Räikkönen and McLaren finish second again, and Kallio loses grip on 125cc RR title

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The weekend's motor racing on two and four wheels did not go quite as hoped for either Kimi Räikkönen in China or Mika Kallio in Australia.
      Räikkönen, who could do no better than 3rd in qualifying, brought his McLaren-Mercedes home in second place in Shanghai, behind the 2005 Drivers' World Champion Fernando Alonso (Renault). Alonso had already wrapped up his title last month in Brazil.
      In this respect, the fact that the Finn did not take top honours at the China GP was of no great consequence, as he was certain to finish in 2nd spot for the season, but the last race of the year did have importance for the manufacturers' or constructors' title, and the trophy went to the Renault team rather than to McLaren-Mercedes.
     
The die was cast already by one-third of the way through the race, when Räikkönen's Colombian team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya hit an exposed drain cover on the track and eventually retired with a damaged front wheel after an unscheduled pit-stop failed to cure the problem.
      Montoya's departure, and the fact that Alonso and his Renault team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella - who both started from the front row of the grid - were flying, meant that McLaren had little or no chance of making up their two-point deficit on the Renaults.
      As it happened, Fisichella received a drive-through penalty for obstructing Räikkönen at the entry to the pit-lane, and he slipped to fourth as a result, behind Ralf Schumacher in the Toyota, but the Renaults still took 15 points to the eight won by Räikkönen, giving them a comfortable margin of victory in the manufacturers' table.
     
Although the race settled little by way of the individual drivers' points, the China GP was an incident-packed affair.
      The safety car was out on two occasions, firstly after Montoya's problem and later because Narain Karthikeyan crashed his Jordan dramatically on the last bend before the pit straight.
      Michael Schumacher suffered the ignominy of spinning off the track while the safety car was out for the first time. It has not been a great year for the Ferrari team or for the former World Champion, despite the fact that he eventually managed to hold on to 3rd place in the drivers' points table ahead of Montoya.
      Ferrari finished a distant third behind the Renault and McLaren-Mercedes teams, and the Italian cars, so dominant last year, were seldom competitive this season.
     
For Kimi Räikkönen, it was in many ways a frustrating "What if?" campaign: he won seven races, as many as his main rival Alonso, but on crucial occasions early in the season he was let down by reliability problems in the McLaren-Mercedes camp.
      The Finnish driver's cause was also not helped by a couple of unfortunate incidents and unforced errors involving Montoya that enabled Alonso to move up in the finishing positions and score extra points that he freely admitted were not altogether earned.
      "Second today wasn't bad, but of course we were looking for something better. We'll have to try again next year", said Räikkönen, who is already looking forward to tight competition with Alonso in 2006.
     
     
In Australia, Mika Kallio would probably have been quite a bit happier with 2nd place in the 125 cc category race at the Philip Island track.
      He could only manage 5th on his Red Bull KTM, however. To make matters worse, his main rival, Swiss rider Thomas Lüthi (Honda), who started from pole position, rode a flawless race to victory in the Australian Grand Prix and in so doing he leap-frogged past Kallio to take the lead in the RR World Championship standings.
      Lüthi was a worthy winner on Sunday, and the real racing was carried on a respectable distance behind him, as several riders fought for the lesser placings.
      Kallio started from 5th on the grid and almost immediately snatched 2nd spot, but in the latter part of the race he slipped back down the field before a late charge took him back up to 2nd again. He only dropped to 5th towards the end of the final lap, after two riders went by him and he then went wide at the last hairpin.
     
As Kallio himself admitted wearily afterwards, he has no option now but to go out and try to win both of the remaining Grands Prix, in Turkey and Spain.
      Lüthi collected 25 points for his fourth win of the season, and Kallio picked up 11 for finishing 5th. The Finn now trails by 12 points.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Räikkönen in Japan: Almost all´s well that ends well (10.10.2005)
  Mika Kallio takes slender lead in 125 cc World Championship after Qatar GP (3.10.2005)

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