Stunning drive by Kimi as Alonso steals the show
By Karl King
March 12 2006
Fernando Alonso stole the win from Michael Schumacher in Bahrain today, his Renault team executing a flawless pitstop which enabled Alonso to take the lead after his second stop in an edge-of-the-seat moment as he exited the pitlane.
The bottom of step of the podium was occupied by a certain Finnish McLaren driver as Kimi Raikkonen drove spectacularly from the back of the grid, to end up only 19 seconds behind race winner Alonso in a 1-stop strategy.
Jenson Button was unlucky not to gain a podium place finishing the race only 6 tenths of a second behind Raikkonen. The Brit had a poor start, followed by a scrap with team mate Rubens Barrichello which lost him more time from the leaders. He pulled some brilliant moves on Juan Pablo Montoya at the first corner, the pair meeting on track more than once in the race. Juan Pablo went on to finish 5th where he started race, the Columbian thrashed by his team mate who made up 17 places compared to Montoya's static position.
ITV-F1 commentator Martin Brundle gave his approval to rookie Nico Rosberg branding him 'driver of the day'. The German had an unfortunate start losing his nosecone, but came back on the last lap to stick an implausable move on Christian Klien.
Rosberg finished seventh gaining two points, with his Williams team mate one place ahead.
Out of the points was Ferrari's Felipe Massa who spun out soon into the race, narrowly missing Fernando Alonso's Renault. Followed by pit-stop drama, the Brazilian did well to end the race six seconds ahead of David Coulthard.
A special mention must go to Vitantonio Liuzzi, who in a restricted V10 powered car finished ahead of the lapped BMW of Heidfeld and his rookie team-mate Scott Speed in the ex-Minardi team, Torro Rosso.
An embarrassing day for Toyota saw Ralf Schumacher end the day in 14th ahead of Honda's Rubens Barrichello who experienced a loss of third gear. Jarno Trulli capped off a terrible day for Toyota in 16th, with Tiago Montiero's Midland a lap behind him.
Super Aguri did a good job getting their team onto the grid. In a four year old chassis Takuma Sato finished 4 laps behind the winner.
The DNF's featured Yuji Ide, Jacques Villenueve after a blown BMW, Giancarlo Fisichella with engine mapping problems, and Christijan Albers was lost from the standings on the first lap.