It was Raikkonen rather than Alonso who seemed to suffer from the pressure in Qualifying, he locked a front wheel and flat-spotted the tyre and could only manage fifth place, whereas Alonso delivered and put the Renault on pole ahead of Montoya, but the race showed that the Renault was light, stopping six laps ahead of Montoya and nine ahead of Raikkonen.

Schuey qualified eighth and Rubens tenth for Ferrari, but both had a decent amount of fuel on board. It was put about that Ferrari were running 2004 tyres, though this was later clarified as 2004 compounds. As tyres have to last the whole race this year, the '04 compounds are presumably softer, thus giving weight to the notion that this year's Ferrari has lacked downforce, since downforce helps softer tyres to reducing wear by reducing the car sliding about - but there's bound to be more to it than that.

The revelation of Qualifying was Christian Klien, who put his Red Bull into sixth place and he wasn't running light either. It still gladdens my heart to see a young charger in a "smaller" team upsetting the establishment!

There was mayhem at the start of the race when Pizzonia's Williams and Coulthud's Dead Bull became entangled and collected Mark Webber's Williams. This has been an appalling year for Williams and far from what they must have envisaged when they won the final GP of 2004. Next year they will be using Cosworth engines - it's great that this famous firm has a chance to run their new V8 engine - and running on Bridgestone tyres which must help Ferrari. Williams have lost Hewlett Packard's sponsorship, but the financial settlement paid by Jenson Button to wriggle out of his Williams contact will go some way to filling the hole!

I remain a little unconvinced about Button's talents, though he has made some good incisive moves this year - he's a good commentator though! As for Williams' former partner BMW, we'll see if their management can make a better job of running an F1 team than did Ford's. Renault is still very much Benetton born again and presumably Honda, who have just acquired the remainder of BAR, will have the sense to leave well-enough alone, but Honda people are racers anyway.

The start line shunt brought out the Safety Car, which seemed to affect the Renaults more than the McLarens as the race leader Alonso had no answer to Montoya, neither had Schuey for Raikkonen, though we've come to expect that. Raikkonen passed Alonso when the latter made his first pit stop and that pretty well was that, although Rubens did get past Button's BAR which was slow in a straight line. Now that the teams have recovered most of the downforce lost at the start of the year through this year's regulations we no longer have the spectacle of the cars closing up as the drivers struggle on worn-out tyres and the racing has largely gone away again.

For once, Montoya was faultless rather than hapless and he took the win, with Kimi second and Alonso coming home in third which gave him the title. Schuey was fourth, Fisichella fifth and Rubens sixth, which does suggest that Ferrari now has the third quickest car; this was confirmed by both the best and average lap times.

Schuey's new team mate Felipe Massa, another about whom I remain unconvinced, finished 11th, but there is no doubt about the talent of another who is involved with Ferrari. Valentino Rossi put in another spellbinding performance in the Qatar MotoGP. He qualified third and ran in that position for much of the race. He disposed of Movistar Honda rider Marco Melandri by standing the bike up early in the corner before the long straight, which gave him the drive to draft past . Rossi seemed to be able to brake later than anyone into that corner after the straight and he used this technique to pile pressure onto the race leader Sete Gibernau (Melandri's team mate). Sure enough, Gibernau eventually went into the corner way too fast and took a trip through the kitty litter, giving Rossi the lead. Eventually Melandri overcooked it too, which left Rossi to cruise to a comfortable win.

Depending on who you believe, Rossi either has, or has not got a testing agreement with Ferrari for next year. It would be fantastic if his sublime talents did transfer to cars and he joined the Scuderia, though a season with Red Bull Minardi might be a good idea first. Talking of future Ferrari drivers, there are increasing noises that the deal with Raikkonen for 2007 is done, with Schuey retiring at the end of 2006 - if so let us hope he goes out on a high.

Click here to return to the Ferrari Happenings page.

 

 

Three-quarters of the class of 2001 have dominated F1 in 2005

Emerson Fittipaldi was youngest champ before Alonso

Alpinestar presented Fisi with some customised boots - suit you Sir!

Klien recovered from a shunt on Friday to Q6 on Saturday

There was mayhem at the start

Alonso led early on, but could not resist the McLarens

Rubens got past next year's team-mate

Schuey came home an encouraging fourth

Kimi seemed a bit subdued

For once, Montoya got it all right

Alonso finished third and secured the Drivers' Title

Another sublime performance by Rossi (c) in Qatar

pics by Ferrari Media, MotoGP, Schlegelmilch, XPB, LAT, Sutton & unknown