2005 San Marino Grand Prix

The 2005 San Marino Grand Prix was a Formula One race held from April 22 to April 24 2005 at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari.

Summary

Räikkönen led from pole, pulling out a gap of several seconds, before his McLaren retired on lap nine with driveshaft problems. Alonso took over the lead, and was unchallenged until lap 50, when Michael Schumacher emerged from the pits just behind him. Schumacher had started 13th, and had been unable to pass Jarno Trulli for 20 laps, until the Italian pitted allowing Schumacher to increase his pace. After pitting himself, he emerged in third place ahead of Trulli and started to catch race leader Alonso. He caught up with second place driver Jenson Button and overtook him, overturning a 20 second gap in 13 laps. After the second round of pit-stops he emerged from the pits seconds behind Alonso. The next 12 laps saw the two battle for the lead but Schumacher was unable to overtake Alonso who took the race victory. Third was Button, followed by Wurz's McLaren, Sato, Villeneuve, Trulli and Ralf Schumacher. Ralf was later given a 25 second penalty as he was released into the path of Nick Heidfeld. This temporarily dropped him to 11th place.

During checks after the race it was found that Jenson Button's car had been under the 600 kg minimum weight requirement when drained of fuel. The race stewards cleared Button, as they believed data provided by BAR-Honda was sufficient to prove that they had been operating inside the rules, but the FIA appealed sending them to court. They were found guilty, but the FIA's preferred penalty of having the team disqualified from the championship for the year was not carried through, and they were given a two-race ban, starting from the next round in Spain. Both cars were also disqualified from the San Marino Grand Prix, despite Sato's car not being found to be underweight.

Results

Qualifying

• † Note: Felipe Massa had an engine change, meaning he started from 18th on the grid.

Race

• † Note: After the race, Ralf Schumacher was penalised 25 seconds for being released unsafely from his second pitstop; Toyota withdrew their initial appeal before the hearing.
• ‡ Note: After the race, Jenson Button's car was found to be 4.99 kg (11 lb) underweight; stewards initially accepted BAR's explanation as a fuel system anomaly on April 25. However, on May 5, an FIA court of appeal disqualified both BAR cars and banned them from the next two races for "highly regrettable negligence and lack of transparency" , noting that BAR's fuel system effectively "used fuel as ballast" , illegal under current Formula One regulations.

References

Notes

• Fastest lap: Michael Schumacher 1:21.858
• Vitantonio Liuzzi replaced Christian Klien in the second Red Bull car, for this and the next two races; after unanimous agreement between the teams, Klien was allowed to race car #37 for Red Bull in the Friday practice sessions.
• Alexander Wurz drove the second McLaren-Mercedes car, in place of the injured Juan Pablo Montoya.
• During the first qualifying session on Saturday, Red Bull announced that they would use Ferrari engines for two years, beginning from the 2006 Formula One season.
• This was Michael Schumacher's 100th podium for Ferrari an F1 record for a driver with the same team as well as Ferrari's 200th second place finish another all-time F1 record.