Raikkonen leads from start to finish

Kimi Raikkonen left the startgrid as a bullet to never show himself again to the others, except maybe for doubling them. The McLaren showed magnificent in the hands of the Finn as he was able to pull a big enough gap to Alonso even to stay in front after his first pitstop. Fernando Alonso finished second with Trulli filling up the podium.

As of the start, Alonso and Ralf passed the Williams of Mark Webber who, again, came stuck behind one of the Toyotas during most of the race. At that start both Minardis stalled on the grid and were hard to remove from the track which led to a safetycar situation.

As soon as the SC left the track, Kimi Raikkonen pulled a gap while his teammate Montoya regained his lost place to Schumacher at the end of the main straight. Schumacher was apparently having trouble with getting up to speed at the beginning of the race and would only get into the rythm by lap 15. By that time Montoya was already 5 seconds ahead but stuck behind a little group.

The Columbian started to have problems with his car and came in in consecutive laps, basically ending his chase for a good points finish.

Halfway the race Fisichella had overtaken Alonso because of a long first stint. Both Renaults were then far behind the leader and about 10 seconds ahead of the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher who had set the fastest race lap at the end of a stint that lasted 32 laps.

A few laps later Fisichella put in 2 slow laps and came in for a new nose cone putting him back into 10th place. Michael Schumacher also visited his pitcrew as he suffered a rear left flat tire. When one lap later he ran off the circuit because his left front Bridgestone tire ran flat his race was over and stopped as soon as he came into the pitbox.

This brought Trulli and Ralf (to be named in one breath as they were close by each other all race long) in their final 3rd and 4th position.

Mark Webber eventually finish 6th after being passed by Fisichella with 4 laps to go. Fisico at last showed his position was not a good representation of his form as he put in the lap record in the very final lap.

Barcelona therefore sees Ferrari leave with zero points after Barrichello was unable to get Coulthard off of 8th position. Renault can be happy as both cars finished the race for the first time since the Australian Grand Prix.

Here are the complete results:
1 9 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes Winner 2 5 Fernando Alonso Renault +27.6 secs 3 16 Jarno Trulli Toyota +45.9 secs 4 17 Ralf Schumacher Toyota +46.7 secs 5 6 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault +57.9 secs 6 7 Mark Webber Williams-BMW +68.5 secs 7 10 Juan Pablo Montoya McLaren-Mercedes +1 Lap 8 14 David Coulthard Red Bull Racing +1 Lap 9 2 Rubens Barrichello Ferrari +1 Lap 10 8 Nick Heidfeld Williams-BMW +1 Lap 11 12 Felipe Massa Sauber-Petronas +3 Lap 12 18 Tiago Monteiro Jordan-Toyota +3 Lap 13 19 Narain Karthikeyan Jordan-Toyota +3 Lap Ret 11 Jacques Villeneuve Sauber-Petronas +15 Lap Ret 1 Michael Schumacher Ferrari +20 Laps Ret 21 Christijan Albers Minardi-Cosworth +47 Laps Ret 20 Patrick Friesacher Minardi-Cosworth +55 Laps Ret 15 Vitantonio Liuzzi Red Bull Racing +57 Laps