Monaco Grand Prix:The Formula One season's most glittering occasion is the proper place for a champion to show what put him in that position in the first place.
Greater pressure, more fans, more TV, more at stake, more rivalry. Yesterday at the Monaco Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso took it all on board and made the resultant victory look as simple as nipping to the shops for groceries.
Start, stop, stop again and win. It was that easy.
The pressure should have all been on the defending champion's shoulders. He has been in middling form recently, two weeks ago scoring an unconvincing third and looking distinctly uncomfortable on the podium as Ferrari's Felipe Massa had blitzed to victory. A month before that he had coasted to an out-of-character fifth in Bahrain.
Those performances though weren't the major weight on the Spaniard's shoulders. That was being exerted by the amount of focus that had shifted from him to his new team-mate: Lewis Hamilton, 22-year-old wunderkind, darling of the media and, arriving in Monaco last week, the championship leader.
In Monaco, too, it was repeated ad nauseam, the youngster had never lost a race in junior classes. After a quartet of podium finishes, surely this would be the moment he would grab the title race by the scruff of the neck in the most emphatic way possible, with his first grand prix win.
If any of that was designed to rattle Alonso, it wasn't showing.
The champion took to the Monaco streets on which he'd won last year with the verve of a schoolboy in his first go-kart. He revelled in the challenge of the impossibly tight track, the barriers that flash past at head height, only millimetres from the side of the car.
By the time Hamilton had stuffed his McLaren into the tyres at the Sainte Devote corner in practice, Alonso was in command.
On Saturday in qualifying he was imperious, taking his first pole of the year with a lap of blinding precision and daring.
Hamilton was not far off, lining up beside him on the front row, but the style of their laps was miles apart: Alonso tuned and confident, Hamilton all rushed phrases and slurred notes.
In the race yesterday, the young Briton seemed to give it up at the start, slotting neatly in behind Alonso. Whether that was under team orders is open to debate but the resultant show of force from Alonso rendered irrelevant any decision in that regard. He simply disappeared.
His team-mate responded in fits and starts, the gap ebbing and flowing, but Alonso was always capable of the extra gear to draw himself away again.
The nearest challenger? Felipe Massa, 70 seconds adrift of Alonso, Ferrari looking as if they had completely misjudged the weekend and the circuit's effects on their cars.
Until this weekend Massa had been a pole winner at three of the opening four races, a winner on two occasions. Yesterday he was a spectator.
But not as distant a viewer as his team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn, heavily criticised before the weekend as lacking the commitment necessary for a berth at Ferrari, clipped a barrier in qualifying and sank to 16th on the grid. The grid's highest-paid star may have turned in a typically aggressive, battering ram of a drive that earned him eighth and a point, but the calls for him to redouble his efforts will rise to a clamour after a troubled Monaco weekend.
The rest of the points fell to Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella, who took a brave fourth, starting as he did on a light fuel load, with the twin BMWs of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld in fifth and sixth respectively. They were followed by Alex Wurz of Williams and Raikkonen.
Alonso admitted he was surprised by his own dominance.
"It has been a fantastic weekend no doubt and to score this hat trick - pole, fastest lap and race win - is something very special and even more so at Monaco," the Spaniard said.
"I think it has been a nice surprise to see how the team was performing this weekend," he added.
"I have 16 or 17 wins in my career and I never won by more than one minute to the third guy. This is probably the easiest victory so far."
Massa could only agree, noting, "McLaren today showed really incredible pace. I think even if I'd pushed 150 per cent on the limit it would have stayed the same in the end. We had nothing to do with them. I was just thinking about finishing third and trying to score as many points (as possible)."
The win moves Alonso to the top of the drivers' championship on 38 points.
The lead though is tenuous. He sits there above Hamilton only by virtue of race wins. The young Briton also has 38 points, five above Massa. The boy wonder is not out of Alonso's mirrors yet.
Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo,
Monaco 78 Laps:
1 Fernando Alonso (Spa) McLaren 1hr 40mins 29.329secs
2 Lewis Hamilton (Brit) McLaren 1:40:33.424
3 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:41:38.443
4 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Renault at 1 lap
5 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber at 1 lap
6 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber at 1 lap
7 Alexander Wurz (Aut) Williams at 1 lap
8 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari at 1 lap
9 Scott Speed (USA) Scuderia Toro Rosso at 1 lap
10 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Honda at 1 lap
Also: 11 Jenson Button (Brit) Honda at 1 lap, 12 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams at 1 lap, 13 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Renault at 2 laps, 14 David Coulthard (Brit) Red Bull at 2 laps, 15 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota at 2 laps, 16 Ralf Schumacher (Ger) Toyota at 2 laps, 17 Takuma Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri at 2 laps, 18 Anthony Davidson (Gbr) Super Aguri at 2 laps.
Retirements: 19 Christijan Albers (Ned) Spyker 70 laps completed, 20 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Spyker 53 laps completed, 21 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 17 laps completed, 22 Vitantonio Liuzzi (Ita) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1 lap completed.
World Championship
Standings Drivers' Championship: 1= Lewis Hamilton (Brit) McLaren & Fernando Alonso (Spa) McLaren 38pts, 3 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 33, 4 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 23, 5 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 18, 6 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Renault 13, 7 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 12, 8 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams 5, 9 David Coulthard (Brit) Red Bull 4, 10 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 4, 11 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Renault 3, 12 Alexander Wurz (Aut) Williams 2, 13= Ralf Schumacher (Ger) Toyota & Takuma Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri 1.
Manufacturers' Championship: 1 McLaren 76, 2 Ferrari 56, 3 BMW Sauber 30, 4 Renault 16, 5 Williams 7, 6 Toyota 5, 7 Red Bull 4, 8 Super Aguri 1.
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