Results from the 2005 Hungarian Grand Prix
Who said that Fernando Alonso had the Championship title in the bag already? Well, with Kimi Raikkonen coming back to win the Hungarian Grand Prix, the title fight has been thrown a life line, making the last few races in the season worth watching. Michael Schumacher, who had held up Raikkonen during the first half of the race, came in second, followed by brother Ralf Schumacher. Significantly, points leader Fernando Alonso finished way down in 11th place. Neither did his Renault team mate Giancarlo Fisichella pick up any points, opening a window of opportunity for McLaren to close the gap for the Constructors'Championship.
In terms of the teams, the Hungarian Grand Prix was a great race for Toyota with drivers placing in third and fourth place. Ralf Schumacher's third place finish is Toyota's first podium finish for this season. Jarno Trulli's fourth place was heroic as he drove the entire race with a damaged rear. Jenson Button finished well in fifth, ahead of a surprising sixth and seventh for the floundering Williams-BMW drivers of Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber. Takumo Sato's eight place made it a memorable day for the BAR team.
The weekend started with exciting qualifying rounds, which surprised many. After lackluster performance to date, many were surprised see Michael Schumacher taking pole position. Although this was his 64th career pole position, it was Ferrari's first for this season. Schumacher pointed to the new compound Bridgestone tyres as the reason for his success. Schumacher was able to outpace Juan Pablo Montoya by one second, who took second position on the grid, followed by Jarno Trulli for Toyota. Fernando Alonso had to contend with a sixth place start, as team Renault was unable to fix the over-steering problem that had been plaguing him all weekend. Although Kimi Raikkonen had posted the fastest laps during free practice, he was forced to qualifying first after his hydraulic failure in Hockenheim. The infamous dust on Hungaroring got the best of him and he only qualified in fourth place.
The race began with plenty of drama as Alonso crashed into Ralf Schumacher on the first bend resulting in spectacular loss of his front wing, which lay on the circuit as debris. Most drivers were able to avoid the wing but David Coulthard, couldn't and drove right over it, damaging his front left suspension and crashing out of the race. It capped off a miserable start for the Reb Bull team after Christian Klien rolled his car on the first bend, thanks to being tapped by Jacques Villeneuve from behind. Luckily he escaped the incident unhurt. Barrichello also lost his nose as he hit the behind of Jarno Trulli.
As a result, neither Barrichello or Alonso featured in the race, both having to pit on lap two for repairs. This couldn't have been better news for McLaren as their two cars dominated the front end of the race while the Renaults languised near the back. McLaren would've significantly closed the gap on their title rivals but Juan Pablo Montoya retired on lap 29 as he was momentarily leading the race. A smart pit stopping strategy had handed him the lead as his team mate battled it out with the slower, but defensively driven Ferrari of Schumacher. In the end, it was Raikkonen's late second pit stop that allowed him to gain sufficient ground to get ahead of the Ferrari and hold onto the lead for the rest of the race.
With six races remaining this season, Raikkonen is 26 points behind Alonso with 87 points. However, he will need to rely on some retirements or bad luck to the Renault team if he has a chance of trouncing the runaway Spaniard points leader. Unfortunately, it is the Mercedes McLaren which is proving to be the more unreliable of the two cars, as we again saw this weekend with Montoyo's drive shaft faliure. Behind these two is Michael Schumacher in third place with 55 points and Jarno Trulli with 36 points.
Full race result from Hungaroring (2005)
- Kimi Raikkonen - McLaren-Mercedes 1h 37m, 25.552s
- Michael Schumacher - Ferrari +35.5s
- Ralf Schumacher - Toyota +36.1s
- Jarno Trulli - Toyota +54.2s
- Jenson Button - BAR Honda +58.8s
- Nick Heidfeld - Williams-BMW +68.3s
- Mark Webber - Williams-BMW +1 lap
- Takuma Sato - BAR Honda +1 lap
- Giancarlo Fisichella - Renault +1 lap
- Rubens Barrichello - Ferrari +1 lap
- Fernando Alonso - Renault +1 lap
- Narain Karthikeyan - Jordan-Toyota +3 laps
- Tiago Monteiro - Jordan-Toyota +3 laps
- Felipe Massa - Sauber-Petronas +7 laps