2005 Japanese Grand Prix

The bottom 6 teams in the 2004 Constructors' Championship were entitled to run a third car in free practice on Friday. These drivers drove on Friday but did not compete in qualifying or the race.

Constructor	Nat	Driver
McLaren-Mercedes		Pedro de la Rosa
Sauber-Petronas		-
Red Bull-Cosworth		Vitantonio Liuzzi
Toyota		Ricardo Zonta
Jordan-Toyota		Sakon Yamamoto
Minardi-Cosworth		-

The 2005 Japanese Grand Prix was the eighteenth race of the 2005 Formula One season. A wet qualifying led Toyota's Ralf Schumacher to qualify on pole, which would be the last pole position of his career. Meanwhile, the typical frontrunners qualified further down the grid.

The race started off with Ralf Schumacher leading and Fisichella getting ahead of Button while Takuma Sato and Rubens Barrichello went off the track and collided resulting in the Brazilian suffering a left rear puncture. Meanwhile, Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher and both McLaren drivers were making quick progress through the field. Towards the end of lap 1, a safety car was deployed when Juan Montoya's car went off track at the beginning of the pit straight. He tried to go around the outside of Villeneuve, who pushed him off, resulting in a 25 sec penalty at the end of the race for the Canadian. Montoya's crash affected the Constructors' Championship as it meant that only Räikkönen could score points for McLaren.

After the safety car, the remaining favourites that had started from the back continued to make progress. Alonso tried to pass Christian Klien into the final chicane but went off, coming back to the track ahead of him. He gave the position back only to repass Klien back immediately by getting back into his slipstream. Race stewards came on to the radio telling the Renault team to let Klien back past again, so Alonso did. By this time he was four and a half seconds behind Michael Schumacher, but he closed that gap with ease, while Räikkönen got right behind them too.

In the first round of pitstops, Ralf Schumacher pitted very early and went down to eighth position while Giancarlo Fisichella took a comfortable lead. Well behind Fisichella, Alonso and Räikkönen were putting pressure on Michael Schumacher. Alonso, with the lightest car of the trio, went around the outside of Schumacher through 130R corner on lap 20, but needed to pit briefly after making the pass. Michael Schumacher and Kimi Räikkönen continued scrapping for a couple more laps before their pitstops, both of them rejoining the track ahead of Coulthard and Alonso. Laps later Räikkönen passed Schumacher and closed in on Button and Webber. Alonso passed Schumacher for the second time and by this point he started to close in on Räikkönen, who was stuck behind Webber and Button. Fisichella still looked favourite to win the grand prix, as he was 20 seconds ahead of the chasing pack. Alonso, running lighter again, needed to pit earlier than the rest of this pack. Fisichella pitted next and rejoined right behind Button, Webber and Räikkönen.

Button and Webber pitted, Webber got out ahead of Button and they both got out ahead of Fernando Alonso. Räikkönen, finally with a clear track ahead, set a series of fastest laps, the best being a 1:31.540, and then pitted. By then he was only 5 seconds behind Fisichella and was closing on the Renault. Meanwhile, Alonso had got past Button who was slipping back to Coulthard and Michael Schumacher. Alonso then passed Webber for third. Up the road, Räikkönen was now right on the tail of race leader Fisichella. With 3 laps to go, Fisichella went defensive under braking at the Casio Triangle, which allowed Räikkönen to get a tow on the pit straight. Fisichella defended but the story repeated next lap, and this time Räikkönen was able to get past around the outside of turn 1 of the final lap.

Räikkönen won the race, taking his final victory for McLaren and the team's 6th win in a row, ahead of Fisichella, Alonso, Webber, Button, Coulthard, Michael Schumacher, and Ralf Schumacher. Post-race saw the disqualification of Takuma Sato after an earlier collision with Jarno Trulli.

• Bold text indicates who still has a theoretical chance of becoming World Champion.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Fernando Alonso 123 2 Kimi Räikkönen 104 3 Michael Schumacher 62 4 Juan Pablo Montoya 60 5 Giancarlo Fisichella 53 Source: [4]

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Renault 176 2 McLaren-Mercedes 174 3 Ferrari 100 4 Toyota 82 5 Williams-BMW 64 Source: [4]

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