Nico Rosberg dominated an eventful Monaco Grand Prix to take his and the Mercedes team's first F1 victory of the year. In a race that saw two safety cars and a red-flag period, Rosberg led every lap from pole position en route to replicating his father Keke's victory of 30 years ago. Rounding out the podium were the Red Bull drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.
Mercedes were once more the class act of a rain-affected qualifying session, with Rosberg and Hamilton sewing up the front row for the Brackley-based team ahead of the Red Bulls of Vettel and Webber. The track had dried by Q3, but the cooler conditions clearly favoured those able to warm up their tyres faster.
That meant Kimi Raikkonen qualified down in fifth for Lotus, with Fernando Alonso sixth in the sole Ferrari in qualifying after a major shunt for the sister car of Felipe Massa in final practice at the Sainte-Devote corner ruled him out of the session.
The top six remained in grid order as the lights went out on race day; Vettel made a much better start than the Mercedes but had nowhere to go and was forced to fall into line behind Rosberg and Hamilton. The only change among the top ten at the start was Jenson Button clearing Adrian Sutil's Force India for eighth place.
Later in the first lap, Perez cut the Nouvelle Chicane trying to defend from Button, the Mexican surrendering the place after several laps in order to avoid a penalty. That would be the only change among the top ten until the pit-stop phase, with Sky Sport's David Croft summing up proceedings nicely by describing the queue of cars as a 'rubber-shod centipede of speed'.
Most drivers were not pushing at this stage but driving to a delta to extend their tyre life as long as possible while the teams waited patiently for a gap in the midfield traffic to emerge in which they could 'place' their driver. Rosberg was around two seconds clear of Hamilton by the time the pit-stops began, with similar gaps separating the top half-dozen drivers.
Fourth-placed Webber became the first of the leaders to dive into the pit-lane to replace his worn super-soft compound tyres in favour of the harder soft compound, doing so at the end of lap 25. Following closely behind were Raikkonen and Button on the following lap, with Alonso pitting on lap 28 and Perez on lap 29.
Things got interesting however when the Safety Car was deployed on lap 31 after Massa, having started from the back row, once more ended up in the barriers at Sainte-Devote in a more or less identical shunt to the one he suffered in practice. Vettel at this stage had just pitted, and found the Safety Car obstructing his path. Rosberg and Hamilton meanwhile continued unhindered, albeit at reduced speed because of the yellow flags.
Both Mercedes drivers duly headed for the pit-lane, but the Safety Car had by now released the Red Bulls, along with all the other chasing drivers, allowing them to close up to Rosberg and Hamilton. The German retained the lead, but the Brit re-joined the race down in fourth behind Vettel and Webber. Besides that change however, it was status quo ante bellum among the top ten.
The race finally got back underway on lap 39 after Massa was attended to by the track's medical team - it later transpired that Ferrari driver escaped unhurt. Rosberg now headed a German one-two with Vettel in second from Webber, Raikkonen, Alonso, Button, Perez and Sutil. After his misfortune, Hamilton made an attempt to pass Webber at La Rascasse on lap 40, but failed to make the move stick.
The next change of position came when Perez launched another attack on his teammate at the Nouvelle Chicane on lap 42, this time keeping within the confines of the circuit and gaining seventh place. Perez then attempted a similar move on Alonso, with the Spaniard cutting a small section of the chicane in order to avoid a collision and to maintain his position.
An incident involving Pastor Maldonado's Williams and Max Chilton's Marussia then interrupted the race again on lap 46. After an off at the Nouvelle Chicane, Chilton failed to spot Maldonado on the racing line as the pair arrived at Tabac and moved across on the Venezuelan - contact was made, Maldonado sailed into the outside wall, and the red flags were shown to allow the marshals to clear the dislodged barrier.
Anyone who watched the Monaco Grand Prix from two years ago will remember that, in such a situation, the drivers are permitted to change tyres - a relief for the Mercedes and Red Bull drivers who would no longer need to concern themselves with getting their existing tyres to the end of the race.
