1. Raikkonen wins with last lap pass after starting seventeenth – 2005
The 2005 race will not just be remembered for Alonso’s pass on Schumacher, but because of a stunning performance by Kimi Raikkonen.
Due to McLaren’s poor reliability through 2005, any realistic chance of Raikkonen taking the title away from Alonso had disappeared ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix. But obviously no-one in McLaren told Raikkonen that. In qualifying, he suffered a dismal session and could only qualify seventeenth, with Alonso just one place ahead of him. However, on race day, the Iceman was on fire and stormed up the order, not too dissimilar to the way he’d done in 2003 when fighting Schumacher for the title. That day he’d come up just two points short.
The race climaxed in a thrilling battle between Alonso’s Renault team mate Giancarlo Fisichella, and Raikkonen. Despite having made brilliant progress, Kimi wasn’t prepared to settle for second, and on the final lap of the race, swooped around the outside of the Italian into turn one. It was a phenomenal pass, and the McLaren driver safely negotiated the rest of the lap to take a stunning, and highly unexpected victory.
In the days before DRS and KERS, when overtaking was supposedly a lot harder, this was as good a performance as you can imagine and has rightly gone down in F1 folklore as one of the all time greatest races. It certainly made the early alarm call worthwhile!
Do you agree with our selections in this feature? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
