CANADIAN GRAND PRIX

This season of ever changing fortunes continued last Sunday with the final result basically canceling out the dramatic last lap of the European Grand Prix two weeks ago. Then Fernando Alonso was able to take advantage of Kimi Raikkonen’s awful luck to add ten valuable points to his hall and extend his championship lead to 32 points. This time Alonso, and most of the other front running drivers retired leaving Raikkonen to claim the win, the 10 points, and get back into the hunt for the title.

The list of retirements was remarkable, given the reliability of the teams over the past couple of seasons. Pole sitter, Jenson Button, both Renaults, Trulli, Heidfeld and Sato all fell out of the race and Montoya was disqualified. All this and a safety car late in the race left Raikkonen at the front ahead of two moderately competitive Ferraris that would have struggled to make the top six had this carnage not occurred. Raikkonen made a good start from seventh on the grid to pass both Sato and Schumacher before the first corner and was then bottled up behind his team-mate and the rather slow Button as the Renaults pulled away at the front. Button had used very little fuel to claim his pole position and therefore pitted as early as lap 15 and that released the McLaren duo to chase down the Renaults. This they did, consistently lapping faster than the leaders and apart from a mistake on the exit from the pits, Montoya would have passed Alonso for second place on lap 25. At this point Fisichella led from his team-mate Alonso, who had been quicker up to this point but could not find a way past, with the rapidly closing Montoya and Raikkonen next up. It all pointed to a grandstand finish with four of the most exciting drivers of the year set to do battle.

Unfortunately for us it then all disintegrated. Fisichella, who had a blinder of a start from fourth on the grid to the lead at the first corner, who had looked comfortable in the lead, had a hydraulic failure on lap 32 and pulled into the pits looking utterly gutted. Alonso took over the lead from his team-mate and upped the pace in an attempt to pull away from Montoya only to clip the wall with his right rear tyre just six laps later and retire with a broken suspension.

Montoya now led from Raikkonen, Button, Michael Schumacher, Trulli, Massa and Heidfeld with Barrichello still down in tenth, having started from the pit lane. On lap 43 Heidfeld went out with a smoking BMW engine and just three laps later Button made an error at the chicane and stuffed the BAR into the concrete wall. In the following slight delay in deploying the safety car, the call for Montoya to pit was left a fraction too late and he then had to do a complete lap behind it while all the other leaders pitted. This gave Raikkonen the lead from Montoya and allowed Schumacher to close up the gap that had been over half a minute. Trulli was next up from Webber, Massa and Barrichello, now up to seventh. Montoya, however had ignored a red light at the pit exit when he rejoined, and would soon be disqualified. Webber, who had been having trouble warming up his tyres all weekend, outbraked himself while trying to maintain position at the restart, held up Massa and allowed Barrichello to leap into fifth place with 20 laps to go. This became fourth when Montoya went out and third just a few laps later when Trulli had a truly frightening brake disintegration entering the chicane. That he didn’t have a huge accident was just luck.

At the front Raikkonen and Michael toured around until the finish with the Ferrari never even looking like it could challenge the leader and in a remarkable fourth place, was Felipe Massa in the Sauber who had started in 11th and had driven an uneventful but steady drive. Webber ended up with yet another fifth placing, which could so easily been third but for his restart error and Ralf Schumacher came home in sixth place. Rounding out the point scorers were the Red Bull twins of Coulthard and Klien ahead of the unfortunate Villeneuve. The Canadian had been spectacular in qualifying to plant his Sauber in eighth on the grid but a nudge on the first lap saw him come in for a replacement nose cone. With all the drama in front of him it is quite possible that he could have been second or third if he had just been able to hold his position. As Murray Walker once said, “If, if, if, - F1 is if spelt backwards.”

RESULT/DRIVER CAR LAPS/GAP COMMENTS 1 Kimi Raikkonen McLaren 70/1"32'09.290 Ave Speed 123.526 mph/198.754 kph 2 Michael Schumacher Ferrari +0'01.137 - 3 Rubens Barrichello Ferrari +0'40.483 - 4 Felipe Massa Sauber +0'55.139 - 5 Mark Webber Williams +0'55.779 - 6 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 69 - 7 David Coulthard Red Bull 69 - 8 Christian Klien Red Bull 69 - 9 Jacques Villeneuve Sauber 69 - 10 Tiago Montiero Jordan 67 - 11 Christijan Albers Minardi 67 - RETIREMENTS Jarno Trulli Toyota 62 Brakes DQ Juan Pablo Montoya McLaren 52 Illegal pit exit under safety car Jenson Button BAR 46 Accident Nick Heidfeld Williams 43 Engine Takuma Sato BAR 40 Brakes Patrick Friesacher Minardi 39 - Fernando Alonso Renault 38 Accident Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 32 Hydraulics Narain Karthikeyan Jordan 24 Accident

FASTEST LAP Kimi Raikkonen 1'14.384

LAP RECORD Rubens Barrichello 1'13.622 2004 Ferrari F2004

LEADERS Giancarlo Fisichella 32 (1-32) Kimi Raikkonen 21 (49-70) Juan Pablo Montoya 10 (39-48) Fernando Alonso 6 (33-38)

POINTSCORE Alonso 59 Raikkonen 37 Trulli 27 Heidfeld 25 M.Schumacher 24 Webber 22 Barrichello 21 R.Schumacher 20 Fisichella 17 Coulthard 17 Montoya 16 Massa 7 Wurz 6 Villeneuve 5 De la Rosa 4 Klien 4 Liuzzi 1

Renault 76 McLaren-Mercedes 63 Toyota 47 Williams-BMW 47 Ferrari 45 Red Bull-Cosworth 22 Sauber-Ferrari 12

Sam Snape

16-6-05