The race started amid much fanfare under an impressive new lighting system, with Felipe Massa, who was on pole in a Ferrari, leading his World Championship rival, Lewis Hamilton, in a McLaren Mercedes, with Massa’s team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, third. Alonso set off with what was apparently an ultralight fuel load and initially gained three places before being stuck in traffic.
The Spaniard came in for his first fuel stop before everyone else, on the twelfth lap, and emerged back on the track in last place, 84.5sec behind Massa, the leader. But the race was turned on its head two laps later.
This was when Piquet, who had been struggling throughout his debut season to come close to matching Alonso’s pace, lost control and spun into the barriers near the back of the field. A spectacular crash littered the track with debris, prompting a safety-car period that lasted until lap 20.
Several of Alonso’s rivals, who were running low on fuel, were forced to enter the pitlane when it was closed. When it did open on lap 17, almost all of the others duly filed in for fuel. The safety car had made a mess of pre-race strategies and in the Ferrari garage the most memorable episode of the race then occurred at Massa’s expense.
Needing to fuel both their cars in quick succession, the pitcrew switched their automated signalling equipment to manual, but the operator got his timing wrong and told Massa to leave the pits when the fuel hose was still attached to his car. The Brazilian drove down the pitlane with the hose billowing out behind him before coming to a stop near the exit. He would finish thirteenth.
When the race resumed, Alonso was running in fifth place. Ahead of him, Nico Rosberg, in a Williams, led from Jarno Trulli (Toyota) and Giancarlo Fisichella (Force India), while Robert Kubica (BMW Sauber) was fourth. However, Trulli and Fisichella had yet to stop and Rosberg and Kubica would shortly drop out of contention when informed that they had to take a ten-second stop-go penalty for entering the pits under the safety car when the pitlane was closed.
As all this played out, Alonso duly swept into the lead on lap 28 and was never in any trouble from there, despite a later safety-car interruption.
“I can’t believe it,” he said afterwards. “It was obvious on Friday we were going to be competitive, but then we were unlucky in qualifying and very, very lucky today. I did think about running a one-stop strategy, but all that fuel weight would have been too punishing for the brakes because there are no long straights here to keep them cool. Instead, I chose a short, aggressive first stint and just waited to see what would happen.”
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