Alonso holds off Schumacher chase
It starts to sound like F1 in the past few years, except now with another man. Fernando Alonso had no problem whatsoever with his car, drove a faultless race in which only at the beginning he was closely being followed by Michael Schumacher. After a spin which eventually halted the champion's car, Alonso had some room to breathe.
Both Renaults as usual had a good start, with behind Alonso several drivers fighting for positions. Quickly Alonso pulled a gap, however with more than 10 laps closely being chased by Michael Schumacher. In the meantime, Renault's second car suffered an engine failure resulting in a huge dissapointment for Fisichella.
During the race the McLaren's came into form. It is a known fact that their cars are very kind to the tires. The MP4-20 cars end the race with tires that are in better condition that any of the other cars. Raikkonen moved up to 3rd on the podium mostly during piststops while de la Rosa drove a very good race, passing Button, Webber and Barrichello on his way up.
The Brazilian Ferrari driver had been suffering from problems with his F2005 being very slow in the moderate to slow corners. His topspeed however remained good. He had been in good form but started to slow his pace halfway the race. Eventually he just missed a point after Coulthard passed the Brazilian in the last lap to again take one point for RBR racing.
BAR's Jenson Button retired from eighth place at his final pit stop while David Coulthard was eighth for Red Bull. Button stalled the BAR and although the team finally managed to get the car restarted, he pulled off at the end of the pit lane for his third consecutive retirement.
His teammate Sato had problems with the brakes in the left front wheel and had to retire the race after consecutive spins because of that.
As a result Alonso strenghtens his leading position in the championship and sees Schumacher park with 2 points so far. Ferrari still have some work to do if they want to compete for a win again.
Here are the results:
1 5 Fernando Alonso Renault 57
2 16 Jarno Trulli Toyota 57 +13.4 secs
3 9 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 57 +32.0 secs
4 17 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 57 +53.2 secs
5 10 Pedro de la Rosa McLaren-Mercedes 57 +64.9 secs
6 7 Mark Webber Williams-BMW 57 +74.7 secs
7 12 Felipe Massa Sauber-Petronas 56 +1 Lap
8 14 David Coulthard Red Bull Racing 56 +1 Lap
9 2 Rubens Barrichello Ferrari 56 +1 Lap 20
10 18 Tiago Monteiro Jordan-Toyota 55 +2 Lap
11 11 Jacques Villeneuve Sauber-Petronas 54 +3 Lap
12 20 Patrick Friesacher Minardi-Cosworth 54 +3 Lap
13 21 Christijan Albers Minardi-Cosworth 53 +4 Lap
Ret 3 Jenson Button BAR-Honda 46 +11 Lap
Ret 4 Takuma Sato BAR-Honda 27 +30 Laps
Ret 8 Nick Heidfeld Williams-BMW 25 +32 Laps
Ret 1 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 12 +45 Laps
Ret 6 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 4 +53 Laps
Ret 19 Narain Karthikeyan Jordan-Toyota 2 +55 Laps
Ret 15 Christian Klien Red Bull Racing 0 + 57 Laps
