Kimi Raikkonen gets the win for McLaren at Spa

By Parminio
August 30 2004

It was a fantastic drive. After the Renault of Fernando Alonso expired with mechanical failures, Kimi inherited first place followed by David Couldhard and it looked as if McLaren were on pace to take a 1-2 finish.

It wasn't to be David's day though. A short time later his rear tire let go and he limped for an eternity around the track. After a pit stop he resumed the race dead last and fought his way through the crowd to get back into the points only to have yet another problem as he came together with the Jaguar of Klein. Once again relegated to last place, David charged back to take 7th for McLaren.

David's drive was incredible, but not the only drive that was impressive as Rubens Barrichello had similar misfortunes. His Ferrari suffered rear wing damage as a result of the first corner pitched melee at the start of the race. Rubens entered the pits for a new rear wing, but had to pit again to get more work done, but managed to fight back to take 3rd when both Williams BMW's suffered failures.

Kimi's drive however was simple. In Mika like fashion, once he took the lead it was over. He stretched out a 14 second lead at one point, but due to a safety car lost it. On the restart, Kimi's Mclaren seemed to just pull away from the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher who looked to be struggling for speed most of the day. There is some speculation that Michael had too much of a wet setup on the car which hampered him all day, even dropping him to 6th early in the race. It was obvious after the last safety car as Kimi just pulled away that Ferrari simply didn't have it.

Michael Schumacher did secure 2nd place however, which locked up his 7th World Drivers Championship. Well done to Michael and Ferrari for achieving a goal that is not likely to ever be replicated.

In the meantime, we're on to Monza where hopefully McLaren's MP4-19B will be as good as it was at Spa.