04 San Marino - Schumacher hangs on to win at Imola
Michael Schumacher won the San Marino Grand Prix after withstanding the pressure from Championship leader Fernando Alonso in the second half of the race. While Schumacher took the chequered flag, it really was a case of a race lost for Renault as much as a race won for Ferrari. The result was Schumacher's 85th Grand Prix success, the first competitive win since Suzuka 2004.
"It feels so great to win again," said Schumacher. "At last we have done it and it is especially good after our last race when I crashed out in Melbourne - we all wanted to put that behind us. All the work has paid off and it is good to win again. Very good. It wasn't easy to win, but we had to keep a close eye on Fernando and keep him back behind us to win. This time it worked out."
Starting from Pole Position Schumacher was able to pull out a ten second lead by the first round of stops as team-mate Felipe Massa played his part in backing up Alonso on track. Schumacher's second stint however saw him drop off the pace and Alonso was able to close right in on the Ferrari and at that point of the race, it seemed that the Spaniard had the race in the bag.
Trapped behind Schumacher, Alonso the Renault team then took the decision to bring him in, despite not needing the fuel, rather than sit behind the Ferrari. It was decision that cost the team the race win as Ferrari immediately pulled Schumacher in for his second stop and the status quo was restored. Alonso trailed around behind Schumacher but never made a serious attempt to make the pass. The closing stages saw Alonso run wide at Villeneuve and Alonso then cruised to the flag. All credit to Schumacher, who did what he needed to take the win.
"It is always very difficult to overtake here and I tried, but then I had to give up because it was too much to do," Alonso said. "But this is a good result for me for the championship and I am glad to take eight points. The car was on the limit in the closing stages."
With Schumacher and Alonso taking the top two steps of the podium, third position went to Juan Pablo Montoya who made the best of his longer stints to move up from his seventh place on the grid to claim his first podium of the season. It was however a low-key race from McLaren Mercedes as Kimi Raikkonen lost yet more ground to his title rivals as he finished in fifth position, unable to make the pass on track on relieve Felipe Massa of his fourth position.
Fourth was a reasonable result for Massa who compromised his own race early on to try and help team-mate Schumacher and he did a good job to hold off Raikkonen in the closing stages of the race. Mark Webber had a solid race in his Williams Cosworth to claim sixth position in a race where it was clear the FW28 was no match for the front-runners.
Over at Honda, it was another case of flattering only to deceive. Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello started second and third and 62-laps later took the chequered flag in seventh and tenth. Perhaps giving up points - by choice - in Australia was not such a wise decision. The team's race came undone in the pits this week and not on the track. Button was able to run on Schumacher's pace early in the race but a mistake in the second round of stops from the crew, saw Button try to leave the pits with the fuel hose still attached.
A crew member gave Button the signal to leave the pits, immediately realising he was wrong and lowering the stop board once again. It was too late as Button was already on his way and seventh position after three stops was the end result. For Barrichello, dropped from third to fifth by the first turn and then quickly fell back. A long stop saw him drop out of contention and tenth position was the result.
Starting in 11th position Giancarlo Fisichella had a Sunday cruise to pick up the final point in the second R26 and that's about all you can say about Fisichella's Imola showing.
It was a disappointing race for Toyota who showed well in qualifying. Running a three stop strategy, Ralf Schumacher finished ninth while Trulli retired early in the race with a steering wheel/gearbox problem.
With Barrichello finishing tenth, Nico Rosberg had a quiet race in the second Williams finishing 11th ahead of the BMW Sauber duo of Jacques Villeneuve and Nick Heidfeld. Tonio Liuzzi recovered from an early race spin to finish 14th in his Toro Rosso Cosworth, just ahead of team-mate Scott Speed. Tiago Monteiro finished a lap adrift of the field in 16th position in his MF1 Toyota.
It was a nightmare race for Red Bull Ferrari with both David Coulthard and Christian Klien retiring from the action. Coulthard was running reasonably well just outside of the top ten before he suffered a drive shaft problem, while Klien was running near to the tail of the field until gearbox problems intervened.
Christijan Albers was fortunate to escape without injury in his MF1 Toyota after being sent into a barrel-roll on the first lap by the hapless Yuji Ide. The Safety Car was deployed to remove the badly damaged M16 and Ide made his way back to the pits for front left suspension attention. Takuma Sato ran at the back in the second SA Honda until mechanical problems ended his race.