Full Throttle

Kimi Raikkonen in winning the Belguim Grand Prix, for the second year running, again proves he and the McLaren team are the class of the F1 field. The win on the mostly wet Spa-Francorchamps circuit was Kimi’s sixth in ‘05 and McLaren has now won four races in a row.

Fernando Alonso, who needed to beat the “Iceman” by four points to become the sport’s youngest champion [avatar:http://cranialcavity.net/files/check-flag.bmp]crossed the line[/avatar] second after McLaren’s Juan Pablo Montoya was involved in a shunt with the Williams of Antonio Pizzonia and crashed three laps from the end.

A forecast of heavy rain never materialized but the track was still damp and treacherous, Montoya led from pole and stayed ahead until the final pit stops. The Colombian had said before the start that he would help his team mate and that seemed to take the form of an extra long pitstop. That allowed Raikkonen to take the lead and was never headed.

Jenson Button was third for BAR Honda, ahead of Mark Webber (Williams) and Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari). Jacques Villeneuve (Sauber) was sixth.

Ralf Schumacher (Toyota) showed surprising pace in maintaining second behind Montoya for a number of laps. He eventually finished seventh after disastrous pitstop to switch to dry-weather tires dropped him down the order. Tiago Monteiro (Jordan) took the final point.

Note that finishing order. When was the last time the first 8 places were eight different manufacturers? The varied finish was aided by the numerious shunts that occured, most notably the Montoya/Pizzonia get together. Pizzonia went from hero last week to zero this week in attempting to pass second place Montoya while riding in 11^th and a lap down. That most likely cost Montoya the second step on the podium and McLaren from assuming the Constructors Championship lead.

The other major shunt of the afternoon took out Michael Schumacher and the resulting “counciling session” is depicted above.

Sato hit Schumacher under braking after a safety car restart, putting both cars out of the race. The World Champion visited the stewards during the race and voiced his opinion about Sato, who claimed that Michael braked early and caused him to lock up on the damp track. The stewards didn’t lend a sympathic ear for Sato