For Toyota Ralf was making some good progress, moving up a couple of positions with Jarno Trulli doing likewise. There were two safety car periods during the race. The first for an unlocked drain, which burst a whole in Juan Pablo Montoya’s McLaren, forcing the Columbian out of the race. Later Narain Karthikeyan smashed his Jordan-Toyota into the wall, bringing out the Safety Car for the second time. But, this was where Toyota made that all-important decision which would later repay Ralf Schumacher for all the bad calls, which had been made during these last couple of races. As the others pitted, Ralf stayed out, putting him into second behind race leader Fernando Alonso. Red Bull’s Christian Klein and Sauber’s Felipe Massa also decided to stay out, moving them into a provisional third and fourth place respectively. When the Safety Car pulled in, Ralf, Christian and Felipe matched race leader Alonso for times, setting low 1.35 min’s lap after lap. This allowed Ralf to move further ahead of the chasing pack, which was being led by Ruben Barrichello in his Ferrari which was struggling for grip on its used Bridgestone tyres. By the time Ralf pitted, he was already 25 seconds ahead of the chasing pack, and exited the pit lane in fourth, an amazing performance that had handed Ralf a solid points position. Then came a bonus, Giancarlo Fisichella was given a Drive Through penalty for slowing down in the pit lane during the Safety Car period, a tactic used by Kimi Raikkonen in Belgium which had now been outlawed. This pushed Ralf up into third with three laps to go. Whereas team-mate Jarno Trulli was still back in the mid teens, and was forced to stop to change his tyre with only a few laps remaining putting him well out of the top ten. At the finish, Ralf defended a charging Fisichella to take third, behind Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.