Raikkonen Takes Dramatic Win, Schumacher Grabs Title

Michael Schumacher wrapped up his seventh World Championship despite finishing second behind Finn Kimi Raikkonen in an incident-filled Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Raikkonen completed his team’s return to form with a controlled drive to stay ahead of second-placed Schumacher in a stop-start 44-lap race that was interrupted by three safety car periods.

But second was good enough for Schumacher, who has won 12 races so far this season, as he finished ahead of Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello to clinch the title with four races left to run.

Brazilian Felipe Massa and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella claimed fourth and fifth respectively for Sauber with Austrian Christian Klien claiming his first Formula One points in sixth for Jaguar.

Scot David Coulthard, who suffered two offs during his eventful race, passed Frenchman Olivier Panis’s Toyota for seventh in the final laps to hand McLaren a double points finish.

But it was a disastrous race for Renault and BAR-Honda, the two teams battling for second place in the championship, as they saw all of their cars retire as punctures caused problems throughout the field.

Italian Jarno Trulli got a clean get-away from pole in his Renault but Schumacher allowed not only the second Renault of Fernando Alonso to move past into second but also David Coulthard’s McLaren through into third.

Behind them Raikkonen and Massa had a minor incident as the field went through the tight La Source hairpin but they were able to continue running and all the cars managed to make it through the first corner.

But as the field headed up the hill from Eau Rouge Takuma Sato, of BAR-Honda, and Jaguar driver Mark Webber collided, Gianmaria Bruni spun his Minardi to a halt and Giorgio Pantano crashed his Jordan into it.

Barrichello was forced to pit after being hit by Webber in the first corner. Massa, Panis, Jenson Button, of BAR, Jordan’s Nick Heidfeld and Minardi’s Zsolt Baumgartner also came in for repairs.

The safety car was brought out and when came in again, at the start of lap five, Raikkonen caught Schumacher by surprise and shot past the Ferrari driver to push him down to fifth.

Schumacher looked to be struggling with his car and Montoya then hassled him before making an impressive move to pass the German on the outside heading into the new Bus Stop chicane and claim fifth place.

Raikkonen, the fastest man on the racetrack, then passed Coulthard for third at the start of lap six and began to close the three-second gap on the two Renaults out in front.

Trulli pitted at the end of lap 10 to leave Alonso in the lead and the Italian came out ninth but it all went wrong for Alonso on the next lap when he suddenly spun, then spun again, and finished in the gravel.

That put Raikkonen into the lead with Coulthard in second, but the Scot then suffered a puncture halfway through the 12th lap and dropped all the way down to 15th before reaching the pits.

Raikkonen pitted straight after Coulthard to leave Montoya in the lead and Schumacher in second while Barrichello worked his way through the field and into 11th place behind Panis.

Montoya stopped at the end of lap 15 to leave Schumacher in front, but only for one lap, because the German pitted the following lap for a straightforward 8.1-seconds stop then passed Trulli out of Blanchimont to claim third.

Trulli then collided with Montoya on lap 21 as the pair headed into the Bus Stop. Montoya tried to pass on the inside but Trulli chopped across him and the incident was immediately put under investigation by the stewards.

Raikkonen remained in the lead with 23 of the 44 laps gone, with Schumacher 11 seconds back in second and Antonio Pizzonia in third for Williams, having gained the place from Montoya following the incident with Trulli.

But Schumacher began to start pushing with 16 laps to go as he set the fastest lap of the race before Raikkonen made his final stop for fuel and tyres at the end of lap 29.

Button then went out when his right rear tyre exploded as he headed up the hill from Eau Rouge and he spun into the Minardi of Zsolt Baumgartner, bringing out the safety car.

Schumacher took advantage of the slower pace of the safety car to make his final pit stop and was able to close right up to the rear of Raikkonen as the pair formed up behind the safety car.

Pizzonia pulled out of the race when his Williams ground to a halt with gearbox problems and the stand-in driver, in possibly his final race as a replacement for the injured Ralf Schumacher, was left almost in tears.

Raikkonen slowed the field down to a crawl as the field prepared for the safety car to come in at the start of lap 35 and was comfortably ahead of Schumacher as the race turned into a ten-lap sprint.

Montoya’s third place was then stolen away by a puncture which caused his retirement on lap 37 and put Barrichello, who had made two early visits to the pits for repairs, into the top three behind Raikkonen and Schumacher.

Coulthard then hit the rear of Klien’s Jaguar and went off as the pair came out of Eau Rouge to force the safety car out of the pits for a third time with six laps to go.

Brazilian Ricardo Zonta saw a certain fourth place finish in only his second race for Toyota go up in smoke when the engine in his car failed with two laps to go after he had climbed through the field from the back of the grid.

But Raikkonen kept control throughout the closing laps and gave himself a large enough buffer to secure a welcome win and see Ferrari beaten for only the second time this year.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS The Belgian Grand Prix Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium; 44 laps; 306.812km; Weather: Cloudy. Classified: Pos Driver Team-Engine Time 1. Raikkonen McLaren-Mercedes (M) 1h32:35.274 2. M.Schumacher Ferrari (B) + 3.131 3. Barrichello Ferrari (B) + 4.371 4. Massa Sauber-Petronas (B) + 12.504 5. Fisichella Sauber-Petronas (B) + 14.144 6. Klien Jaguar-Cosworth (M) + 14.705 7. Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes (M) + 17.970 8. Panis Toyota (M) + 18.693 9. Trulli Renault (M) + 22.115 10. Zonta Toyota (M) + 3 laps 11. Heidfeld Jordan-Ford (B) + 4 laps Fastest Lap: Raikkonen, 1:45.108 Not Classified/Retirements: Driver Team On Lap Montoya Williams-BMW (M) 38 Pizzonia Williams-BMW (M) 32 Button BAR-Honda (M) 30 Baumgartner Minardi-Cosworth (B) 29 Alonso Renault (M) 14 Webber Jaguar-Cosworth (M) 1 Sato BAR-Honda (M) 1 Bruni Minardi-Cosworth (B) 1 Pantano Jordan-Ford (B) 1 World Championship Standing, Round 14: Drivers: Constructors: 1. M.Schumacher 128 * 1. Ferrari 216 * 2. Barrichello 88 2. Renault 91 3. Button 65 3. BAR-Honda 83 4. Trulli 46 4. Williams-BMW 54 5. Alonso 45 5. McLaren-Mercedes 49 6. Montoya 38 6. Sauber-Petronas 28 7. Raikkonen 28 7. Jaguar-Cosworth 10 8. Coulthard 21 8. Toyota 9 9. Sato 18 9. Jordan-Ford 5 10. Fisichella 18 10. Minardi-Cosworth 1 11. R.Schumacher 12 12. Massa 10 13. Webber 7 14. Panis 6 15. Pizzonia 4 16. da Matta 3 17. Heidfeld 3 18. Klien 3 19. Glock 2 20. Baumgartner 1 All timing unofficial