By Nattiecy
June 4 2005

Fernando Alonso claimed victory of the European Grand Prix,after a thrilling last lap with Kimi Raikkonen, who led the race up to that point, having a suspension failure.Local hero Nick Heidfeld of Williams BMW snatched a 2nd consecutive 2nd place,and 3rd was Ferrari's Rubens Barichello.

Kimi Raikkonen's incident on the last lap brings out a new topic..The new rule concerning tyres gave a little bit of a hard time to many this season.A set of tyres must last an entire race.It is up to the teams now to select which compound would be better for their cars. Mclaren chose a softer tyre compound and after Kimi abused them,they caused problems to the car. Williams on the other hand,chose a harder compound and did not face any tyre problems.

The rule though is not so definite.The teams are allowed to change tyres only in the case of damage.McLaren could have brought Kimi in for a tyre change,but there are no clear specifications about when a tyre is damaged and when the driver can go to the pits for a change.

Kimi though was having problems with his right front tyre cause he had flatspotted it many times.It was mostly his fault for putting too much pressure on his tyre,causing it to vibrate and make the car unbalanced.Kimi's driving throughout the race was not very disciplined and on lap 30 he went off the track to let Nick Heidfeld take 1st place,but only to lose it one lap later due to his pitstop. Kimi continued to flatspot the tyre, and in the final laps, you could easily see that the tyre was vibrating awfully. Eventually that caused a suspension failure and Kimi was out of the race in the final lap, letting Fernando take the victory and the 10 points to extend his championship lead.

The Canadian Grand Prix is coming up in two weeks, and Fernando Alonso with 59 points is top in the Driver's Championship standings,extending his gap from Kimi Raikkonen to 32 points. Jarno Trulli is in joint second also with 27 points, the same as Raikkonen.

Christian Klien is returning to the action at Canada, once more swapping seats with Vitantonio
Liuzzi.

Nattiecy