Selfless Assistants
For a big part of the French GP, Ferrari looked set for another 1-2 finish, but Fernando Alonso seemed to pull a rabbit out of his hat and managed to finish second behind Michael Schumacher. Richard Barnes analyses the Spaniard's performance and the influence of teammates on the championship
What a difference one pitstop makes. Or, at least, what a difference the lack of one pitstop can make. For the first two stints of Sunday's French Grand Prix, it looked like Renault's and Michelin's woes at Indianapolis wouldn't just be a one-off after all, and that the 2006 championships may yet be far from settled.
Despite an aggressive but futile first-lap effort to get past Ferrari's Felipe Massa from the second row of the grid, it soon became obvious that not only could Renault's Fernando Alonso not stay with Felipe Massa - he was also struggling to put daylight between himself and the next-best Bridgestone runner, Toyota's Jarno Trulli.
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