Blue conquers Red
Published by Anonymous on Monday, March 07, 2005 at 3/07/2005 02:39:00 am"I was quite conservative, I never pushed the limit."
Michael Schumacher’s hopes of a fifth Melbourne win disappeared on lap 43 when his Ferrari and the Williams-BMW of Nick Heidfeld tangled on the way out of Turn 6.
The race was shortened by one lap to 57 when Kimi Raikkonen’s McLaren-Mercedes was unable to get off the start line, the Finn being pushed away to start from pit lane. Mark Webber put aside the pressures of the build-up to his home-race debut with Williams-BMW to score three fine points for fifth place in an entertaining start to the new-look F1 season.
But the team that really made the headlines was Renault, underlining the promise of pre-season testing with first and third places for Giancarlo Fisichella and Fernando Alonso respectively.
Popular Italian Fisichella, 32, confirmed his provisional pole in the morning’s second qualifying session and went on to a dominant win - only the second of his 142-race career - from the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello.
"It’s a great day for me," said the 32-year-old Fisichella, "a fantastic race".
While Fisichella raced into the lead from Jarno Trulli's Toyota, Scottish veteran David Coulthard blasted off the grid in his Red Bull Racing RB1 to go third with Webber on his coat-tails.
While Webber was able to hang on for the first half of the race, the Williams lacked the front-runners’ outright pace and the Australian did well to claim his eventual fifth.
Juan Pablo Montoya was sixth in his McLaren debut, Raikkonen recovering superbly to come home eighth behind the other RBR of Christian Klien.
Christijan Albers in the Minardi was the only driver to retire, with the 17 cars classified the highest number since the Grand Prix came to Melbourne.
Courtesy : GrandPrix.com.au