Fisichella victorious for Renault Giancarlo Fisichella always knew that this would be his make-or-break season. The Italian veteran has spent years in the middle and back of the grid, working his way up to a drive with the Renault team. But in spite of his P1 grid position, he could barely have dreamed of taking such a spectacular victory in his maiden drive for his new team, who are already hotly tipped for the title.

Rubens Barrichello brought his Ferrari home in second place after a well-judged strategic race – with Fernando Alonso overcoming his lowly 13th grid spot to bring the second Renault home in third place.

It was an exciting race from the beginning as all the teams battled to deal with the demands of the new race and technical regulations – with the need to complete full race distance on the same set of tyres that were used for the two qualifying sessions. The first start was aborted after Kimi Raikkonen’s car stalled on the grid and a second parade lap took place as the Finn’s McLaren was pushed back to start the race from the pitlane.

Fisichella dominated the race from start to finish, pushing hard to create a good margin from second placed Trulli in the opening stages and then, with the exception of his two pit stops, holding onto the lead until the flag. The unfortunate Trulli suffered from a nightmare race, his P2 qualifying performance and a strong early run in second place fading during the closing stages of the race to an eventual ninth place finish.

David Coulthard had a brilliant race for Red Bull, pushing into an early third place from his P5 grid position and then running in second place after the first round of pitstops. Barrichello and Alonso both managed to jump him in the second round of stops, but the Scottish veteran still managed to bring his Red Bull home in a strong fourth place – in spite of colliding with a Minardi as he attempted to lap it. The result was made sweeter as he ended the race comfortably ahead of his erstwhile McLaren team. Christian Klien in the second Red Bull put in a solid, mature drive to seventh place and two world championship points.

Mark Webber put up a strong challenge to Coulthard, often shadowing the Scot by less than a second, but despite the support of his home crowd the Aussie ace couldn’t find his way past the Red Bull – and he also lost position to Barrichello and Alonso in the final pitstop. Still, a strong performance for his debut drive for his new team, Williams.

Nick Heidfeld in the second Williams was less fortunate, running as high as sixth in the early part of the race before crashing out in a collision with Michael Schumacher. The world champion had a miserable start to his season, starting from 19th place and finding himself unable to slice his way through race traffic in his customary fashion. He got as high as seventh place before smashing into Heidfeld as he attempted an optimistic overtake – he managed to restart but was forced to retire from the pitlane.

The effect of the new regulations became obvious during the closing session of the race as drivers found themselves suffering from tyre degradation – Juan Pablo Montoya surviving a serious slide to bring his McLaren home in sixth place for his debut with the Woking-based team. Kimi Raikkonen ended up in eighth place in the second McLaren, taking the final World Championship point of the debut race.