By this time Michael Schumacher had already built up quite an advantage, but this was quickly eroded by the hard-charging Juan Pablo Montoya.

Webber managed to get past Ralf but the Williams retaliated and got ahead again, puncturing the Jaguar's rear right tyre on his way.

To add insult to injury he got a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane and finally compounded his misery by spinning out of the race a few laps later.

Trulli got ahead of Coulthard in the first stops and running order at the front, where not much was happening, was Michael, Montoya, Räikkönen.

Alonso swapped to a two-stop strategy but it gave him no advantage and he seemed resigned to staying behind Coulthard, while Trulli, who had been on quite an early charge, also seemed to lose momentum.

Felipe Massa, who was having a pretty good race, got held up by a Minardi and did a bit of agitated hand waving as he went by.

In the final laps the BAR crew froze as one of the cars pulled off with an engine failure but it was Sato rather than third placed Button.

BAR and Button were by far the happiest of the lot and the Englishman got the biggest cheer from the crowd as he lifted his first trophy on the third step of the podium.