Juan Pablo Montoya scored his first Grand Prix win of the season when he led home championship leader Fernando Alonso at a sunny Silverstone on Sunday. In front of a capacity crowd, the Colombian McLaren driver rarely had much more than a seven season lead over the Spaniard, but was never seriously challenged for the lead.

Behind them, Kimi Raikkonen salvaged third place after another ten place engine penalty on the grid, after Giancarlo Fisichella again stalled at a pit stop. Behind fifth placed Jenson Button, Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello took a difficult sixth and seventh place with Ralf Schumacher scooping the final point.

The Ferrari pair picked up a place on the grid when Takuma Sato was delayed at the start, but it was at the front of the field that attention was focused as Alonso led into the first from Montoya who overtook Button, but Montoya then swooped on the Spaniard and took him at Becketts to lead the first lap – but a pace car came out following Sato’s problems, although it soon went in. Behind Montoya, Alonso and Button, Barrichello was initially in fourth place from Fisichella, then came Jarno Trulli, soon to have Michael Schumacher, Raikkonen and Ralf Schumacher close behind. Villeneuve led the rest.

In the opening stint, Montoya’s lead was never more than 1.5s from Alonso, but the gap grew between Alonso and Button. However, the Briton was shadowed all the way by Barrichello in fifth place, who in turn was shadowed by Fisichella, at a distance of around three seconds. Trulli, Michael Schumacher and Raikkonen remained close throughout the first stint. Barrichello was the first to pit on a three stop strategy at 17 laps, and fell to behind Ralf Schumacher. Button was the first of the two stoppers on lap 20, when Trulli also came in to Michael Schumacher’s relief, although he still had Raikkonen pushing him. Ralf Schumacher pitted on lap 21. Montoya came in on lap 22 and Alonso a lap later, but the McLaren driver just remained in the lead from the Renault driver. Michael Schumacher came on lap 24, Fisichella a lap later and then Raikkonen, who emerged ahead of Michael Schumacher. Both, however, had overtaken Trulli during the stops.

Montoya opened up a gap of 7.1s in the middle sector, thanks largely due to poor blue-flagging which delayed Alonso. Fisichella had come out ahead of Button, who was being pushed by the three stopping Barrichello, until he pitted for his second stop on lap 32. Raikkonen then picked up a place to fifth, but leaving Michael Schumacher behind, who now found himself ahead of Barrichello. The Toyotas were next.

On lap 43, the second round of pit stops began, with Button pitting first of all, then Montoya on the next lap, followed by Raikkonen on lap 45, and then Fisichella on lap 46. But for the second race running Fisichella stalled again during his stop and slipped behind Raikkonen. Alonso was the last to pit and came out right just behind Montoya, having cut the Colombian’s lead to 1.8s. In the final stages, Montoya managed to raise his lead to 2.7s, the margin at the chequered flag.
 

Alonso was second, while Raikkonen drove another blistering race to third place. Fisichella salvaged fourth place from Button who was a distant and disappointing fifth. Michael Schumacher was a more distant sixth from teammate Barrichello, both drivers lacking grip, while Ralf Schumacher for once finished ahead of teammate Trulli. Amazingly, there was just one retirement: Narain Karthikeyan.

Jean Todt : “I said yesterday that we could expect a difficult race and that getting both our cars home in the points was our only realistic target. Unfortunately, that is how things turned out. We are not capable of matching the pace of the leaders and the final result is a reasonably accurate reflection of the current pecking order here at Silverstone today. The only satisfying point to take away from here is the level of reliability we demonstrated this afternoon.”

Michael Schumacher : “Of course, I cannot be happy to have finished sixth, especially looking at my lap times in the race. Clearly, we are simply not fast enough at the moment. If I had not been delayed by Trulli, I might have been able to fight with Button, but I am not keen on using the word “if” as an excuse. If you compare our performance from the two North American races to these last two, we appear to be going backwards instead of forwards. We are not up to the level of our competitors. I am still looking forward to my home race in Hockenheim, but I wish I could promise the fans there a bit more than this.”

Rubens Barrichello : “This was quite a difficult race. Basically, we did not have the pace which we thought we might have. I made a good start and I knew I had to pass Trulli at this point if my race was going to go to plan. It was all going pretty smoothly apart from the fact I was held up by Button which cost me time. This meant that the three stop strategy I had adopted did not work out the way it should have done. I had some brake problems, as at Magny-Cours. But seeing how the race evolved, I don’t think I could have done much better.”

Ross Brawn : “Obviously this was a disappointing race. We went through practice and qualifying hoping that it would all come together in the race, but once again today, it was difficult. Our drivers were reasonably happy with their cars, it’s just that they simply lacked overall pace. There were no particular problems, although there were a couple of stages when we got held up, including the early part when Michael got delayed by Trulli, but I am not sure that we could have done better.”

British Grand Prix Details: Michael Schumacher: 6th +1.15.522 60 laps chassis 245; Rubens Barrichello: 7th +1.16.567 60 laps chassis 246; Temperatures: air 26/28 °C, track 37/39 °C