MOTOR SPORT/Formula One Championship/Monaco GrandPrix: A month ago, Fernando Alonso could, if not comfortably, then at least hopefully look forward to an untroubled run to his first world championship title. Michael Schumacher may have given the Renault driver pause for thought with a doughty drive to second at Imola but as the teams approached Barcelona, Ferrari again began to look shaky, unimpressive in testing, unhappy with their car and their tyres and predicting no light at the end of tunnel they had driven into during pre-season.

BAR, who had suddenly become a force to be reckoned with at Imola were hauled over the legal coals and banned for two races. And McLaren? Well, the Mercedes-powered team coasted through the opening two races of the season, causing few ripples and netting fewer points.

Then, bang. In Barcelona, Kimi Raikkonen blew the championship race open, storming to his first win since Spa last year and leaving shocked critics in his wake.

The McLaren MP4/20 was fast, jaw-droppingly so. And yesterday in Monaco, on a circuit where the nimble Renaults were expected to dominate, where single-lap specialists like Toyota's Jarno Trulli were ranked as the men to watch, Raikkonen blasted through again to take another unflinching, untouchable win and a closer view of Alonso's championship lead.

Raikkonen's progress to the win was as stealthy as McLaren's rise to being the team most likely to challenge Alonso - a subtle tweak, a slight modification, a gradual erosion of the deficits to the leaders that had hampered the team since the season's start.

So it was with Raikkonen this weekend. Mid-table in Thursday's free practice sessions, a modest improvement on Saturday morning and then in the afternoon, after Alonso had fired in a lap, almost half a second ahead of Trulli to surely claim the front of the grid, Raikkonen pounced, thumping a lap just under half a second faster than Alonso.

In yesterday's final qualifying hour, Alonso responded, shaving three-tenths of a second from the Finn's advantage, and so the question became how much fuel each was carrying. Was Alonso less fully loaded in order to find pace to match Raikkonen or was the McLaren just unwieldy under heavy fuel. Two moments in the race revealed all.

At the start, Raikkonen successfully defended a brash assault from Alonso, careering through St Devote with his lead intact.

Having shaken off the Spaniard, the McLaren driver then bent the twisting streets of Monaco to his will. The pace was relentless, electric, race-defining. Crashing across the kerbs at the chicane, his McLaren looked out of control, a missile whose guidance system was offline.

But a split second later it would snap back, pointed inexorably toward the swimming-pool section of the street circuit and the inevitable chequered flag.

And on lap 24 his superiority was confirmed. Minardi's Christijan Albers spun of the approach to the tunnel and as a queue of cars formed behind him the safety car emerged.

As the bulk of the field, including Alonso, headed for refueling in the pits, Raikkonen sailed by, locked into a one-stop strategy. Not only was the Finn fast but he had been so on heavy fuel.

For Alonso there was no comeback. The Spaniard had taken on enough fuel during the safety car period to see him to the end of the race but as his rear tyres degraded badly, so too did his chance of catching the McLaren.

So compromised were the Renault's tyres that even second position could not be saved. In the closing laps, Nick Heidfeld closed him down and charged past on the entrance to the chicane as Alonso was forced to brake 50 metres before the Williams man.

And a handful of laps later Heidfeld's team-mate Mark Webber effected the same move at the same location to deny Alonso a podium place.

"It was a really tough race for me," said Alonso. "I tried to look after the tyres at the start of the race, so I didn't worry too much about the fact that Raikkonen was pulling away, but in the last 20 laps, things became really difficult: I did all I could to keep the Williams behind me, but I couldn't hold them off because the rear tyres were in poor condition and they could brake much later into the chicane."

As Ferrari again struggled through a difficult weekend, Michael Schumacher finished seventh, passing team-mate Rubens Barrichello just before the chequered flag.

This season they are beginning to look a spent force, a team possibly casting their view upward toward potentially brighter horizons next season. They have been usurped. First by Renault and now by Raikkonen. Whether he can usurp the usurpers remains to be seen.

1 Kimi Raikkonen (Finland) McLaren 1:45:15.556

2 Nick Heidfeld (Germany) Williams +00:13.887

3 Mark Webber (Australia) Williams 00:18.484

4 Fernando Alonso (Spain) Renault 00:36.487

5 Juan Pablo Montoya (Colombia) McLaren 00:36.647

6 Ralf Schumacher (Germany) Toyota 00:37.177

7 Michael Schumacher (Germany) Ferrari 00:37.223

8 Rubens Barrichello (Brazil) Ferrari 00:37.570

9 Felipe Massa (Brazil) Sauber 1 lap

10 Jarno Trulli (Italy) Toyota 1 lap

11 Jacques Villeneuve (Canada) Sauber 1 lap

12 Giancarlo Fisichella (Italy) Renault 1 lap

13 Tiago Monteiro (Portugal) Jordan 3 laps

14 Christijan Albers (Netherlands) Minardi 5 laps

Retired: Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy) Red Bull 19 laps; Patrick Friesacher (Austria) Minardi 49 laps; David Coulthard (Britain) Red Bull 55 laps; Narain Karthikeyan (India) Jordan 60 laps

Drivers Points:

1 F Alonso (Spain) Renault 49pts

2 K Raikkonen (Finland) McLaren 27

3 J Trulli (Italy) Toyota 26

4 M Webber (Australia) Williams 18

5 N Heidfeld (Germany) Williams 17

6 R Schumacher (Germany) Toyota 17

7 G Fisichella (Italy) Renault 14

8 J Pablo Montoya (Colombia) McLaren 14

9 M Schumacher (Germany) Ferrari 12

10 D Coulthard (Britain) Red Bull 10

Constructors Points:

1 Renault 63; 2 McLaren-Mercedes 51; 3 Toyota 43; 4 Williams-BMW 35; 5 Ferrari 21; 6 Red-Bull-Cosworth 14; 7 Sauber-Petronas 7; 8 Jordan-Toyota 0; 9. BAR-Honda 0; 10 Minardi-Cosworth 0.