2005 San Marino Grand Prix

Vitantonio Liuzzi replaced Christian Klien in the second Red Bull car, for this and the next two races; after unanimous agreement between the teams, Klien was allowed to race car #37 for Red Bull in the Friday practice sessions. Alexander Wurz drove the second McLaren-Mercedes car, in place of the injured Juan Pablo Montoya. During the first qualifying session on Saturday, Red Bull announced that they would use Ferrari engines for two years, beginning from the 2006 season.

Räikkönen led from pole, pulling out a gap of several seconds, before his McLaren retired on lap nine with driveshaft problems. Alonso took over the lead, and was unchallenged until lap 50, when Michael Schumacher emerged from the pits just behind him. Schumacher had started 13th, and had been unable to pass Jarno Trulli for 20 laps, until the Italian pitted allowing Schumacher to increase his pace. After pitting himself, he emerged in third place ahead of Trulli and started to catch race leader Alonso. He caught up with second place driver Jenson Button and overtook him, overturning a 20-second gap in 13 laps. After the second round of pit-stops he emerged from the pits seconds behind Alonso. The next 12 laps saw the two battle for the lead but Schumacher was unable to overtake Alonso who took the race victory. Third was Button, followed by Wurz's McLaren, Takuma Sato, Jacques Villeneuve, Trulli and Ralf Schumacher. Ralf was later given a 25-second penalty as he was released into the path of Nick Heidfeld; this temporarily dropped him to 11th place.[1]

During checks after the race it was found that Button's car had been under the 600 kg minimum weight requirement when drained of fuel. The race stewards cleared Button, as they believed data provided by BAR-Honda was sufficient to prove that they had been operating inside the rules, but the FIA appealed sending them to court.[2] They were found guilty, but the FIA's preferred penalty of having the team disqualified from the championship for the year was not carried through, and they were given a two-race ban, starting from the next round in Spain. In addition, Button's teammate Sato, who had finished 5th on the track, was disqualified from the race despite his car not being found to be underweight.[3] Wurz was thus promoted to third, followed by Villeneuve, Trulli, Heidfeld, Mark Webber and Liuzzi.

British broadcaster ITV attracted controversy when it cut to a commercial break during the closing moments of the race which garnered 126 complaints from viewers. Media regulator Ofcom ruled that ITV breached section 6.7 of the Rules on the Amount and Scheduling of Advertising.[4] The broadcasters also had not shown the post-race press conference segment featuring Jenson Button's comments about the race.[5] ITV repeated the last three laps after the race and as a result of these complaints, the server on their website crashed. An on-air apology was made by presenter Jim Rosenthal before the start of the next race in Spain two weeks later.[6]

Alonso and Schumacher battle for the lead in the closing stages of the race.

Qualifying times from both Saturday and Sunday morning.

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1 order	Q1 time	Q1 pos	Q1+Q2 time
1	9	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	18	1:19.886	1	2:42.880
2	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	20	1:19.889	2	2:43.441
3	3	Jenson Button	BAR-Honda	8	1:20.464	5	2:44.105
4	7	Mark Webber	Williams-BMW	16	1:20.442	4	2:44.511
5	16	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	19	1:20.492	6	2:44.518
6	4	Takuma Sato	BAR-Honda	7	1:20.851	10	2:44.658
7	10	Alexander Wurz	McLaren-Mercedes	2	1:20.632	8	2:44.689
† 8	12	Felipe Massa	Sauber-Petronas	15	1:20.593	7	2:44.930
9	8	Nick Heidfeld	Williams-BMW	6	1:20.807	9	2:45.196
10	2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	13	1:20.892	11	2:45.240
11	17	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	17	1:20.994	12	2:45.416
12	11	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber-Petronas	11	1:20.999	13	2:46.259
13	6	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	4	1:21.708	15	2:46.710
14	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	5	1:20.260	3	2:47.244
15	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Cosworth	14	1:21.632	14	2:48.070
16	15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Red Bull-Cosworth	1	1:21.804	16	2:48.155
17	19	Narain Karthikeyan	Jordan-Toyota	3	1:23.123	17	2:52.099
18	18	Tiago Monteiro	Jordan-Toyota	12	1:25.100	18	2:54.252
19	20	Patrick Friesacher	Minardi-Cosworth	10	1:26.484	20	2:57.048
20	21	Christijan Albers	Minardi-Cosworth	9	1:25.921	19	Accident in Q2
Sources:[7][8]

• † Note: Felipe Massa had an engine change, meaning he started from 18th on the grid.

Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button celebrate on the podium. Button was later disqualified from the race along with BAR team-mate Takuma Sato.

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	62	1:27:41.921	2	10
2	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	62	+0.215	13	8
3	10	Alexander Wurz	McLaren-Mercedes	62	+27.554	7	6
4	11	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber-Petronas	62	+1:04.442	11	5
5	16	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	62	+1:10.258	5	4
6	8	Nick Heidfeld	Williams-BMW	62	+1:11.282	8	3
7	7	Mark Webber	Williams-BMW	62	+1:23.297	4	2
8	15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Red Bull-Cosworth	62	+1:23.764	15	1
† 9	17	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	62	+1:35.841	10
10	12	Felipe Massa	Sauber-Petronas	61	+1 Lap	18
11	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Cosworth	61	+1 Lap	14
12	19	Narain Karthikeyan	Jordan-Toyota	61	+1 Lap	16
13	18	Tiago Monteiro	Jordan-Toyota	60	+2 Laps	17
Ret	21	Christijan Albers	Minardi-Cosworth	20	Hydraulics	20
Ret	2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	18	Electrical	9
Ret	9	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	9	Driveshaft	1
Ret	20	Patrick Friesacher	Minardi-Cosworth	8	Clutch	19
Ret	6	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	5	Accident	12
‡ DSQ	3	Jenson Button	BAR-Honda	62	Fuel (+10.481)	3
‡ DSQ	4	Takuma Sato	BAR-Honda	62	Fuel (+34.783)	6
Source:[9]

• † Note: Post-race, Ralf Schumacher was penalised 25 seconds for being released unsafely into the path of Nick Heidfeld from his second pitstop; Toyota withdrew their initial appeal before the hearing.
• ‡ Note: Also post-race, Jenson Button's car was found to be 4.99 kg (11 lb) underweight; stewards initially accepted BAR's explanation as a fuel system anomaly on April 25. However, on May 5, an FIA court of appeal disqualified both BAR cars and banned them from the next two races for "highly regrettable negligence and lack of transparency",[10] noting that BAR's fuel system effectively "used fuel as ballast",[11] illegal under current Formula One regulations.