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Monaco is like a gloriously voluptuous woman - lots of curves, a few cleverly disguised bumps, some raw edges but otherwise contours which have made even grown men cry.

This is a lady who will punish you mercilessly for even the slightest of wrong touches. So it is only the man with the deftest of strokes who can navigate this tempestuous femme fatale and make her purr like a kitten, ride her effortlessly until the climax when he will be rewarded with a shower of golden nectar and smiles from Ferrari-red lips.

If charisma or personality were to conquer this mischievous sprite than Kimi Raikkonen would be left stalled on the line but the Iceman managed to tame this beast with smooth handling and perfect driving. Diamonds proved to be Kimi's new best friend as the 100 precious gems encrusted on his helmet twinkled in the Monaco sunlight and Lady Luck smiled warmly down on the Finn. Team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya is clearly better with his mouth than he is with his hands as he only managed a fifth place finish and clearly didn't quite understand just how delicately this lady needed to be treated.

Monty was relegated to the back of the grid after brake-testing Ralf Schumacher and causing an avoidable accident which saw David Coulthard ramming the rear of Jacques Villeneuve and taking out Ralf too. It's unlikely that Juancho even glanced in his mirrors as he scampered off and played the innocent.

The two Red Bulls were supported by the dark side and perhaps that was their mistake because Darth Vader did not win this battle. In fact neither of the two cars had much of an opportunity to unleash their light sabres and send their opponents whimpering into the shadows. DC was involved in a multi-car pileup which saw the deployment of the safety car.

His rear wing and diffuser were broken and he was forced to retire the car before George Lucas could work any special effects magic on his Red Bull. Liuzzi lasted a little longer before he too succumbed to the force. A rear tyre failure ended his afternoon and the first time that neither car finished a race.

Perhaps in the future it would be better to just sell your soul to the devil instead of messing around with the Sith?

Ralf had a dismal Saturday - first an incident in free practice and then he managed to clip a barrier and completely destroy the car. Well done, Ralf - you managed it all on your own! Starting from the back of the grid he did rather well to finish in 6th spot and ahead of his teammate.

Trulli was the first man out after Ralfie's wonderful display of how not to drive a car around the streets of Monaco and an overcautious attitude resulted in a disappointing qualifying. The race pace was never there and Trulli crawled home in 10th.

Ferrari were a mere 2 1/2 seconds ahead of Minardi after quali 1 which must have had a few people in the paddock scratching their heads. Ferrari started from 8th and 10th on the grid. Michael had to have a nose change after his little run-in with DC and Rubens was penalised for speeding in the pit lane after he stalled his car at his pit stop and then forgot to switch on his speed limiter.

This is the kind of behaviour which indicates pure genius. In fact Mensa should be awarding Rubens with honorary membership. Having had the measure of Michael throughout the race Rubens then let him get past on the final lap. Suppose he is used to having his siesta at around that time and he was mentally preparing himself for a meeting with dreamland.

The Williams boys were beaming from ear to ear as both finished in their best positions to date with Heidfeld in second and Webber in third. Webber had a 'joke' of a start losing two places on the first lap and only made a reappearance toward the end of the race when Fernando was suffering with badly worn tyres.

Williams brought Heidfeld in for his second stop ahead of Webber and the German managed to leapfrog his teammate as Mark closely examined the livery on the rear of the Renault. A great weekend for Williams and there will, no doubt, be a lot of mechanics in blue and white tomorrow who will be nursing very sore heads.

Renault looked very strong all weekend but that was before they discovered that their tyres just weren't happy. Fernando started from the front of the grid with Fisi trailing behind in 4th place. After the first 500m, both Renaults looked set to finish on the podium. After 78 laps both Renaults were lucky to finish the race. Fisi got passed by a tail of 6 cars in one grand attack which must have left him reeling with bewilderment and that same tail then tried to attack Alonso.

However, Alonso has a much wider rear end than Fisi and also only had to defend his position for a short time - 5 points were given away to Kimi and that ain't gonna make Ron Dennis smile. Maybe Flav should send in some spies to see exactly what McLaren are doing. He could always ask former girlfriend Naomi Campbell to canoodle with one of the McLaren boys and pump him for information praying all the time that she doesn't throw a temper tantrum and spoil things.

Jackie Villeneuve has been a naughty boy again. The golden rule in F1 is not to take out your teammate but that is clearly a chapter that he forgot to read. He claimed earlier that Montoya nearly killed him so perhaps he got his colours confused and thought that the blue of his team-mate was actually the silver McLaren and he wanted to reek some revenge.

Peter Sauber will definitely be taking Jackie's playstation away from him and perhaps he will even be sent to his room without any dinner. Massa finished in 9th followed by his teammate in 11th.

The Jordans were outqualified by the Minardis this weekend - guess there has to be a first time for everything. The performance of the cars was uninspiring with Monteiro finishing in 13th and Karthikeyan retiring.

Rumours are circulating around the paddock that team owner Alex Schneider has already gotten bored and is thinking of selling. The prospective buyer is a consortium which is led by Eddie Irvine - or at least that's what the rumours will have you believe. So it would be a case of having said goodbye to one Eddie and hello to another one.

Eddie Irvine wasn't that great a driver so what would make him think he would be a great team principal? Oh yes, this is Eddie Irvine - he's great at everything, isn't he?

Minardi. It was a case of both cars spinning with one causing its own demise and the other forcing DC to have an early shower. Both drivers will no doubt be extremely popular after this race but then again publicity is publicity regardless of how you get it!

Within a week the circus will arrive in Germany for the European grand prix. Will the crowd be wearing blue or red or perhaps they will don the orange and black uniform that has become McLaren's new colour scheme?

Either way it is going to be a stonker of a race - Renault is going to have to pull up their boots if they want to keep McLaren at bay. Can hardly wait!