2005 Monaco Grand Prix - Report

Report

Polesitter Kimi Räikkönen led the field from the start of the race, and though he was at first closely followed by Fernando Alonso, he was more than five seconds ahead by the twentieth lap. Meanwhile, Karthikeyan retired with a hydraulic failure. The race progressed otherwise uneventfully, with Alonso followed by Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli, and Mark Webber, until the twenty-third lap, when Christijan Albers spun his Minardi into a wall at Mirabeau, blocking about two-thirds of the width of the track. David Coulthard, arriving behind him, swerved and successfully stopped his Red Bull without damage; however, Michael Schumacher plowed into Coulthard, breaking off his own nosecone and damaging the Red Bull's suspension beyond repair. As more drivers reached the blocked turn, the Safety Car was deployed so that marshals could remove Albers' car.

Both Renault drivers pitted immediately, but Räikkönen - acting on instructions from McLaren chief strategist Neil Martin - continued on in what was to prove a winning move. Though this seemingly put Räikkönen in a bad spot, as all of his close competitors had pitted, he fought back with a series of brilliant laps that would give him a 34.7-second lead by the time he pitted on lap 42. Alonso, whose car was substantially slower as it was full of fuel, and whose rear tyres were wearing rapidly, was unable to catch up, and Räikkönen, after pitting, returned to the track still 13 seconds ahead. He would go on to win the race having led every lap of it. Liuzzi, meanwhile, had pulled into the pits with a smoky engine failure.

Nick Heidfeld worked his way up from sixth grid position, passing his own teammate in the pits after Williams called him in a lap earlier whilst Alonso was badly holding the two Williams drivers up. After Heidfeld's stop, a superb overtaking manoeuvre into the Nouvelle chicane put him ahead of Alonso. Webber tried to follow suit a lap later, but on the first attempt Alonso cut the corner and stayed in front. On the second attempt Alonso cut the corner again, this time clearly intentionally, but Webber eventually succeeded in overtaking him and claiming his first career podium in Formula One. Alonso straggled into fourth, his rear tyres almost entirely bald. Montoya advanced from sixteenth on the grid to an eventual fifth, finishing on Alonso's tail, followed by Michael and Ralf Schumacher, who crossed the line almost side-by-side.

Both Red Bull Racing cars ran with the Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Livery and, for this race, the Red Bull Racing pit crew dressed up as Imperial Stormtroopers. It didn't help the team's fortunes, as this was the first race where they failed to score points.