BMW Sauber
Robert Kubica, 1m 17.539s, P1
Nick Heidfeld, 1m 17.430s, P2
Kubica kept Raikkonen at bay going into Turn One at the start, but could not keep up initially with Hamilton as his tyre pressures were not right and lost him grip. His second set of tyres was much better and he was able to drive ‘several qualifying laps’ once he had fought clear of all the single-stoppers who held him up after the safety car intervention. With a faster two-stop strategy it was clear he had to pass Heidfeld, and the German admitted that he didn’t make it hard for the Pole to do that. Heidfeld was very quick on the soft tyres in the opening stages, and set the race’s second fastest lap. BMW Sauber’s superb one-two netted them 18 points and thrust them back ahead of McLaren in the constructors’ championship, only three points adrift of leaders Ferrari. Theirs was a massively popular victory.
Red Bull
David Coulthard, 1m 18.085s, P3
Mark Webber, 1m 18.201s, P10
Coulthard’s single-stop strategy worked superbly for Red Bull, and after Heidfeld and Barrichello finally stopped for fuel he led for a lap and came out still in contention for the final podium finish. He got it once Alonso had spun. Webber looked strong early on with a two-stop strategy, but lost too much time as the single stoppers ran so long and fell back to a disappointed 12th place finish.
Toyota
Timo Glock, 1m 19.087s, P4
Jarno Trulli, 1m 18.870s, P6
Toyota’s similar strategy yielded a nice haul of eight points, with Glock breaking his duck in fourth and Trulli sixth. There was a point where the Italian was fending off Felipe Massa, only to get baulked by his team mate as the German made a mistake exiting the first corner. As Trulli had to get out of the throttle, the Brazilian pounced to split the Japanese cars in the finishing order.
Ferrari
Felipe Massa, 1m 18.006s, P5
Kimi Raikkonen, 1m 17.387s, retired lap 19, rear-ended by Hamilton
Ferrari looked strong initially, with Raikkonen setting the fastest lap on soft tyres as he hounded Kubica early on. Then came the incident when Hamilton ran into the back of him while he was stationary at the red light at the exit to the pits. The impact removed his rear wing, and that was that. Compounding Ferrari’s frustration, Massa’s refuelling rig suffered a broken joint in the fuel line that same lap, necessitating a further stop next time around which threw him to the back of the field. His climb back to fifth was one of the race’s highlights, in particular his double pass on Barrichello and Kovalainen at the hairpin.
| 
|