Kimi, Again. Too Little, Too Late?
Belgian Grand Prix

By Erik Nielsen
Photos courtesy and copyright Ferrari Media

September 11th, 2005. Kimi Räikkönen added another win to his race record, but is it a case of too little, too late? The Finn did everything asked of him in this race and finished almost a half minute ahead of his now nemesis, Fernando Alonso, when the checked flag dropped. It would have been a better victory for the Woking-based team if Juan Pablo Montoya had finished in second place to put an edge on Flabio's team, but the Colombian tangled with Pizzonia with just a few laps to go, ending both of their weekends. Kimi could make it a real fight for the title if he didn't have Rubens Barichello's luck. Alonso is getting ever closer to adding another title to Briatori's record. Briatori is still somewhat bitter to loosing his dream team to Ferrari in the mid-90's. Expect mass hysteria if the blue and yellow team can pull it off this year (and supermodels need to lock their doors and pull their blinds shut when someone goes on the prowl).

McLaren showed that they have the pace to be number one, but championships are built on winning races, not having the fastest car. It may be the case of having too little, too late as Formula One left Europe for the season.

As the race was declared a wet race, fans were allowed to actually see tires getting changed during the race. This may have made up for the fact that participation was all but non-existent in the Friday practice session, which is not good for the ratings, the lifeblood of the series. Even with the pit action and more strategies in play, this author still felt the race was a snoozer and if I didn't have to write this report, I may have changed the channel after the first 10 laps (hint to Bernie and Co., you're loosing fans, bring back some excitement, even NASCAR is starting to look like a show compared to this mess).

Alonso's second place finish moved the Spaniard ever closer to wrapping up the championship for the season; it's only a few points that keep it from being all over. His team-mate is playing the role familiar to Rubens Barichello and not getting any points in the race. Oh well, someone has to be the lightning rod for bad luck on the team.

Jenson Button showed that he may be worth the money that is chasing after him by capturing the last spot on the podium after sneaking his way through the field. Good result, but the press is still more interested in the behind the scene politics of the young Brit.

Mark Webber also drove a more or less uneventful race with a fourth place finish in the BMW-Williams, showing that Sir Frank's team can still build a race car, even without BMW's vote of confidence. Whether they can maintain it next year is a different story.

Burinho, driving more or less a lame duck performance at this point, drove an okay race and finished in fifth place. Better than his reigning world championship team mate, but not much to write home about. At least next year's patron got a blip in thinking that it was money well spent, even though the wet conditions threw the whole starting grid into disarray.

Jacques Villeneuve finished in the points, but no one outside his immediate family and a few pot smokers from Quebec paid much attention to it. Every now and then the stars align, but most times it's just a fluke.

The last two points paying positions went to the overpaid younger Schumacher in the Toyota and the underpaid Monteiro in the Jordan, the latter who scored his first full race points of the season, showing that the Russian business backed team in yellow is a legitimate team compared to the whining Oz backed team in black and white.

It's been a pretty bad fall for the tifosi who have been used to seeing Michael Schumacher almost lapping the entire field with his dominance over the last several seasons. This year, he's struggling to stay out of the way and his race was ended when Sato-san realized his brakes were good, but not great. The smack to the top of the head that the hapless Japanese driver received was probably the best television moment of the race. Too bad few people were watching.

The circus is done in Europe. Racing will continue in Brazil in two weeks and then off to Asia for the last two races of the season. While it looks like Fernando Alonso is on his way, anything can still happen. The race promoters in Brazil, Japan and China are all begging for McLaren to find a bit of reliability...