Renault were very confident about their chances in this Grand Prix, they claimed that Michael Schumacher's previous two races in Shanghai were "poor".

Following Lewis Hamilton's GP2 victory in Monza and an encouraging test session with McLaren, the Woking-based team were rumoured to give the young British driver his debut in favour of Pedro de la Rosa, who had been performing well after replacing Juan Pablo Montoya.

[6] With the sacking of Christian Klien, Red Bull announced that Robert Doornbos would replace him for the final 3 Grands Prix.

[7] Toro Rosso announced during the week leading up to the Grand Prix, that they had signed Alex Hitzinger as their new technical director to replace Gabriele Tredozi.

[9] Super Aguri's Takuma Sato had a dismal start to the weekend as he was demoted ten places on the grid as his team changed the Honda engine in his car.

Sato had been due to continue using the Honda V8 he ran at the last round in Italy, but the discovery of a problem, which had not been disclosed by Super Aguri, had prompted the team to replace the engine ahead of the Friday first practice session.

[14] The bottom 6 teams in the 2005 Constructors' Championship and Super Aguri were entitled to run a third car in free practice on Friday.

Fisichella let him past without a fight, but although he continued to close rapidly on Schumacher, he ran out of time to catch him, finishing just 3 seconds behind.

Nick Heidfeld had started eighth on the grid but through his strategy of pitting late at both pitstops had rising to fourth in the closing stages, leapfrogging Rubens Barrichello, Jenson Button and Pedro de la Rosa.

Button first managed to find his way past Barrichello on the last lap, then, at the penultimate corner, boxed Heidfeld in behind Sato, taking fourth.

Barrichello then braked too late at the same corner, running into the back of Heidfeld, knocking the BMW Sauber's right rear wheel askew and damaging his own front wing.

This allowed de la Rosa through to take fifth, Barrichello sixth, and the furious Heidfeld limped home seventh.

Alonso expressed his regret over the decision to change only the front tyres at his first stop, but also his encouragement at the pace his car had shown throughout the weekend.

[citation needed] After the race, Nick Heidfeld rushed to Sakon Yamamoto, accusing him of causing the accident in the last lap.

Heidfeld was further angered by Yamamoto's lack of response, but eventually apologized when he learned that Takuma Sato had caused the crash.