1. Mark WEBBER (Red Bull), 1h50m13.355s
2. Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull), 1h50m13.803s
3. Robert KUBICA (Renault), 1h50m15.030s
Q: Mark, you are leading the World Championship and you are a Monaco winner. How does it feel?
Mark WEBBER: Absolutely incredible and for sure the greatest day of my life today. To win here is a very, very special day. It started yesterday with qualifying when it went well but this place is such a test for two hours. I had a lot of work to do. The track was changing quite a lot during the grand prix as well, we had backmarkers and a lot of safety cars so we were tested quite often. Getting restarts and tyre pressures right - all the basics that could test you were in front of us today, so very, very rewarding win and just absolutely elated. To join Ayrton Senna and those guys around here is great. It’s a real Blue Riband event.
Q: Sebastian, second place today but you didn’t seem able to take the fight to Mark. What happened?
Sebastian VETTEL: Well, we need to see. Especially in the beginning and the restarts I wasn't able to keep up with him, there was a big difference. Later on when I finally felt the grip I wasn’t too far off but by then he was already 10 seconds down the road and winning the race by five, six, seven seconds, so there was no real point to make the effort trying to catch him. Obviously overtaking is too difficult and I had to look more in the mirrors. Robert was pushing quite hard and it was quite difficult to get away from him at the restarts. I was going more sideways than straight or forward, so it was quite difficult. But in the end I think it was our optimum today. I am very, very happy. I think we couldn’t have done better. A lot of good points and those count at the end of the year by quite a bit. It is a long season but I am very happy today.
Q: Robert, second on the grid but third in the race. For you it was all about the start, was it?
Robert KUBICA: I mean I always knew that starting from the first row on the dirty side would be difficult for me. Normally I would defend the position but I saw that Mark was slow pulling away from the box, so I thought I might have the chance to overtake. Just went on power a bit too early and got a lot of wheelspin and it was too late to close the door to Sebastian and then I had to defend from Felipe (Massa), so overall the first lap I lost position. I was able to keep up with the pace of Sebastian. Actually I think we were a bit quicker, especially after the restarts. On prime tyres I think our pace was just slightly better than on options. Then 30 laps to go before the last safety car came into corner one I had big flat spot on the inside wheel, so I had big vibration and I was really scared that I might pit again and change front tyres. I couldn’t see even the pit board. Over 250 metres it was really difficult to see braking point and I was surprised about the pace. But third place we have to be positive. I think no-one was expecting us to finish on the podium here. We were up there in the front all weekend, so congratulations to all the guys and for Renault for three spots on the podium as engine supplier.
Q: Mark, four safety cars and a lot of rebuilding of leads and you almost got involved in a pile-up of backmarkers at the end of the race.
MW: Yeah, I was on the radio and they said look you have got Jarno (Trulli) and I think it was (Karun) Chandhok in front with a few laps to go. I was nursing the car quite a lot in the last part of the race but with backmarkers you can lose a lot of time when you catch them. I saw Jarno going for a lunge down the inside of Rascasse and I thought ‘what the hell is going to happen here’ and they interlocked wheels, he went flying in the air and I just hoped I had some options to go on the inside and sure enough I did. I was just really hoping that Chandhok was okay as it looked like the car was around the head area and I thought ‘God, now we have another safety car but let’s finish it under the safety car so I don’t have to worry about doing one lap after the restart’. It was good obviously as both of us could just cross the line quite straightforward and get a very good one-two for the team.
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