“We planned this race very carefully, and I am delighted that all our work paid off so handsomely. Behind them, Kimi Raikkonen lost sixth place to Giancarlo Fisichella after having to stop on the 61st lap for a replacement steering wheel following an electronic problem.In an incident in the pits on lap 21, a Jordan mechanic was injured when Nick Heidfeld was signalled to rejoin before his refuelling process had been completed, while Felipe Massa escaped unharmed after crashing his Sauber very heavily after losing a wheel on lap 65.”This was a very satisfying win, and one that I owe to the team and its fantastic work,” Schumacher said. Alonso’s race had ended with a mechanical failure at the start of the 45th lap, the first time this year that Renault had failed to finish a car.Over the remaining laps Schumacher consolidated his lead as everyone else seemed to lose heart, merely settling for points-scoring finishes. By the finish the Ferrari was almost 10sec ahead of the BMW Williams, until Michael eased off in the final lap.
Button and Montoya provided what few thrills remained as the Colombian hounded the Briton Button just clung on to finish fourth. The two Ferraris circulated nose-to-tail at the head of the field, with Ralf apparently just awaiting their stops. Barrichello’s came on lap 44, but as Michael just kept running Ferrari’s strategy became clearer and hopes in the BMW Williams camp began a slow fade. Michael stopped finally on lap 47, but a lap later Ralf was in no position to exploit that as he came in from a brief lead for his final call a lap later.By the time everything settled down again after Button and Montoya pitted on lap 49, Michael was leading comfortably from Ralf, Barrichello, Button and Montoya.
Against expectations, this handed the lead back to Ralf, with Button pushing up to second ahead of the Ferraris, which naturally were running in team formation, separated by Montoya.As Button pushed hard to challenge Ralf Schumacher, brother Michael found his hands full fending off Montoya until the Colombian’s second stop on lap 30, by which time the champion was 11sec adrift of his brother and had Barrichello breathing down his neck.When Ralf fell only 3.7sec behind his brother after his second stop on lap 33 things looked rosy, especially as Barrichello was clearly faster than his team leader at this point. Now it was just a matter of how long the red cars would stay out before they needed more fuel, and how big a gap they could build in the meantime.The answer was not as long as anticipated, as Barrichello refuelled on lap 18, Schumacher on 19. Button and Montoya came in on lap 13, Ralf on lap 15, so by lap 16 Michael had only Alonso ahead of him as Ferrari’s master plan stayed smoothly on track. Alonso’s stop on lap 17 promoted the world champion to the lead.
