Jordan four-stops too!

Both Nick Heidfeld and Giorgio Pantano pitted on four separate occasions despite running to three-stop strategies. Pantano made an extra visit because of a drive-through penalty for exceeding the pit speed limit, while the experienced Heidfeld took his pit crew by surprise, coming in without warning a lap before his scheduled second stop.

"It was not a good race for us today but it's easier to handle as there was no chance for points anyway with most of the cars finishing," said Heidfeld, who has scored points twice this season. "Unfortunately I had a poorer start than my team-mate again and I have tried to analyse that over the last weeks.

"I overtook him after the first pit stop and then later there was a misunderstanding with my engineer so I went through the pit lane once too often and I was behind Giorgio again then passed him again. A difficult race."

Pantano added: "It was good that we finished the race as it's quite a long time since I did that. I had a really good start then I felt some problems with the car especially with braking. Finishing reliably is the positive thing to take from here and then let's get going to the next race."

Technically, Minardi also stopped four times, but only as Gianmaria Bruni was told to pit on his last lap after his gearbox sprung a leak in the closing stages.

"Mechanically, the car was fine, but unfortunately, right close to the end of the race the telemetry indicated there was a gearbox oil leak and the team asked me to come into the pits on the very last lap rather than risk some expensive damage," he said. "It's a shame not to have been able to take the chequered flag today, but we did the most we could."