Rubens Barrichello won the second Grand Prix of his career at the Nurburgring in Germany today. Starting from fourth place the Brazilian passed his Ferrari teammate and both of the Williams drivers in the first three turns of the newly modified Mercedes Arena section of the track. After that there was no stopping him and he lead all the way to the chequered flag, not even giving up P1 during his pit stops.
| Position | Driver | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rubens Barrichello (BR) | Ferrari | 10 |
| 2 | Michael Schumacher (D) | Ferrari | 6 |
| 3 | Kimi Raikkonen (FIN) | McLaren Mercedes | 4 |
| 4 | Ralf Schumacher (D) | Williams BMW | 3 |
| 5 | Jenson Button (GB) | Renault | 2 |
| 6 | Felipe Massa (BR) | Sauber Petronas | 1 |
| Fastest Qualifier: Juan Pablo Montoya (COL) | |||
Complete GP of Europe results.
Michael Schumacher looked strong in the early laps but fell in behind his teammate in another apparent stage-managed Ferrari 1-2 finish (see related opinion). The only difference was that this time instead of Barrichello being asked to move over it was Schumacher who was told to stay behind his teammate and not to try to overtake him. Maybe this was to appease the FIA who will be discussing Ferrari’s Austrian tactics in Paris on Wednesday and maybe it was just a case of giving Barrichello his due but either way it was not much of a race.
There was, however, plenty of excitement off-track as speculation ran rife over whether or not Jean Todt would again tell Barrichello to move over and let his teammate pass. The U.S. Speed Channel commentators and the German world feed director were obviously enthralled with the possibilities as the discussion and the camera kept focussing on the two buttons on Todt’s belt which allow him to talk to each of his drivers.
Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren) made his second visit of the season to the podium in third with Ralf Schumacher (Williams) 20 seconds behind him in fourth. Jenson Button (Renault) was fifth with Felipe Massa barely holding off his Sauber teammate Nick Heidfeld for sixth place and the final championship point.
For the third GP in a row Juan Pablo Montoya qualified his Williams on the pole and then failed to finish. This time it was a collision with David Coulthard’s McLaren that put both of them out of the running rather than the mechanical failures which had ended his two previous outings. Montoya and Coulthard had been running fourth and fifth at the time and Montoya, who appeared to have handling problems, had been holding Coulthard up for several laps as third-placed Ralf Schumacher started to get away from them.
Coulthard tried to get around the outside of Montoya at Turn One but Montoya slid wide around the sharp hairpin and his left-rear wheel collected Coulthard’s right-front causing terminal suspension damage to both cars. The incident had important implications in the world championship : Montoya’s DNF allowed Ralf Schumacher to break their second place tie for points while Coulthard’s allowed Barrichello to move level with him in fourth place.
To everyone’s surprise the newly redesigned first few turns that make up the Mercedes Arena complex did not cause as many problems as expected and, apart from the two Jordans making contact and spinning slowly around, the field got through cleanly on the usually accident prone first lap.