Schumi on top at Suzuka
Reinforced by a new skull at his necklace and being highly motivated after a poor performance at Shangai two weeks ago, Michael Schumacher took the lead at the start and was never under threat during the whole race. The podium was completed by his brother Ralf and Jenson Button.
During a fairly clean start with no collisions at all, third placed Mark Webber lost three places while both Renaults again both gained two places. Other than that there were little or no changes, apart from top drivers who were starting in the back because of the wet qualifying session.
While Schumacher steadily increased the advantage to his competitors, his brother Ralf was all on his own as well as he drove away from 3rd positioned home driver Takuma Sato.
As soon as a few laps went by, it was clear that Jacques Villeneuve was slowing his teammate Alonso and several other cars behind him. The Canadian afterwards said he had to deal with a considerable amount of understeer and that changes during his pitstops only partially solved the problem. Jacques ended the race tenth, behind both Saubers who drove an excellent race.
There were little other battles in the race, with exception of some nice overtakings by Fisichella and Barrichello in the first corner after the finish line.
That same Rubens Barrichello later tried to overtake Coulthard in the chicane. Barrichello made his move and dived up the inside; a move he later admitted was optimistic and led to both men retiring with broken suspension.
Zsolt Baumgartner was the third of the four retirements after spinning off the circuit in his Minardi nine laps from the end.
Mark Webber saw his race ended in the 21st lap as a result of strange overheating in his cockpit. The team poured cold water into the cockpit when Webber made his first stop on lap 12 in an attempt to cool it down but the temperature rose quickly again when he rejoined the race, and with the buckle of his seatbelt red hot and starting to burn his skin, he had no alternative but to retire. At the time of writing, the team had yet to pinpoint the cause of the problem.
On the podium together with both Schumachers was again Jenson Button after passing his teammate Sato because of his two stop strategy. Other people in the points were a good Alonso in 5th and Kimi Raikkonen in 6th place, a result of what he quoted "a race to forget".
The complete results are as follows:
1 M. Schumacher Ferrari 1:24:26.985
2 R. Schumacher Williams + 14.098
3 J. Button BAR + 19.662
4 T. Sato BAR + 31.781
5 F. Alonso Renault + 37.767
6 K. Räikkönen McLaren + 39.362
7 JP. Montoya Williams + 55.347
8 G. Fisichella Sauber + 56.276
9 F. Massa Sauber + 1:29.656
10 J. Villeneuve Renault + 1 laps
11 J. Trulli Toyota + 1 laps
12 C. Klien Jaguar + 1 laps
13 N. Heidfeld Jordan + 1 laps
14 O. Panis Toyota + 2 laps
15 T. Glock Jordan + 2 laps
16 G. Bruni Minardi + 3 laps
17 Z. Baumgartner Minardi + 11 laps DNF
18 D. Coulthard McLaren + 14 laps DNF
19 R. Barrichello Ferrari + 14 laps DNF
20 M. Webber Jaguar + 32 laps DNF
