2004 Monaco Grand Prix

The 2004 Monaco Grand Prix (formally the Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco 2004) was a Formula One motor race held on 23 May 2004, at the Circuit de Monaco, contested over 77 laps. It was Race 6 of 18 in the 2004 FIA Formula One World Championship. The race was won by Renault driver Jarno Trulli; his only victory in Formula One. BAR driver, Jenson Button finished in second position, one second behind Trulli and Rubens Barrichello took the third and final podium spot for Ferrari.

In fine conditions Trulli beat Button to the first corner off the grid, and the fast starting Takuma Sato beat Kimi Räikkönen and Michael Schumacher to fourth place before retiring at the end of the second lap. On lap three the safety car was deployed due to a collision between David Coulthard and Giancarlo Fisichella, with the race resuming on lap seven. The two Renault drivers, Trulli and Fernando Alonso remained close together at the front of the race until the pit stops which briefly saw Michael Schumacher lead the race. Alonso retired after crashing trying to lap Ralf Schumacher, and a second safety car period ensued. After briefly leading, Michael Schumacher retired behind the safety car following a collision with Juan Pablo Montoya, who subsequently finished fourth. Schumacher's retirement elevated Button to second, and Trulli to the lead. Button subsequently reduced Trulli's lead, and the pair raced closely until the finish.

The race was Trulli's sole victory of his F1 career. The retirement of Michael Schumacher, the defending Drivers' Champion, brought to an end his run of five successive victories from the inaugural race of the season. Despite his retirement, Schumacher departed Monaco as the points leader, ahead of Barrichello and Button. Trulli's victory placed him ten points ahead of his teammate Alonso. Ferrari maintained their lead in the Constructors' Championship, 36 points ahead of Renault and 48 ahead of BAR, with 12 races of the season remaining.

Report

Practice and qualifying

thumb|[[Michael Schumacher during free practice]]

Four practice sessions were held before the qualifying session, two on the Thursday before the race, and two on Saturday morning before the qualifying session. The driver's championship leader, the Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher, was fastest in all four practice sessions, and in the final session set a record lap time for the Monaco circuit, of 1:14.014. Schumacher's record time was set in response to a fast lap time from Jarno Trulli. The Jaguar driver Mark Webber suffered an engine failure in the final practice session, and for changing his engine suffered an automatic 10 place grid penalty for the subsequent qualifying session, a penalty also suffered by Ralf Schumacher, for an engine failure in the first practice session. In recent years the Monaco Grand Prix had rarely been won from pole position, the last winner from pole before 2004 had been Mika Häkkinen at the 1998 Monaco Grand Prix and Michael Schumacher at the 1994 Monaco Grand Prix. The Sauber team decided to use the soft Bridgestone tyre and their performance had suffered, with their drivers qualifying 10th and 16th. Trulli had previously started on the front row at Monaco in 2000.|width=28%|align=right

In an attempt to lap Ralf Schumacher, who was down in 11th position, Alonso tried to pass him offline around the outside in the tunnel and crashed heavily. Alonso was enraged by this incident, and publicly accused Ralf of dangerous driving. The safety car was immediately deployed, and all of the front-runners (except Michael Schumacher and Montoya) took the opportunity to pit. While following the safety car, Schumacher locked his left front tyre in the tunnel in an apparent attempt to generate heat in his brake pads and discs ahead of the restart. Montoya, directly behind, moved to the inside trying to avoid running into the back of Schumacher. However, as Schumacher continued there was no space between his car and the barrier for Montoya's and he clipped Montoya's left front tyre with his right rear, spun sideways and hit the barriers. This accident ended Schumacher's hopes for a sixth consecutive victory and a perfect season. Upon investigations, the stewards declined to apportion blame to either driver.

As the order settled down towards the end of the race, Trulli led from Button, with Barrichello in third. The top three were a lap in front of the rest of the field, and the only drivers with a chance of winning the race. Barrichello needed to pit with 22 laps remaining, and rejoined too far behind the top two in order to make a challenge. From then on, it was a straight fight between Trulli and Button, but the Circuit de Monaco is notoriously the hardest circuit to make a passing move on. Therefore, Button having no chance of passing, Trulli took the win by close to half a second.

Following what would turn out to be the only Grand Prix win of his Formula One career, Trulli was left literally speechless during interviews, having teammate Alonso conduct interviews on his behalf.

Jaguar unveiled a special Monaco livery to promote the new Ocean's Twelve film. The car's airbox and red-painted nose feature the movie's logo, and the car's nose features a diamond worth $300,000 owned by jewelry brand Steinmetz. Klien crashed into the guardrails at the Loews hairpin on the first lap. When Jaguar personnel arrived at the crash site, the diamond was gone.

Thursday drivers

The bottom 6 teams in the 2003 Constructors' Championship were entitled to run a third car in free practice on Thursday. These drivers drove on Thursday but did not compete in qualifying or the race.

