July 16, 2006

Team McLaren Mercedes driver Pedro de la Rosa finished the Chinese Grand Prix in fifth place. After 56 laps which started in the wet and then dried out the Spaniard came home 77.1sec behind winner Michael Schumacher (Ferrari). Kimi Räikkönen retired on lap 19 after suffering a failure of his car's throttle mechanism. Team McLaren Mercedes hold third place in the Constructors' Championship on 101 points. Kimi is fifth in the Drivers' Championship table on 57 points, Juan Pablo Montoya is eighth on 26 points and Pedro tenth on 18 points. Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso head the table on 116 points each.

The start: Kimi, fifth in qualifying, took fourth place by running round the outside of the first corner then took third place from Jenson Button (Honda) on the back straight before the end of the opening lap. Pedro was running in seventh place, just as he had started from the grid.

The race: Kimi overtook Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault) to take second place on lap 13. The Finn made his first scheduled refuelling stop at the end of lap 16 (9.3sec) and resumed sixth directly behind his team mate. The Spaniard came in for his first stop a lap later (7.7sec) and dropped from fifth to eighth when he went back into the race.

On lap 19 Kimi stopped with throttle mechanism failure.

Following the first round of refuelling stops by lap 30 Pedro was running in sixth place and on lap 36 made his second refuelling stop (10.3sec). After his stop, he had a spin, which dropped him to eighth place, but by lap 49, he was in seventh place. During a turbulent closing phase when it began to rain again and several cars were involved in spins at the second-to-last corner, Pedro moved up to fifth where he finished.

Comments

Pedro de la Rosa: "A difficult race for everybody. I made a wrong call after the first stint when I asked my engineer for a different set of intermediate Michelin tyres. In hindsight I should have stayed on the ones I had, like Kimi, as the track was drying, and I suffered from graining. This lost me a lot of time but apart from that our pace was good. I didn’t see much of what happened towards the end of the final lap. It had started raining slightly again, and we were all on dry weather tyres coming into what is a hard braking area. I was lucky to stay out of trouble and gained two places as a result. Our car seems to be on the pace. I'm sure we will win a race before the end of the year."

Kimi Räikkönen: "That was a shame as it was looking like we could achieve a win today. I don't know exactly what happened, but all of a sudden the throttle didn't react correctly and the engine went into safety mode and selected neutral. I made a good start and then got on the outside and gained a couple of places – it was a bit tight, so I didn't manage to get past Fisichella at that point. I overtook him later on and was gaining on Alonso before my first scheduled pitstop. I'm disappointed, but at least we showed that we have the speed, so I'm looking forward to Japan now."

Ron Dennis, Team Principal: "Obviously an action packed Grand Prix. Kimi's strategy and car set-up were more than capable of winning the race. Unfortunately, a failure of the engine throttle mechanism forced him to retire. Pedro struggled with front-end grip and had a spin following his pitstop. However he did well to finish fifth and the entire team now looks forward to the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka next weekend."

Norbert Haug, Vice President Mercedes-Benz Motorsport: "An eventful race which began promising with Kimi running second. However, a problem with the throttle activation system led to his retirement. The reason for this is being investigated. Kimi's lap times were strong and good enough to win the race. Pedro drove a solid race, had a spin after changing to grooved tyres and came home fifth. With two more races to go we want to clinch the victory we missed today."