The Hindu : Sport / Racing : Motor : Sixth career victory for Raikkonen

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 01, 2005

Sport

Sport - Racing : Motor

Sixth career victory for Raikkonen

BUDAPEST: Kimi Raikkonen of McLaren-Mercedes won Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, with second for Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari and third for Ralf Schumacher of Toyota.

It was Raikkonen's sixth career victory and his fourth this season — following wins in Spain, Monaco and Canada. The victory gave him 61 points for the season, second to points leader Fernando Alonso of Renault.

Alonso finished out of the points and stayed on 87. He was forced into the pits after the first lap and finished 11th.

With six races to go, Raikkonen likes his chances.

``For sure it looks better now than the last race,'' Raikkonen said, referring to the German GP, where he dropped out while leading.

``It seems we throw away 10 points and then he gives it back. It goes backwards and forwards.''

On a hot day in the Hungarian hills, with track temperatures approaching 45 degrees C (113F), Raikkonen finished 35.5 seconds ahead of Schumacher, who started from his first pole position of the season. Ralf Schumacher was 36.1 behind.

Bad luck

Raikkonen last won in Canada on June 12, but since then he has been plagued with bad luck. He sat out the United States Grand Prix, was twice penalised 10 spots on the starting grid for engine changes, and then came the German GP a week ago.

He also led the San Marino GP and European GP before his car broke down.

``It seems to be always that when we have a bad race we ... we seem to win the next race,'' Raikkonen said.

At the start, Schumacher went away untouched followed closely by Raikkonen and teammate Juan Pablo Montoya.

Alonso was squeezed to the curb by Ralf Schumacher and lost a front wing. He came into the pits after the first lap and was more than 30 seconds behind after two laps. He was won six times this season, but his chances were over early.

Schumacher and Raikkonen moved away and were separated by about a second most of the way through the first half of the race with Montoya in third.

Turning point

The turning point came after the second pit stop. Schumacher pitted on lap 36 and Raikkonen a lap later.

However, it was a short stop for Raikkonen who added only a little fuel and was then able to lap faster — a lot faster than Schumacher.

Raikkonen came out of the pits just ahead of Schumacher but immediately started padding the lead by nearly two seconds a lap.

``It was a combination of things,'' Michael Schumacher said, ``At this stage he was at least a second quicker. Then I had some traffic.''

By lap 38 Raikkonen was seven seconds ahead of Schumacher. By lap 40 the lead was more than 12 seconds.

Creditable finish

Narain Karthikeyan's prediction of the tough and slow Hungaroring circuit actually helping him came true as he finished a creditable 12th.

Narain's better placing could look exaggerated with six cars failing to finish but that in itself showed the hard work put in by the Jordan team on a punishing circuit. Tiago Monteiro overcame a slow start to finish behind his Jordan teammate.

Meanwhile, race-leader Montoya slowed and stopped on the 41st lap with a broken driveshaft. That gave Raikkonen the lead nearly 15 seconds over Schumacher.

They both pitted again and by lap 57 Raikkonen had a 32.6-second lead and cruised to the victory.

Schumacher had his brother to worry about on the final laps. Ralf came within 0.6 seconds with four laps to go, but could not find a way to pass. He finished third, his first podium of the season.

Michael knew it would be tough for his brother to pass. — Agencies

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport