The 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix (officially the 2005 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 3 April 2005 at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain. The 57-lap race was the third round of the 2005 Formula One season and the second running of the Bahrain Grand Prix, since its inception the year before.
The race was won by polesitter and championship leader Fernando Alonso for the Renault team. Jarno Trulli finished in second place in a Toyota car and Kimi Räikkönen completed the podium in third position for McLaren. Defending World Champion Michael Schumacher having qualified in second place retired from the race early on driving Ferrari's new F2005 car which made its debut at this race. As a result the F2005 became the first new Ferrari Formula One chassis not to win on its debut since the F300 used in the 1998 season.
Friday drivers 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 No Driver McLaren-Mercedes 35 Alexander Wurz Sauber-Petronas - Red Bull-Cosworth 37 Vitantonio Liuzzi Toyota 38 Ricardo Zonta Jordan-Toyota 39 Robert Doornbos Minardi-Cosworth -
Report
Background The race was only the second Formula One Grand Prix held in the Middle East, bringing the challenges of high temperatures and dusty conditions. This race also saw the Grand Prix debut of Scuderia Ferrari's new for 2005 car - the F2005. The race debut of the F2005 had originally not been expected to take place until the Spanish Grand Prix in May but following a team test at the Mugello Circuit the previous week the F2005's race debut was brought forward to the Bahrain event after what the team deemed an unsatisfactory performance at the first two races of the year in Australia and Malaysia with the F2004M, despite the fact Barrichello had scored a podium with second place in Melbourne. The race was held the day after Pope John Paul II died, with several teams and drivers offering their respects, most notably Ferrari, who raced with blackened nose cones as a mark of respect. The celebrations on the podium were also muted.
The circuit had been modified slightly from 2004, with turn 4 in particular being widened on the exit.
Before the race, McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya injured his shoulder. This led to him being replaced by Pedro de la Rosa at this race, and Alexander Wurz at the next one in San Marino, before his return at the .
Qualifying First qualifying on Saturday resulted in few surprises– for the first few drivers, the circuit was still somewhat sandy, providing poor grip, while the later runners performed well, with Fernando Alonso taking provisional pole with a lap time of 1:29.848.
Final qualifying on Sunday morning again passed without major incident, with Alonso taking pole position, and Michael Schumacher taking second, driving the brand-new F2005 car. Rubens Barrichello, having had gearbox problems on Friday and Saturday, qualified 15th, and elected to change his engine, resulting in him starting from the back of the grid.
Race Race afternoon brought the highest ever recorded temperatures experienced at a Grand Prix, with air temperature of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HK7BknccFQ at 1:20 and track temperatures of . This surpassed the record temperatures of the 1955 Argentine Grand Prix and the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix. Christian Klien failed to get away from his seventh position on the grid for the formation lap. His car was pushed into the pits but could not be restarted, and he became the first of eight retirements.
The leaders made a clean start, with Alonso first to turn one. Schumacher moved from his second grid slot across to the clean side of the track, ahead of Jarno Trulli, who made a strong challenge to pass Schumacher in the first two corners, without success. Barrichello made an aggressive start, moving up to tenth by the end of lap one.
Giancarlo Fisichella's engine began to smoke during lap two, and he pulled into the pits to retire. However, as he applied the pit lane speed limiter, he felt power return, and was waved through by his team. But the resurgence was short-lived, and he was back in the pits on lap four to retire. On lap three, Narain Karthikeyan's car suffered an electrical failure that looked similar to Christian Klien's.
Schumacher continued to closely pursue Alonso until lap 12, when the world champion overshot turn nine, and performed a 270° turn in the run-off area. At the end of the lap, Schumacher coasted back to the pits, making this his first mechanical retirement since the 2001 German Grand Prix – a remarkable run of 58 consecutive Grands Prix. It later emerged that the car's hydraulics had failed, meaning he could not downshift to use engine braking for corners. Therefore, Trulli now took second place, 2.7 seconds behind Alonso, with Mark Webber in third.
On lap 18, Ralf Schumacher in fourth place made the first scheduled pit stop of the front-runners, and rejoined in 12th place. Alonso, Trulli and then Webber all pitted over the next few laps, in what appeared to be the now fairly standard three-stop pattern. After the pit stops, Alonso retained the lead, followed by Trulli, Webber, Kimi Räikkönen, Ralf, and Barrichello.
Nick Heidfeld was the next retirement, with a blown engine on lap 25, although it took him around half a lap to pull off the track to stop. He was shortly followed by Takuma Sato, whose front brakes had been smoking for a while, and who spun and then retired in the pits on lap 27. His teammate Jenson Button's brakes also appeared to be giving off more dust than usual, as Button fought to keep Pedro de la Rosa from taking his seventh place. De la Rosa was making his first start for McLaren, replacing the sidelined Juan Pablo Montoya. De la Rosa finally managed to pass Button on lap 33, outbraking him at turn one.
The following lap, Webber lost control out of turn eight, spun on the entrance to turn nine, and allowed Räikkönen and Ralf Schumacher to pass– on a circuit with very forgiving run-off areas, the spin upset the balance of Webber's car and flat-spotted his tyres.
In the next few laps, before the second pit stops, the closest fight was between Barrichello in sixth, and de la Rosa in seventh. De la Rosa continually pressured the remaining Ferrari, but initially he only succeeded in pushing himself too far, running wide at turn one, and allowing Button to close up behind him. Eventually, though, he was able to take sixth place in the final corner.
Alonso put in several fast laps to extend his lead, and pitted on lap 41. The other drivers also pitted without incident, except Button, who stalled his BAR-Honda. After several attempts at restarting the engine, he almost took his rear jack with him back into the race– only to retire at the end of the pit-lane due to a clutch failure, making this the second race in a row where both BAR drivers had retired. After the second round of pit stops, Alonso still led the race, followed by Trulli, Räikkönen, Ralf Schumacher, Webber, de la Rosa, Barrichello, and Felipe Massa.
In the closing stages, the main fight was between Webber and de la Rosa for fifth place. Webber defended strongly, but de la Rosa eventually overcame him two laps from the end of the race. Jacques Villeneuve retired from ninth place into the pits on the penultimate lap, while Barrichello slipped further and further back, allowing Massa to take seventh place and score points in his Sauber team's 200th Grand Prix, and David Coulthard took eighth place on the last lap, making Ferrari scoreless for the first time since the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Alonso won the race by a comfortable 13.4 seconds from Trulli, bringing Renault engines their 100th World Championship Grand Prix win.
Classification
Qualifying Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Total Gap Grid 1 5 Fernando Alonso Renault 1:29.848 1:32.054 3:01.902 1 2 1 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:30.237 1:32.120 3:02.357 + 0.455 2 3 16 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:29.993 1:32.667 3:02.660 + 0.758 3 4 8 Nick Heidfeld Williams-BMW 1:30.390 1:32.827 3:03.217 + 1.315 4 5 7 Mark Webber Williams-BMW 1:30.592 1:32.670 3:03.262 + 1.360 5 6 17 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:30.952 1:32.319 3:03.271 + 1.369 6 7 15 Christian Klien Red Bull-Cosworth 1:30.646 1:32.723 3:03.369 + 1.467 7 8 10 Pedro de la Rosa McLaren-Mercedes 1:30.725 1:32.648 3:03.373 + 1.471 8 9 9 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 1:30.594 1:32.930 3:03.524 + 1.622 9 10 6 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:30.445 1:33.320 3:03.765 + 1.863 10 11 3 Jenson Button BAR-Honda 1:30.957 1:33.319 3:04.348 + 2.446 11 12 12 Felipe Massa Sauber-Petronas 1:30.933 1:34.269 3:05.202 + 3.300 12 13 4 Takuma Sato BAR-Honda 1:31.113 1:34.450 3:05.563 + 3.661 13 14 14 David Coulthard Red Bull-Cosworth 1:31.211 1:34.633 3:05.844 + 3.942 14 15 2 Rubens Barrichello Ferrari 1:31.826 1:35.867 3:07.693 + 5.791 20 16 11 Jacques Villeneuve Sauber-Petronas 1:32.318 1:35.665 3:07.983 + 6.081 15 17 18 Tiago Monteiro Jordan-Toyota 1:33.424 1:36.004 3:09.428 + 7.526 16 18 19 Narain Karthikeyan Jordan-Toyota 1:33.190 1:36.953 3:10.143 + 8.241 17 19 21 Christijan Albers Minardi-Cosworth 1:34.005 1:36.417 3:10.422 + 8.520 18 20 20 Patrick Friesacher Minardi-Cosworth 1:34.848 1:36.413 3:11.261 + 9.359 19 Notes – Rubens Barrichello started from the back of the grid due to an engine change in parc fermé. – Christijan Albers and Patrick Friesacher received a 10-place grid penalty for engine changes.
Race Pos No Driver Constructor Tyre Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 5 Fernando Alonso Renault 57 1:29:18.531 1 10 2 16 Jarno Trulli Toyota 57 +13.409 3 8 3 9 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 57 +32.063 9 6 4 17 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 57 +53.272 6 5 5 10 Pedro de la Rosa McLaren-Mercedes 57 +1:04.988 8 4 6 7 Mark Webber Williams-BMW 57 +1:14.701 5 3 7 12 Felipe Massa Sauber-Petronas 56 +1 lap 12 2 8 14 David Coulthard Red Bull-Cosworth 56 +1 lap 14 1 9 2 Rubens Barrichello Ferrari 56 +1 lap 20 10 18 Tiago Monteiro Jordan-Toyota 55 +2 laps 16 11 11 Jacques Villeneuve Sauber-Petronas 54 Suspension 15 12 20 Patrick Friesacher Minardi-Cosworth 54 +3 laps 19 13 21 Christijan Albers Minardi-Cosworth 53 +4 laps 18 3 Jenson Button BAR-Honda 46 Clutch 11 4 Takuma Sato BAR-Honda 27 Brakes 13 8 Nick Heidfeld Williams-BMW 25 Engine 4 1 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 12 Hydraulics 2 6 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 4 Engine 10 19 Narain Karthikeyan Jordan-Toyota 2 Electrical 17 15 Christian Klien Red Bull-Cosworth 0 Electrical 7
Championship standings after the race
Drivers' Championship standings Driver Points 1 Fernando Alonso 26 1 2 Jarno Trulli 16 1 3 Giancarlo Fisichella 10 4 4 Ralf Schumacher 9 5 David Coulthard 9Source:
Constructors' Championship standings Constructor Points 1 Renault 36 2 Toyota 25 3 3 McLaren-Mercedes 19 1 4 Williams-BMW 13 2 5 Red Bull-Cosworth 12Source:
Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.
References