Belgian F1 Grand Prix
Spa Francorchamps 11th September 2005 - It looked set to be a wet race from the early hours of the morning with thick fog and mist hanging in the trees. It did rain earlier in the day upsetting the GP2 and "Mini" races but the rain stopped with about 50 minutes left before the start of the Grand Prix.
Juan-Pablo Montoya made a great start and Kimi Raikkonen just about held on to second position from the threatening Jarno Trulli. Fernando Alonso in turn tried to pass Trulli but failed to make it stick and was soon under a bit of pressure from Michael Schumacher who passed his brother Ralf Schumacher who had a bad start.
At the end of lap one it was Montoya leading from Raikkonen, Trulli, Alonso, Michael Schumacher, Takumo Sato, Jenson Button, Ralf Schumacher, Felipe Massa and Mark Webber making up the top ten.
On lap 12 Giancarlo Fisichella had a crash at Raidillon losing the car in Eau Rouge which brought out the safety car and resulted in a train of cars lining up behind the purposefully slow Kimi Raikkonen in pit lane. He slowed the pack down so that his team-mate, Montoya, could re-fuel without Raikkonen having to queue and lose time and track position. The person who benefited most from all this was Ralf Schumacher as he pitted on lap 12 before the safety car had come out and this propelled him up into third behind Montoya with Villeneuve in second as he was the only driver to not have pitted under the safety car. A few brave people, including Michael Schumacher, went for dry tyres as there was a dry line of tarmac appearing on the racing line. This proved a bad move as all had to pit immediately as the dry tyres were totally un-driveable in the conditions.
Takuma Sato back-ended Michael Schumacher who was slowing for the 1st corner, La Source, with Takuma apparently forgetting that he needed to slow down or that there was a car in front of him. A clearly upset Michael was seen getting out of his vehicle to "have a word" with Takuma and leave him with a slap on his helmet visor! Michael has plenty of fond memories at Spa and this shows just what a poor season he is having...
Throughout the race there was action which excluded Fernando Alonso completely but in the end he still came in second after Montoya, again, went off in a tangle with Pizzonia who was flying after just having pitted for dry tyres. Final points positions were: 1st Kimi Raikkonen, 2nd Fernando Alonso, 3rd Jenson Button, 4th Mark Webber, 5th Rubens barrichello, 6th Jacques Villeneuve, 7th Ralf Schumacher and 8th Tiago Monteiro.
