2005 JAPANESE GP
SUZUKA MCLAREN MP4-20 (1ST)
This has to be number one. “Raikkonen’s greatest race,” proclaimed Autosport’s cover, while reporter Mark Hughes described it as “the greatest grand prix in living memory”. Thanks to rain hitting the single-lap qualifying session, Raikkonen lined up 17th, with outgoing world champion Michael Schumacher 14th and his successor Fernando Alonso in 16th.
All three made brilliant progress on the first lap, Schumacher coming round in seventh,
Alonso eighth and Raikkonen 12th. “That was a product of bold, incisive racecraft, each of them finding gaps in the places supposedly off-limits to feasibility,” wrote Hughes.
Crucially, they were helped by Juan Pablo Montoya crashing his Mclaren and bringing out the safety car. That meant Ralf Schumacher’s polesitting and three-stopping Toyota didn’t have enough laps to build up a buffer over its twostopping rivals, and essentially made Giancarlo Fisichella favourite for victory in his Renault.
After his lap-one climb, Raikkonen picked off Felipe Massa, Antonio Pizzonia, Jacques Villeneuve and Christian Klien. He then gained ground during the stops and found himself following Schumacher, with Alonso behind. After 29 of the 53 laps, they were running together in fourth, fifth and sixth.
Schumacher defended well, but Raikkonen went around the outside of him at Turn 1 on lap 30. The put him fourth, 17.6s behind leader Fisichella.
The Renault made its final stop with 15 laps to go. Raikkonen went seven laps longer, allowing him to leapfrog Jenson Button (BAR) and Mark Webber’s Williams to run second. With seven laps to go the Mclaren was 5.5s behind Fisichella.
“Kimi began lapping at an extraordinary rate,” wrote Hughes. “It was a stunning effort that seemed to blow Fisi’s resolve.”
With three laps to go the gap was half a second, and Fisichella helped Raikkonen’s cause by defending into the chicane when he didn’t need to.
He did so again on the penultimate lap, going in too deep and running wide. The charging Raikkonen stormed to the left on the run down to the first corner on the final lap, sweeping around the outside to complete a stunning drive to victory.
“Suzuka in 2005 was in many ways a special race,” says Raikkonen, while Paddy Lowe, part of the Mclaren engineering team that year, agrees it was the Finn at his zenith: “That was a fantastic win – probably Kimi’s best ever race. I’d say that was Kimi at his peak in 2005.”