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%"

! Constructor !! Nat !! Driver

| BAR-Honda

| Anthony Davidson

| Sauber-Petronas

| –

| Jaguar-Cosworth

| Björn Wirdheim

| Toyota

| Ricardo Zonta

| Jordan-Ford

| Timo Glock

| Minardi-Cosworth

| Bas Leinders

Classification

Qualifying

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size: 85%;"

! Pos

! No

! Driver

! Constructor

! Q1 Time

! Q2 Time

! Gap

! 1

| 7

| Jarno Trulli

| Renault

|1:14.993

| 1:13.985

|align="center"| —

! 2

| 4

| Ralf Schumacher

| Williams-BMW

|1:14.483

| 1:14.345

| +0.360

|12

! 3

| 9

| Jenson Button

| BAR-Honda

|1:14.799

| 1:14.396

| +0.411

! 4

| 8

| Fernando Alonso

| Renault

|1:14.816

| 1:14.408

| +0.423

! 5

| 1

| Michael Schumacher

| Ferrari

|1:15.927

| 1:14.516

| +0.531

! 6

| 6

| Kimi Räikkönen

| McLaren-Mercedes

|1:14.659

| 1:14.592

| +0.607

! 7

| 2

| Rubens Barrichello

| Ferrari

|1:15.329

| 1:14.716

| +0.731

! 8

| 10

| Takuma Sato

| BAR-Honda

|1:14.931

| 1:14.827

| +0.842

! 9

| 5

| David Coulthard

| McLaren-Mercedes

|1:14.728

| 1:14.951

| +0.966

! 10

| 3

| Juan Pablo Montoya

| Williams-BMW

|1:15.029

| 1:15.039

| +1.054

! 11

| 11

| Giancarlo Fisichella

| Sauber-Petronas

|1:14.814

| 1:15.352

| +1.367

|10

! 12

| 14

| Mark Webber

| Jaguar-Cosworth

|1:16.161

| 1:15.725

| +1.740

|11

! 13

| 17

| Olivier Panis

| Toyota

|1:15.125

| 1:15.859

| +1.874

|13

! 14

| 15

| Christian Klien

| Jaguar-Cosworth

|1:16.379

| 1:15.919

| +1.934

|14

! 15

| 16

| Cristiano da Matta

| Toyota

|1:15.738

| 1:16.169

| +2.184

|15

! 16

| 12

| Felipe Massa

| Sauber-Petronas

|1:15.436

| 1:16.248

| +2.263

|16

! 17

| 18

| Nick Heidfeld

| Jordan-Ford

|1:16.914

| 1:16.488

| +2.503

|17

! 18

| 19

| Giorgio Pantano

| Jordan-Ford

|1:17.674

| 1:17.443

| +3.458

|18

! 19

| 21

| Zsolt Baumgartner

| Minardi-Cosworth

|1:20.468

| 1:20.060

| +6.075

|19

! 20

| 20

| Gianmaria Bruni

| Minardi-Cosworth

|1:20.740

| 1:20.115

| +6.130

|20

! colspan="8" | Sources:

;Notes

– Ralf Schumacher received a 10 position grid penalty for an engine change on Friday.

Race

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 85%;"

! Pos !! No !! Driver !! Constructor !! Tyre !! Laps !! Time/Retired !! Grid !! Points

! 1

| 7

| Jarno Trulli

| Renault

| 77

| 1:45:46.601

| 1

| 10

! 2

| 9

| Jenson Button

| BAR-Honda

| 77

| +0.497

| 2

| 8

! 3

| 2

| Rubens Barrichello

| Ferrari

| 77

| +1:15.766

| 6

! 4

| 3

| Juan Pablo Montoya

| Williams-BMW

| 76

| +1 Lap

| 9

| 5

! 5

| 12

| Felipe Massa

| Sauber-Petronas

| 76

| +1 Lap

| 16

| 4

! 6

| 16

| Cristiano da Matta

| Toyota

| 76

| +1 Lap

| 15

| 3

! 7

| 18

| Nick Heidfeld

| Jordan-Ford

| 75

| +2 Laps

| 17

| 2

! 8

| 17

| Olivier Panis

| Toyota

| 74

| +3 Laps

| PL

| 1

! 9

| 21

| Zsolt Baumgartner

| Minardi-Cosworth

| 71

| +6 Laps

| 19

! 10

| 4

| Ralf Schumacher

| Williams-BMW

| 69

| Gearbox

| 12

| 1

| Michael Schumacher

| Ferrari

| 45

| Collision damage

| 4

| 8

| Fernando Alonso

| Renault

| 41

| Accident

| 3

| 6

| Kimi Räikkönen

| McLaren-Mercedes

| 27

| Hydraulics

| 5

| 20

| Gianmaria Bruni

| Minardi-Cosworth

| 15

| Gearbox

| 20

| 19

| Giorgio Pantano

| Jordan-Ford

| 12

| Transmission

| 18

| 14

| Mark Webber

| Jaguar-Cosworth

| 11

| Gearbox

| 11

| 10

| Takuma Sato

| BAR-Honda

| 2

| Engine

| 7

| 5

| David Coulthard

| McLaren-Mercedes

| 2

| Collision damage

| 8

| 11

| Giancarlo Fisichella

| Sauber-Petronas

| 2

| Collision

| 10

| 15

| Christian Klien

| Jaguar-Cosworth

| 0

| Accident

| 14

!colspan="9"| Sources:

;Notes

– Olivier Panis started from the pit lane after he stalled at the start of the parade lap.

Championship standings after the race

;Drivers' Championship standings

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 85%;"

! scope="col" | +/–

! scope="col" |

! scope="col" | Driver

! scope="col" | Points

| 10px

| align="center"| 1

| Michael Schumacher

| 50

| 10px

| align="center"| 2

| Rubens Barrichello

| 38

| 10px

| align="center"| 3

| Jenson Button

| 32

| 10px 1

| align="center"| 4

| Jarno Trulli

| 31

| 10px 1

| align="center"| 5

| Juan Pablo Montoya

| 23

!colspan=4|Source:

;Constructors' Championship standings

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 85%;"

! scope="col" | +/–

! scope="col" |

! scope="col" | Constructor

! scope="col" | Points

| 10px

| align="center"| 1

| Ferrari

| 88

| 10px

| align="center"| 2

| Renault

| 52

| 10px

| align="center"| 3

| BAR-Honda

| 40

| 10px

| align="center"| 4

| Williams-BMW

| 35

| 10px 1

| align="center"| 5

| Sauber-Petronas

| 7

!colspan=4|Source: