrews via text: "Only a race as unpredictable as this could prevent preparing for my three exams in three days. Expect the unexpected."
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1211: Telly coverage has just begun and the opening sequence has Eddie Jordan in a speed boat. I love it.
BBC Sport's Sarah Holt in Monaco: "The teams had a meeting on Sunday morning to try and thrash out a deal on tyre supply for 2010. Michelin, Cooper Avon and Pirelli have all tendered offers while the bosses at Bridgestone are trying to be persuaded to stay on beyond the end of this season. Mercedes boss Ross Brawn hinted Italian firm Pirelli could be favourite as he said yesterday: 'We've had a good proposal from Pirelli which we're looking into seriously.' Apparently, some members of his engineering team have paid a call to the factory to scope out the tyres. Brawn's McLaren counterpart Martin Whitmarsh was less definite about which manufacturer the teams were leaning towards and said it was unlikely that they'd reach an agreement this weekend."
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I'll do my best!
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1202: And are we seeing the first signs of tension at the Mercedes garage? After qualifying, Nico Rosberg looked as happy as Kimi Raikkonen with a headache, saying he was in a bad mood despite qualifying in sixth, one place ahead of team-mate Michael Schumacher. Bless him though, he was very polite and apologised for being grumpy. Schumacher then said that Rosberg held him up in Q3. That would have made for an interesting debrief yesterday afternoon.
1200: Just a quick heads up about the telly coverage. It's live on BBC One and streamed on this website from 1210 BST. There's the F1 Forum on the Red Button after the race. There's also live coverage on BBC Radio 5 live and there's highlights of the race from 1900 BST on BBC Three.
BBC Sport's Sarah Holt in Monaco: "Deja vu for Jenson Button on race day; just like last year he arrives in the principality leading the world championship. In 2009 he arrived with a 14-point lead - which after some laborious maths works out as a 39.5-point lead under the new points system - but this time he is defending a narrow three-point lead from Fernando Alonso. Button starts in eighth while Alonso starts in the pit-lane for Ferrari after a practice crash put him out of qualifying but Button still wants to wave au revoir to Monaco with his lead intact. 'This is a race where I hoped to capitalise on Fernando's mistake in practice - this was a good opportunity to get some good points on him. You can't overtake round here unless someone makes a mistake but our race pace is good and we can make up some places. Getting our pit stop strategy right will be key as people will be taking lots of different types of risks about when to stop and will fall into traffic. It would be nice to be fighting at the front coming out of this race and to not have given that up when we leave here.'"
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Andy, Edward Boyle library, Leeds via text: "I'm sat in the library revising and F1 is my only break from work! You have to love the BBC mobile site! I can see Webber taking this one despite wanting a McLaren to win. I just can't see it happening!"
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1145: Monaco is obviously famed for the number of rich and famous celebs that come along to watch and this year is no different. We've now got a photo gallery up for you to have a gander at. It's even got Paris Hilton standing by a car. Awesome.
G, London via text: "I'm stuck inside a stuffy library revising for a rubbish chemistry exam tomorrow, and am reduced to following the F1 on my mobile. Could you please keep the references to the beauty, the weather and the glamour of Monaco to a minimum, for my sanity's sake?"
Would it make you feel better if I said that it's raining, there are rubber dinghies instead of luxury yachts in the harbour and there's graffiti on every wall?
Would it make you feel better if I said that it's raining, there are rubber dinghies instead of luxury yachts in the harbour and there's graffiti on every wall?
BBC pit-lane reporter Lee McKenzie: "I really hope that this is Mark Webber's day and after the performance he showed during qualifying, when he was 0.4 secs quicker than his Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel, it looks like he could be celebrating once again. Obviously, he needs to make a good start and have a good pit stop but if they go well then he should be dominant round the world's most luxurious rollercoaster. I spoke to him after his pole lap and he was completely stunned and emotional. The Monaco 'zone' is famous with drivers like Ayrton Senna, a six-time winner here, and Ferrari driver Felipe Massa, who we spotted riding home on a Ferrari scooter last night. The drivers talk about being able to reach a different 'level' as they float round the track. I am sure Mark had a glimpse of that yesterday."
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1133: Traffic was definitely one of the main talking points in qualifying yesterday. Ironically though, it only really became a problem in the final stages when there were only 10 cars on the track. McLaren's Jenson Button, who qualified in eighth, was not happy with Massa, the Briton saying the Ferrari driver held him up while Michael Schumacher said Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg did the same. Interesting.
Fragzie on 606: "Prediction: Alguersuari in the points and unfortunately Petrov in the barrier."
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BBC Sport's Sarah Holt in Monaco: "You might not want to hear this but it's a picture-perfect day in Monte Carlo. The yachts are sunning themselves in the harbour and Mont Agel is crested with blue skies. It's all very sociable in the paddock; there's a brief glimpse of a driver before they disappear out of the way of the grand prix guests. The odd VIP often pops down, I can't imagine why, and we're expecting singer and actress Jennifer Lopez to rock up, while Scottish heartthrob Gerard Butler, Paris Hilton and the Sugababes are already in town. You don't have to be a celeb to get a glimpse of the inner-workings of the paddock either as this is also one of those rare races when fans can get quite close by walking along the narrow strip of the harbour with a view into the team motor homes."
Sugababes!! I'm in heaven.
Sugababes!! I'm in heaven.
1121: This could be a right royal rumble in Monte Carlo and you are in the right place to follow all the action. I would say that though wouldn't I? You can play your part too. Will Webber make it two wins out of two, can Kubica claim only his second F1 victory, how high up the field can Alonso finish? Give me your hopes, predictions and banter via Twitter, 606 or text on 81111 (UK) or +44 7786200666 (worldwide) with F1 before your message. Go on, you know you want to.
1117: If you weren't with us yesterday, then you missed a pretty tasty day. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso crashed in third practice - ruling himself out of qualifying and will start the race from the pit lane - while Red Bull's Mark Webber pulled out an electric lap to seal pole position for the second straight race. Renault's Robert Kubica joins him on the front row, with Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari's Felipe Massa on the second row. Pick a winner from that lot.
1115: And if that doesn't get you in the mood for today, then I'm afraid I can't help you. Welcome to our coverage of the Monaco Grand Prix, and I've got a good feeling about this one.
1110: You don't need me to introduce this live text commentary, not when you've got the two previous Monaco winners on hand.
Jenson Button: "It was one of the highlights of my season and also my entire racing career. It's a race that you grow up watching; you know the circuit, every corner, by heart before you've ever driven there, so it's an extremely special place."
Lewis Hamilton: "I love the Monaco circuit, it's the greatest track in Formula 1. My victory here is still probably my best win and one of the greatest moments in my career. It was an incredible day."
Jenson Button: "It was one of the highlights of my season and also my entire racing career. It's a race that you grow up watching; you know the circuit, every corner, by heart before you've ever driven there, so it's an extremely special place."
Lewis Hamilton: "I love the Monaco circuit, it's the greatest track in Formula 1. My victory here is still probably my best win and one of the greatest moments in my career. It was an incredible day."
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