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Jarno Trulli’s convincing victory in Monte Carlo is further evidence of the new generation moving up in Formula One, and the fact that both Renault and BAR teams are now capable of taking victories.

“I’m just so happy for me and everybody,” Trulli told the post race press conference, “I’ve been waiting for so long and it came at the very best race, at Monaco.”

Despite the incident-filled race, Trulli was relatively confident of victory even if Michael Schumacher had not crashed out in an incident with Juan Pablo Montoya, as the world champion still had a pit stop to make while Trulli and Button had stopped under the safety car.

“Even with Michael on the track they [Ferrari] wouldn’t have won anyway,” he explained, “because I had already pitted.”

Jenson Button, who chased Trulli home and took a well deserved second place, was magnanimous – “we just couldn’t catch this man,” he explained.

“It was really tough,” the BAR driver told the post-race press conference, “in the last stint I knew that I couldn’t overtake but I had to give everything I could and maybe push him into a mistake – you’ve got to try.”

Button also agreed that Schumacher’s accident had little bearing on the eventual race outcome, “when Alonso hit the barriers we pitted immediately, it was the correct thing to do. If Michael had stayed on the circuit it would have been the same.”

Rubens Barrichello came home in third place, 75 seconds behind the leaders.

“I have to be honest, I was very lucky just to finish the race,” he explained, “there was no point in pushing, something had broken on the car.”

Schumacher’s failure to finish means he stays on 50 points, cutting his drivers’ championship lead to just 12 points over Rubens Barrichello (38 points), with Button six behind (32 points) and Trulli fourth with 31 points.