After one lap run under the Safety Car - during which Alonso gave up his position to Perez after an instruction by the FIA - the race resumed on lap 48 with Rosberg leading Vettel, Webber, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Perez, Alonso, Button and Sutil.
It was the Force India driver who was the man on the move at this stage of the race, making successful passes at the unorthodox location of the Loews hairpin on Button (on lap 52) and Alonso (on lap 57) to move into seventh. During this time, Perez had yet another dive down the inside at the Nouvelle Chicane, Raikkonen his next target, but both cars missed the apex of the corner and the positions remained unchanged.
The Safety Car returned to the fray on lap 63 as a result of an incident between Romain Grosjean and Daniel Ricciardo under braking for the Nouvelle Chicane whilst the pair were dicing for thirteenth - Grosjean, who had already had no fewer than three incidents during practice, simply left his braking fractionally too late and rear-ended the unfortunate Ricciardo, putting the Toro Rosso out on the spot and himself out several laps later with front-end damage. The Frenchman will take a ten-place grid penalty next time out at Canada as a result.
The final restart came on lap 67, with the order now Rosberg, Vettel, Webber, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Perez, Sutil, Alonso and Button. Perez was once again on the attack at the Nouvelle Chicane, but on lap 69 he went for the inside as Raikkonen shut the door - the McLaren was squeezed between the retaining barrier and the Finn's Lotus, and the inevitable contact gave Raikkonen a puncture and, after several laps, put Perez out of the race with brake problems.
By that time, the sister McLaren of Button managed to pass a subdued Alonso, forcing his way past the Ferrari at La Rascasse and completing the move through Anthony Nogues corner on lap 70. The only other changes of position came as Raikkonen came back through the pack after pitting to replace his punctured tyre - passing Esteban Gutierrez, Valtteri Bottas and Nico Hulkenberg in the final laps in quick succession to get back to tenth place.
That meant that, having led every lap from pole position, Rosberg took a memorable second career victory, a fitting crescendo to a weekend in which the German had topped every session. Vettel held on for second place, extending his points lead to 21 in a poor weekend for Alonso and Raikkonen, his fastest lap in the dying stages eluding to the speed the Red Bull was capable of. Third place for Webber completed a very solid weekend for the Milton Keynes outfit.
Hamilton was disappointed to finish only in fourth place after his front row start; it seems Rosberg is proving more of a match for his teammate than the vast majority of observers (myself included) had anticipated pre-season. Sutil finished a strong fifth, a deserved reward for a great drive coming after some appalling luck for the Force India driver, with Button taking a solid sixth for a McLaren team that is still off the pace.
Alonso could do no more than seventh, his lacklustre pace coming as a surprise after Ferrari's strong showing during practice - the Spaniard claimed a piece of Perez's bodywork getting caught in his floor caused a handling imbalance but conceded this didn't totally account for his lack of speed late in the race.
Eighth place was the sole Toro Rosso finisher of Jean-Eric Vergne, who produced a steady run to eighth from an impressive tenth on the grid.
Paul Di Resta was left frustrated at his team's call to not bring him for a change of tyres during a damp Q1, which consigned him to 17th on the grid, but recovered well in the race to finish ninth. The Scot pitted early after gambling on a Safety Car when Charles Pic's Caterham broke down with gearbox failure, which failed to materialise, but was fortunate when the red flags came out as this gave him a 'free' change of tyres. He was eleventh at that stage, which became ninth after the Perez-Raikkonen clash.
Behind Raikkonen finished Hulkenberg, Bottas and Gutierrez, with Max Chilton coming home 14th for Marussia in spite of a drive-through penalty for causing the collision with Maldonado. Completing the finishers was the Caterham of Giedo van der Garde, who, after taking a career-best qualifying slot of 15th, had to pit for a fresh front wing after mounting the rear of Maldonado at Loews on the first lap. Jules Bianchi joined a lengthy list of retirees with late brake issues after taking damage in the Maldonado incident.
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