Results from the 2005 Spanish Grand Prix
With a full crowd of 115,000 and with King Juan Carlos present, all eyes were on Fernando Alonso to see if he could pull off a home circuit win in Spain, which would make it the first Spaniard to win on their home curcuit. Although Alonso wasn't able to capture his home turf win, he did get his fifth podium finish this season, coming in second behind Kimi Raikkonen for McLaren-Mercedes, with third place going to an extremely elated Jarno Trulli for Toyota. It was a great weekend for Toyota, with third and fourth place finishes in Spain.
After all the talk from Michael Schumacher and Ferrari that they were in top form again and were going to give Renault a run for their money at Spain, but Schumacher had to retire with a blown tyre and Rubens Barrichello came in a mere ninth place. This leaves Ferrari with no points for this race and just one notch above Red Bull Racing in sixth place.
The weekend started out with controversy, as Jenson Button and BAR Honda were banned from both the Spanish and Monaco Grand Prix and news that Button would be stripped of his third place finish at San Marino due to weight irregularities with his car. This was a huge blow to BAR Honda, as they were just recovering from a difficult start to this season. Juan Pablo Montoya was back for the Spanish Grand Prix, after he had suffered a shoulder injury and missed two races, but his return was compromised for a while as he crashed badly during testing. Luckily uninjured and was able to finish the race in seventh place.
The race started with both Minardi cars stalling on the grid and bringing on the yellow flag and causing the safety car to be deployed. Several drivers had close calls, as they came back through the start straight and discovered both cars still sitting on the grid. Apparently jammed gears were the problem and both vehicles were eventually pushed off the grid. Although the Minardi's did join the race two laps later, both drivers spun out of the race and were unable to finish.
Jarno Trulli started the race well, battling Kimi Raikkonen, who proved how fast the McLaren-Mercedes car really was by easily pulling away from Trulli and Alonso. He held his lead pretty much throughout the race. Tyres played an important role in this race and the new tyre rule severely hurt some drivers, especially Michael Schumacher. As the drivers pulled into the pits it was clear from the tread how tyres were wearing and who was driving carefully to avoid excessive wear. Schumacher had just changed one flat front tyre and several corners out of the pit lane, he blew his other front tyre and was out of the race; no doubt an extremely frustrating moment for him, having won Spanish Grand Prix four times in a row. This is obviously another problem for Bridgestone, who supply Ferrari's tyres.
Raikkonen's win puts pressure on Renault and Alonso, now that we can see what the McLaren-Mercedes car can really do. Alonso still leads comfortably in the Drivers' Championship, with 44 points. Second place is Jarno Trulli with 26 points and third place Raikkonen with 17 points. Michael Schumacher is currently in tenth place with 10 points and if he doesn't win a race soon, then he will match is longest run without winning since he first joined Ferrari in 1996! For the Constructors' Championship, Renault is in the lead with 58 points, followed by Toyota with 40 points and coming from behind is McLaren-Mercedes with 37 points. Ferrari is currently in fifth place with 18 points, only four points ahead of Red Bull Racing.
Full race result from Spain (2005)
- Kimi Raikkonen - McLaren-Mercedes 1h 27m16.830s
- Fernando Alonso - Renault +27.6s
- Jarno Trulli - Toyota +45.9s
- Ralf Schumacher - Toyota +46.7s
- Giancarlo Fisichella - Renault +57.9s
- Mark Webber - Williams-BMW +68.5s
- Juan Pablo Montoya - McLaren-Mercedes +1 lap
- David Coulthard - Red Bull Racing +1 lap
- Rubens Barrichello - Ferrari +1 lap
- Nick Heidfeld - Williams-BMW +1 lap
- Tiago Monteiro - Jordan-Toyota +3 laps
- Narain Karthikeyan - Jordan-Toyota +3 laps