Best race of the season!
At last we had a fight between Schumacher, Alonso and Raikkonen on track, with Raikkonen coming out on top in style! Both Alonso and Raikkonen made some great overtaking moves, especially on Schumacher - extra especially Alonso's move around the outside at a 130mph corner!
Fisichella must be wondering what happened.. overtaken at the very start of the last lap, resulting in a loss of 4 points to McLaren. Renault could have been in a rosy position going into the Chinese GP next weekend, but instead the gap is only two points. If either Renault or McLaren have two drivers on the podium next weekend, then that team will win the constructors.
R.Schumacher seemed like he had a great chance of winning the race, but those hopes were quickly smashed by the safety car and having to stop extra-early for fuel. Button looked strong until after his second pit-stop, when he lost a place to Webber and was then overtaken by Alonso a few laps later. Even if Raikkonen and Alonso hadn't been able to come through the field, Fisichella would have still beaten Button - that first race win eludes him again.
Williams finally look like they're returning to some good form, with a great driver from Webber to take 4th place - which would have been 3rd if he had kept the fantastic Alonso behind him in the closing laps! Cosworth could potentially provide a very good v8 engine for Williams next season, so this could be the srat of a fine run of results for Webber.
Ferrari - again lacking. Schumacher lead at one point, but it was a false lead as he eventually finished 7th. Barrichello ruined his race at the first corner by running wide and into Sato. It looks like Ferrari will have to wait until next season for a chance to (properly) win a race again.
Two drivers have been punished after the race:
* Villeneuve - 25 seconds were added onto his time as a punishment for running Montoya off the track on the opening lap.
* Sato - disqualified for smashing into Trulli on lap 9. Thankfully this idiot will be out of F1 next season..
Bring on the Chinese GP!
Japanese GP Results Finishers
1. K.Raikkonen. 53 Laps
2. G.Fisichella. +1.6s
3. F.Alonso. +17.4s
4. M.Webber. +22.2s
5. J.Button. +29.5s
6. D.Coulthard. +31.6s
7. M.Schumacher. +33.8s
8. R.Schumacher. +49.5s
9. C.Klien. +51.9s
10. F.Massa. +57.5s
11. R.Barrichello. +60.6s
12. J.Villeneuve. +83.2s
13. T.Monteiro. +1 Lap
14. R.Doornbos. +2 Laps
15. N.Karthikeyan. +2 Laps
16. C.Albers. +4 Laps
Retired
- A.Pizzonia. 9 Laps
- J.Trulli. 9 Laps
- J.P.Montoya. 0 Laps
- T.Sato. DSQ
Fastest Lap
K.Raikkonen - 1:31.540
Points Gained -
Neil - 10
Gert-Jan - 19
Total Points After 18/19 Races
1. Neil. 298.
2. Gert-Jan. 274.
3. Lizzy. 209.
We certainly won't be reaching a similar points total to last season, even though there are more races this season!
1 race left .. 24 points behind. That's a big gap!
I don't really want to miss this race though, as it looks like it could be the race of 2005. 
