Webber wins Monaco GP

Mark Webber kept a five-car train at bay in tricky conditions to secure the second Monaco Grand Prix victory of his career and become the sixth winner in as many races in the 2012 Formula One season.

That statistic is unprecedented in F1 history, but Webber's win did make Red Bull the first team to notch up a repeat win this year.

Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg was second, while Fernando Alonso completed the podium for Ferrari and now leads the world championship. Sebastian Vettel in the second Red Bull, Lewis Hamilton's McLaren and Alonso's team-mate Felipe Massa rounded out a very close top six.

Pole position starter Webber held off Rosberg's Mercedes away from the grid, then remained ahead through the sole pitstop sequence, despite Rosberg going for fresh tyres earlier.

Vettel brought himself into contention by getting up to sixth at the start, then stayed out until lap 45 before switching from softs to the super softs that everyone else had started the race on. Lapping 1.5s faster than anyone else for a spell while leading, Vettel was able to emerge from his stop in fourth ahead of Hamilton, who had lost out to Alonso in the pits.

Rain had threatened all afternoon, and became slightly heavier going into the final eight laps, just as the leaders' tyres began to fade. That brought the top six even closer together, with Rosberg, Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton and Massa - in his strongest drive of the year so far - suddenly right on Webber's tail. But as the drizzle eased again, the pace increased and Webber was able to wrap up his first win of 2012.

A start crash eliminated another podium contender. Lotus's Romain Grosjean made a slow start then tangled with Michael Schumacher's Mercedes, breaking the Lotus's suspension and sending it spinning across the pack at Sainte Devote. Amazingly none of the frontrunners hit it, but it did clip Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber, which became airborne and later retired with suspension damage. Further back, Barcelona winner Pastor Maldonado (Williams) ran into Pedro de la Rosa's HRT.

Schumacher was able to continue and ran seventh until fuel pressure problems forced him to retire.

Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) then picked up that position - a very early pitstop on lap 18 having given him chance to run in clean air and vault up the order. But a decision to pit for intermediates in the late shower proved misguided and dropped him out of the points.

Force India scored with both cars as Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg finished seventh and eighth, followed by Kimi Raikkonen in the remaining Lotus. The Finn lost time when his tyres dramatically faded in the first stint and he then spent a while trapped behind Charles Pic's Marussia following his stop. Bruno Senna completed the scorers for Williams.

Jenson Button failed to make any progress in the second McLaren. After taking to the escape road to avoid the first-corner crash, he spent most of the afternoon trying to pass Heikki Kovalainen's Caterham, eventually spinning at the second part of the Swimming Pool in his efforts, and retiring soon after.

Kovalainen had been on course for 11th, but had to pit with front wing damage amid a fraught battle with Sauber's Sergio Perez, so fell to 13th behind Vergne.

Iveco supplies the Scuderia Ferrari with vehicles that transport the Formula 1 Grand Prix cars to the world championship race tracks. The company is very proud of its partnership with Ferrari and puts great value on the use of its products by such a world leading sporting enterprise.

Iveco employs almost 25,000 people and runs 24 production units in 11 Countries in the world using excellent technologies developed in 6 research centres. Besides Europe, the company operates in China, Russia, Australia and Latin America. Around 5,000 sales and service outlets in over 160 Countries guarantee technical support wherever in the world an Iveco vehicle is at work. 

Maldonado wins Spanish GP, Champion Fernando Alonso

Pastor Maldonado grabbed an astonishing first Formula One victory on Sunday in a Spanish Grand Prix thriller that handed former champions Williams their first triumph in 132 races and nearly eight years.

The first Venezuelan driver to stand on the F1 podium, let alone win, Maldonado became the fifth different winner from five races won by five different teams - a phenomenon only ever seen before in 1983.

A 300-1 outsider before the weekend, Maldonado delivered Williams' first win since Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya in Brazil in October 2004.

"Very good job, guys," was all he said over the radio as his team mates erupted in celebrations but Maldonado made up for it on the podium as Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen lifted him on their shoulders.

Then the champagne flowed.

The pole had fallen into his lap after Lewis Hamilton was sent to the back of the grid on Saturday because McLaren put too little fuel in his car for qualifying, and the former GP2 champion grabbed his chance with both hands.

Spain's double champion Alonso finished second, 3.1 seconds behind, to move level with Red Bull's world champion Sebastian Vettel on points at the top of championship.

Finland's 2007 champion Raikkonen was a disappointed third, taking the chequered flag 3.8 seconds behind Maldonado after just running out of laps in a spirited chase for a possible victory.

Vettel, who finished sixth, and Alonso each have 61 points, with Hamilton on 53.

It was the 114th win for Williams, nine times constructors' champions whose last title was in 1997 with Canadian Jacques Villeneuve.

It came the day after Formula One gave team founder and principal Frank Williams a belated 70th birthday party.

The Circuit de Catalunya, the most predictable on the calendar until the arrival of moveable rear wings (DRS) and the Pirelli tyres, served up a cliffhanger.

Alonso seized the lead at the start to the delight of the home crowd but that was just the opening salvo in a long afternoon full of thrills and overtaking.

While Hamilton showed off all his talents by carving his way through the field from last place on the grid to eighth, the battle at the front was on a knife-edge right to the very end.

With 10 laps to go there was less than a second between Maldonado and Alonso while Raikkonen was taking huge chunks out of their lead lap by lap.

Maldonado's team mate Bruno Senna was less fortunate than the Venezuelan victor, retiring on track after just 13 laps when Michael Schumacher ploughed his Mercedes into the back of the Williams in a shower of debris.

The seven times world champion, three years into his comeback but still without a podium place, branded the Brazilian an 'idiot' over the team radio even though it looked like it was clearly his fault.

"You can see he moves right to defend his position in the braking phase but then moves back left into me. I am very annoyed about that," said the 43-year-old.

"He was a backmarker and not a real contender for the points. We may not have been race winners, but we would have got good points."

Stewards were investigating the incident.

Vettel joined the list of unhappy Germans after he and Ferrari's Felipe Massa, again completely eclipsed by his team mate, collected drive-through penalties for failing to slow for yellow warning flags.

Eurosport - Reuters

Iveco supplies the Scuderia Ferrari with vehicles that transport the Formula 1 Grand Prix cars to the world championship race tracks. The company is very proud of its partnership with Ferrari and puts great value on the use of its products by such a world leading sporting enterprise.

Iveco employs almost 25,000 people and runs 24 production units in 11 Countries in the world using excellent technologies developed in 6 research centres. Besides Europe, the company operates in China, Russia, Australia and Latin America. Around 5,000 sales and service outlets in over 160 Countries guarantee technical support wherever in the world an Iveco vehicle is at work.