Kimi Raikkonen retired on lap 13 of the German GP after a rear wing failure on his car. Kimi set a new lap record and the fastest lap of the race with a time of 1:13.780.
David Coulthard was on a three stop strategy, stopping on laps 10 (7.6 seconds), 28 (7.6 seconds) and 47 (8.3 seconds). Kimi stopped on lap 11 (8.9 seconds). David is now seventh in the Driver’s World Championship with 19 points ahead of Kimi who has a total of 18 points. Team McLaren Mercedes is fifth in the Constructor’s Championship with 37 points.
KIMI RAIKKONEN “Obviously I’m extremely disappointed as things were looking good, and there was no doubt that we were in with a good chance of winning the race. I lost a place at the start to Alonso as he was extremely fast off the line, but I retook second place a few laps later and was able to keep up with Michael. I was quicker than him after my first pitstop and only needed a few more laps to be able to mount a real challenge for the lead. All of a sudden I just lost downforce and then I was a passenger. It’s never nice not to finish a race, but at least we know that the pace is there. We are competitive and I’m looking forward to continue our challenge for victory in three weeks time in Hungary.”
DAVID COULTHARD “I had some balance problems throughout the race following the incident on the first lap when Barrichello hit me from behind at the first corner. In addition I picked up some debris from Kimi’s accident which broke the deflector on my front wing. The team worked hard in the pitstops to try and dial out the understeer, but the problems continued. I was looking forward to mounting a real challenge for the podium today, but it just wasn’t possible.”
RON DENNIS “Obviously we are disappointed particularly as we had a real chance of winning the race, but there is no doubt that we have taken a great step forward. Kimi retired with a structural failure on his rear wing – the reason for which we will investigate thoroughly. As it was a manufacturing mistake rather than a design problem there was no danger of the same thing happening to David. However his race was hampered when he picked up some debris which damaged his front wing and deflector quite early on. We are now all looking forward to the three week break and the Hungarian Grand Prix.”
NORBERT HAUG “Kimi was closing the gap to Michael Schumacher with a good chance of an attack when his rear wing broke. The reason for this we have to investigate. David’s performance was hampered after Barrichello had hit him and slightly damaged the rear of his car. In addition to this David had a problem with his deflector, which was broken after he had picked up some debris. So he couldn’t do better than fourth place in the end. It’s a pity that we couldn’t turn our speed into a podium finish today. ”
Pos - Driver - Team - Race Time
1 Michael Schumacher Scuderia Ferrari 1h23m54.848 2 Jenson Button BAR Honda 1h24m03.236 3 Fernando Alonso Renault 1h24m11.199 4 David Coulthard Team McLaren Mercedes 1h24m14.079 5 Juan Pablo Montoya Williams BMW 1h24m17.903 6 Mark Webber Jaguar Cosworth 1h24m35.956 7 Antonio Pizzonia Williams BMW 1h24m36.804 8 Takuma Sato BAR Honda 1h24m41.690 9 Giancarlo Fisichella Sauber 1h25m01.950 10 Christian Klien Jaguar Cosworth 1h25m03.426 11 Jarno Trulli Renault 1h25m05.106 12 Rubens Barrichello Scuderia Ferrari 1h25m08.100 13 Felipe Massa Sauber 1h24m15.001 14 Olivier Panis Toyota 1h24m29.351 15 Giorgio Pantano Jordan Ford 1h23m58.555 16 Zsolt Baumgartner Minardi Cosworth 1h24m07.080 17 Gianmaria Bruni Minardi Cosworth 1h25m09.155
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