2005 Monaco Grand Prix

Coordinates: 43°44′4.74″N 7°25′16.8″E / 43.7346500°N 7.421333°E / 43.7346500; 7.421333

  2005 Monaco Grand Prix

Race details
Race 6 of 19 in the 2005 Formula One season
Date	22 May 2005
Official name	LXIII Grand Prix de Monaco
Location	Circuit de Monaco, Monaco
Course	Street circuit
Course length	3.34 km (2.075 mi)
Distance	78 laps, 260.52 km (161.85 mi)
Weather	Fine
Pole position
Driver	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes
Time	2:30.323 (aggregate)
Fastest lap
Driver	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
Time	1:15.842 on lap 40
Podium
First	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes
Second	Nick Heidfeld	Williams-BMW
Third	Mark Webber	Williams-BMW
Lap leaders

The 2005 Monaco Grand Prix (formally the LXIII Grand Prix de Monaco) was a Formula One motor race held on 22 May 2005 at the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo, Monaco. The 78-lap race was the sixth round of the 2005 Formula One season and the 63rd running of the Monaco Grand Prix. It was won by polesitter and McLaren driver Kimi Räikkönen. Williams driver Nick Heidfeld completed the race in second position whilst his team-mate, Mark Webber, completed the podium by finishing in third place.

This was the first Monaco Grand Prix held after the death of Prince Rainier III. His death was the reason why the Princely Family did not attend the Grand Prix.

Report

Polesitter Kimi Räikkönen led the field from the start of the race, and though he was at first closely followed by Fernando Alonso, he was more than five seconds ahead by the twentieth lap. Meanwhile, Karthikeyan retired with a hydraulic failure. The race progressed otherwise uneventfully, with Alonso followed by Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli, and Mark Webber, until the twenty-third lap, when Christijan Albers spun his Minardi into a wall at Mirabeau, blocking about two-thirds of the width of the track. David Coulthard, arriving behind him, swerved and successfully stopped his Red Bull without damage; however, Michael Schumacher plowed into Coulthard, breaking off his own nosecone and damaging the Red Bull's suspension beyond repair. As more drivers reached the blocked turn, the Safety Car was deployed so that marshals could remove Albers' car.

Both Renault drivers pitted immediately, but Räikkönen - acting on instructions from McLaren chief strategist Neil Martin - continued on in what was to prove a winning move.^[1] Though this seemingly put Räikkönen in a bad spot, as all of his close competitors had pitted, he fought back with a series of brilliant laps that would give him a 34.7-second lead by the time he pitted on lap 42. Alonso, whose car was substantially slower as it was full of fuel, and whose rear tyres were wearing rapidly, was unable to catch up, and Räikkönen, after pitting, returned to the track still 13 seconds ahead. He would go on to win the race having led every lap of it. Liuzzi, meanwhile, had pulled into the pits with a smoky engine failure.

Nick Heidfeld worked his way up from sixth grid position, passing his own teammate in the pits after Williams called him in a lap earlier whilst Alonso was badly holding the two Williams drivers up. After Heidfeld's stop, a superb overtaking manoeuvre into the Nouvelle chicane put him ahead of Alonso. Webber tried to follow suit a lap later, but on the first attempt Alonso cut the corner and stayed in front. On the second attempt Alonso cut the corner again, this time clearly intentionally, but Webber eventually succeeded in overtaking him and claiming his first career podium in Formula One and scoring Williams last double podium finish until the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix over nine years later. Alonso straggled into fourth, his rear tyres almost entirely bald. Montoya advanced from sixteenth on the grid to an eventual fifth, finishing on Alonso's tail, followed by Michael and Ralf Schumacher, who crossed the line almost side-by-side.

Both Red Bull Racing cars ran with the Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith Livery and, for this race, the Red Bull Racing pit crew dressed up as Imperial Stormtroopers. It didn't help the team's fortunes, as this was the first race where they failed to score points.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1 order	Q1 time	Q1 pos	Q1+Q2 time
1	9	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	18	1:13.644	1	2.30.325
2	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	17	1:14.125	2	2.30.406
3	7	Mark Webber	Williams-BMW	13	1:14.584	3	2.31.656
4	6	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	14	1:14.783	4	2.32.100
5	16	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	16	1:15.189	7	2.32.590
6	8	Nick Heidfeld	Williams-BMW	9	1:15.128	6	2.32.883
7	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Cosworth	11	1:15.329	8	2.33.867
8	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	4	1:16.186	11	2.34.736
9	11	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber-Petronas	5	1:15.921	9	2.34.936
10	2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	10	1:16.142	10	2.34.983
11	12	Felipe Massa	Sauber-Petronas	8	1:16.218	12	2.35.120
12	15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Red Bull-Cosworth	1	1:16.817	13	2.37.152
13	20	Patrick Friesacher	Minardi-Cosworth	2	1:18.574	14	2.40.810
14	21	Christijan Albers	Minardi-Cosworth	3	1:19.229	15	2.42.206
15	18	Tiago Monteiro	Jordan-Toyota	7	1:19.408	16	2.43.078
16	10	Juan Pablo Montoya#	McLaren-Mercedes	12	1:14.858	5	NO TIME
17	19	Narain Karthikeyan*	Jordan-Toyota	6	1:19.474	17	2.43.422
18	17	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	15	-	18	NO TIME
Sources:[2][3]

* = Narain Karthikeyan had an engine change

# = Montoya's Saturday time of 1:14.858 deleted as punishment for role in earlier practice accident

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	9	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	78	1:45:15.556	1	10
2	8	Nick Heidfeld	Williams-BMW	78	+13.877	6	8
3	7	Mark Webber	Williams-BMW	78	+18.484	3	6
4	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	78	+36.487	2	5
5	10	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren-Mercedes	78	+36.647	16	4
6	17	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	78	+37.117	18	3
7	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	78	+37.223	8	2
8	2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	78	+37.570	10	1
9	12	Felipe Massa	Sauber-Petronas	77	+1 Lap	11
10	16	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	77	+1 Lap	5
11	11	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber-Petronas	77	+1 Lap	9
12	6	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	77	+1 Lap	4
13	18	Tiago Monteiro	Jordan-Toyota	75	+3 Laps	15
14	21	Christijan Albers	Minardi-Cosworth	73	+5 Laps	14
Ret	15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Red Bull-Cosworth	59	Mechanical	12
Ret	20	Patrick Friesacher	Minardi-Cosworth	29	Accident	13
Ret	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Cosworth	23	Collision damage	7
Ret	19	Narain Karthikeyan	Jordan-Toyota	18	Hydraulics	17
Source:[4]

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Fernando Alonso 49 2 Kimi Räikkönen 27 3 Jarno Trulli 26 4 Mark Webber 18 5 Ralf Schumacher 17

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Renault 63 2 McLaren-Mercedes 51 3 Toyota 43 4 Williams-BMW 35 5 Ferrari 21

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References