Fernando Alonso finished second in a McLaren car, with teammate and future 7-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton third on his Grand Prix debut.

The slowest team of 2006, Super Aguri, got into the top ten with fourth and tenth for Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato, respectively.

Fernando Alonso took command of Part Two with a lap of 1:25.326 to put him at the top of the leaderboard, with teammate Hamilton closely behind in third.

But, along with Massa: Anthony Davidson; both the Williams cars of Rosberg and Wurz; Renault's rookie Heikki Kovalainen and Honda's Jenson Button all went out.

Räikkönen kept pole position, with Alonso second, but Nick Heidfeld was third after Lewis Hamilton had an untidy middle sector which saw him end up in fourth.

Red Bull's Mark Webber was seventh with the Toyotas of Ralf Schumacher and Trulli eighth and ninth.

Christijan Albers in the Spyker became the first driver to retire in the new season, missing his braking point at the Sports Center corner and hitting the tire barrier.

The Briton's McLaren pitted a lap later and rejoined behind Räikkönen, who had now reclaimed his lead, but ahead of Heidfeld, who had now dropped to fifth position, and Alonso, despite being held up by the lone Spyker of Adrian Sutil, who received a drive through penalty for the infringement.

Toro Rosso's Scott Speed became the race's second retirement after two of his tires deflated and he crashed at the Clark chicane on lap 31.

On the same lap, Kubica became the third retirement of the race after problems with his gearbox, which was the part of the car the Polish driver had been most worried about during the pre-season.

[9] Despite a small water leak towards the end, it was Räikkönen who won the race, 7.2 seconds from Alonso and over eighteen seconds from Hamilton, who became the first driver to finish on the podium on their debut since Jacques Villeneuve at the 1996 Australian Grand Prix; it was also the first time a driver had won on their first race for Ferrari since Nigel Mansell in 1989 and also the first race in World Championship history where all three podium finishers were making their debut for their team, disregarding 1950 where all drivers made their World Championship debuts.

Post race there was some criticism of Bridgestone because the rules mandated that the softer tire compound should be "visibly distinguishable" while the car is on track.