Vettel drove superbly on worn tyres from lap 50, despite a charging Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso hunting down the German World championship on the narrow streets of Monaco.
Crucially, on lap 72, the race was stopped after a serious crash involving Vitaly Petrov’s Renault and the Torro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari. The Russian F1 driver was knocked unconscious and needed assistance to exit his Renault after complaining of pain in his legs.
The 2011 Monaco GP saw serous crashes during practice and qualifying, too, with Sauber’s Sergio Perez shunting himself out of contending for a fine top-10 grid position after a severe impact after leaving the tunnel, the fastest part of the Monaco street circuit.
HEROIC PERFORMANCE
Vettel made the most of the restart procedure, taking on new tyres, which effectively nullified Button and Alonso’s hopes of pressuring the current World champion into a mistake, despite Alonso (typically) charging hard until the end.
In the end it was (another) Red Bull victory for 2011, with Vettel relegating Fernando Alonso’s much improved Ferrari to second place and McLaren’s Jenson Button finishing third.
After the trauma of Sergio Perez’s crash during qualifying, Kamui Kobayashi put in a heroic performance to lift the Sauber team with a superb fifth, just behind the Red Bull of Mark Weber and ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren. Weber's last lap was the fastest of the race.
With the 2011 Monaco GP run, Sebastian Vettel, winner of five of the six races so far in the 2011 season, is leading the championship with 143 points to Hamilton's 85 and Webber's 79.
Results: 2011 Monaco GP
1 Sebastian Vettel (Germany) Red Bull 2hr09min38.373
2 Fernando Alonso (Spain) Ferrari +1.138
3 Jenson Button (Britain) McLaren +2.378
4 Mark Webber (Australia) Red Bull +23.101
5 Kamui Kobayashi (Japan) Sauber - Ferrari +26.916
6 Lewis Hamilton (Britain) McLaren +27.210
7 Adrian Sutil (Germany) Force India +1 lap
8 Nick Heidfeld (Germany) Renault +1 lap
9 Rubens Barrichello (Brazil) Williams +1 lap
10 Sebastien Buemi (Switzerland) Toro Rosso +1 lap
11 Nico Rosberg (Germany) Mercedes +2 laps
12 Paul Di Resta (Britain) Force India +2 laps
13 Jarno Trulli (Italy) Lotus - Renault +2 laps
14 Heikki Kovalainen (Finland) Lotus +2 laps
15 Jerome d'Ambrosio (Belgium) Virgin +3 laps
16 Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy) HRT +3 laps
17 Narain Karthikeyan (India) HRT +4 laps
18 Pastor Maldonado (Venezuela) Williams +5 laps
Retired
Vitaly Petrov (Russia) Renault 11 laps
Jaime Alguersuari (Spain) Toro Rosso 12
laps
Timo Glock (Germany) Virgin 46 laps
Felipe Massa (Brazil) Ferrari 46 laps
Michael Schumacher (Germany) Mercedes 48
laps