My Race: 2005 Japanese Grand Prix
My background as an F1 fan began in 2000, at the tender age of 6. During the 2000 Belgian GP, I found myself channel hopping in the hope it would quell my Sunday afternoon boredom. The moment I flicked to the F1 Mika Hakkinen was putting the extraordinary move on Michael Schumacher at Les Combes whilst lapping Ricardo Zonta. I was hooked. Hakkinen’s humility in the press conference was astonishing. I was in awe of Hakkinen. He was my first sporting hero. His McLaren replacement, Kimi Raikkonen (Another Finn) amazed me with equal awe. Because of these 2 drivers, I am a massive fan of all Finnish Athletes in any sport. Fast forward 5 years for the greatest race I have ever seen.
The 2005 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka was without doubt the greatest race I have ever seen. For me it was the perfect race. As a massive Kimi Raikkonen fan, I was dejected to see Fernando Alonso take the title in Brazil the race before, but with 2 races to go the constructors championship was still at stake for McLaren and Renault.
A remarkable wet qualifying session meant it was a mixed grid with Ralf Schumacher on pole for Toyota and Jenson Button 2nd; Fisichella was 3rd for Renault. Team Mate Alonso was 16th after getting affected by the heavy rain, so to were Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya, who qualified 17th and 18th. I’d anticipated before the race was that Fisichella would have the measure of Button and the 3-stopping Ralf Schumacher and that
While Raikkonen, Alonso and Montoya would fight back to score some points on a track that’s notoriously hard to overtake.
Race day was dry and sunny. The race was primed. I woke up expected a processional race where Fisichella won by a mile. I dragged myself to turn on the TV ready for the race and had my usual pre-race nerves for my idol Raikkonen. The 5 lights went out and Fisichella got a good start and got past Button. Alonso got a flying start and was up to 8th after the first lap, with Raikkonen not far behind. But Raikkonen dropped back after missing the Casio chicane. Montoya moved in front of Raikkonen, but at the final corner tried to pass Jacques Villeneuve around the outside, but went wide and hit the wall. He was out. The Safety car was deployed. All this action on lap 1! I suddenly thought it was going to be an immense race.
Montoya’s retirement meant McLaren had only one driver who could score points, and he was in 13th. Soon after the restart, Alonso passed Christian Klien around the outside and missed his braking point cutting the chicane. He let Klien back past on the final corner and then re-passed him into turn 1, much like Kimi-Lewis at Spa 08. The FIA said Fernando had to let Klien regain the place so Fernando had to pass Klien a 3rd time, but this had allowed Raikkonen to catch up with Alonso who passed Klien into turn 1 soon after.
Up at the front, Ralf Schumacher had pitted on the first of his 3 stops and ended up 8th, behind the charging Raikkonen and Alonso. They were being held up by Michael Schumacher, who had banked on a wet race and had a wet setup and was therefore woefully slow down the straights. Alonso had been looking menacing behind Michael for many laps and made his move into the 180mph 130R around the outside. I couldn’t believe he had done that. That was one of the best passes I had ever seen. Alonso pitted earlier than Michael Schumacher and Raikkonen, who both pitted on the same lap. They came out ahead of Alonso, who had passed David Coulthard for 6th. After the pit stops the top 6 was Fisichella, Button, Webber, Michael Schumacher, Raikkonen and Alonso.
Soon after, Raikkonen passed Michael around the outside at turn 1. I was hugely relieved as he’d being stuck behind Michael for a great deal of laps. Once he’d passed Michael he started chasing down Button and Webber at a rate of 1.5 seconds per lap. Second place now seemed at realistic target for Kimi as Fisichella was almost 20 seconds in the lead. Fisichella was the first to pit and came out a couple of seconds behind Raikkonen, who was now 3rd. Button, Webber and Alonso pitted a few laps later. Raikkonen ran 8 laps longer than Fisichella and 5 laps longer than Button, Webber and Alonso, ending up with a 14-second lead before he pitted. He came out around 7 seconds behind Fisichella with 12 laps to go.
The Top 5 was Fisichella, Raikkonen, Webber, Alonso, and Button. Raikkonen and Alonso had fought through the field sensationally, but their afternoons weren’t over just yet. Alonso passed Webber with an equally sensational move to the one he put on Schumacher through 130R. Webber covered both sides of the narrow Suzuka straight, but Alonso took 2 wheels worth of grass to give him the extra space he needed to complete the stunning overtake. More was to follow, as Raikkonen wasn’t settling for second. He closed the 7-second gap with 4 laps to go. But he was in his dirty air and took a couple of laps to get a move to overtake on Lap 51 of 52. He had a couple of looks on that lap but nothing serious, ontil the start of the final lap that is!
Fisichella had defended a bit too much in the chicane and had compromised his exit. Raikkonen pounced: he used the slipstream of Fisichella to reel him in on the pit straight. Fisichella moved right, Raikkonen left. Fisichella moved back to the left to cover off Kimi but Kimi jolted further left to avoid Fisichella. Bouncing off the rev-limiter at 200mph (7th gear was too short on Kimi’s car) Kimi turned into turn 1 taking 1st place on the final lap. I went mental! I was overjoyed with emotion, shouting at 6am in the morning. But it still wasn’t finished, I thought of Nurburgring earlier in the year when Kimi’s suspension broke on the final lap. It’s never over till its over.
But Kimi took the win, followed by Fisichella, Alonso, Webber and Button. Amazingly, Kimi had won from 17th on the grid. That fact helped numb the damage caused by Montoya’s retirement as Renault would go on to take the Constructors. Peter Windsor described Raikkonen’s move on Fisichella as “a sharp Finnish knife cutting through a tender piece of Italian Salami”. That move reminded me of what got me into F1, Mika Hakkinen’s great overtake at Spa 2000. Ron Dennis described the win as the greatest of Kimi’s career. Ron was clearly trying to show that the relationship between him and Kimi was good but what people didn’t know was that Kimi was fed up with McLaren. He had quietly signed a contract with Ferrari 3 months earlier for the 2007 season, and McLaren didn’t even know.

















Yamamoto was impressive to only be 0.4 seconds behind Chandhok despite this being his first time in the car in a qualifying session and was comfortably within the 107% of Q1 time that will be used next season.

Pole position on Saturday followed by race victory, there’s no doubt that Hamilton loves Montreal although maybe its pitlane doesn’t love him – this time around it saw him running wheel-to-wheel with Fernando Alonso before Hamilton gave way. A far from straight forward race, the team called the right tyre strategy coupled with Hamilton’s opportunistic pass of Alonso. He started from pole, at one point he looked like he might have to settle for fourth but in the end an impeccable drive delivered the result it deserved. Who says he can’t preserve his tyres?


