By Karl King
April 3 2006

What a bizzare race it was at Albert Park today! The drama started for McLaren when Juan Pablo Montoya spun his car on the installation lap before parking up in his grid position. As everyone wondered whether Montoya would be able to make it to his 5th position grid slot, the yellow flags appeared

as Giancarlo Fisichella frantically waved indicating a stall in his Renault. The Italian's misfortune lead to another installation lap where Juan Pablo Montoya stromed through the slow moving field to his starting position.

The drama continued as the race got underway with Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen fighting for track position as Jenson Button managed to hold off the fast starting Renault of Fernando Alonso.

However, much to the Brit's dispair the Safety Car was deployed after a collision between Ferrari, Red Bull and Williams with Felipe Massa, Christian Klien and Nico Rosberg crashing in Turn 2.

In the restart Button was unable to hold off Alonso in his slow-in-a-restart-Honda, and soon found himself battling to defend his position to Kimi Raikkonen, whilst during the Safety Car period, Montoya dropped from fourth down to sixth.

The race had barely got back underway when Christian Klien again brought the Safety Car back out. Upon restart it was this time Raikkonen who managed to take advantage of Button's resume-race problems, stealing second from the Englishman, but locking up rather badly in the process.

As the Finn set his sights on Alonso, it has been revealed a pieceof his front wing endplate broke off due to the earlier lock up.

Juan Pablo Montoya then considered murdering Jenson Button's afternoon, brfore the Columbian had to pit. Button blinked a lap later, and re-emerged in front of Juan Pablo on the pit straight. Around the outside of Turn 2 Montoya went for the kill and drafted past Button.

There were cheers from the Australian crowd as Mark Webber took the lead of the GP thanks to a long first stint, however it was short-lived as the Ozzie pulled his FW28 over into the grass.

Jenson Button's afternoon went from bad to worse with a ragged looking Michael Schumacher catching him rapidly. Maybe the German had been taking lessons from his team mate on 'how to be eratic' with Schumacher taking to the grass on the final corner, and smashing his Ferrari into the wall.

The Safety Car was again deployed, with lots of teams taking this opportunity to pit their cars. Kimi Raikkonen entered the McLaren box with Juan Pablo Montoya queued behind. However, the team decided to replace the Finn's damaged nose, delaying Juan Pablo further.

With Kimi's stop taking longer than expected, Nick Heidfeld was enabled to leapfrog past him in the pits, leaving him right behind in 3rd. Juan Pablo Montoya was put even further back, once again falling behind Button, and also Ralf Schumacher.

When the restart commenced Alonso rampantly stormed off, leaving Heidfeld and Raikkonen having to wait until the start/finish line to pass the two Midland cars that they were about to lap. Six seconds were easily lost to the Spaniard thanks to this.

The gap was closed again when the Mercedes Benz Safety Car was brought out for a fourth time as Vitantonio Liuzzi crashed his Toro Rosso.

Just before a Saftey Car period was declared, Ralf Schumacher and Montoya overtook Button, with JPM recieving a nudge from the Brit in the meanwhile.

Montoya was then promoted to fourth place when Nick Heidfeld momentarily took to the grass.

Later however, as Montoya was getting ever closer to the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher, the Columbian understeered coming out of the final corner. For a moment it seemed as if Juan Pablo would be able to continue as he returned to the black stuff. However, so severe was the impact with the kerb, that Juan Pablo's engine safety system was activated. Montoya pulled over to the other side of the track, his race was over.

In the closing stages of the race, Alonso told his engineer that he was 'feeling relaxed' and let Kimi catch him at quite some margin. However, he knew that the margin was too large for even Raikkonen to claw back in, despite a last-ditch fastest lap from Kimi on the final lap - a 1m26.045

On the final lap there was yet more drama, with Jenson Button's disatrous day getting another kick in the teeth, this time with his Honda engine blowing up. The closely-following Fisichella managed to dodge the Honda's oil and take fifth from Button on the very final straight.

Andrew Shovlin, Jenson's race engineer told him to pull over and sacrifice the 3 points recieved for 6th place to enable Button to change his engine penalty-free for San Marino in three weeks time.

Scott Speed picked up what seemed like the first ever point for STR, before being penalised with 25 seconds added to his race time. This promoted Coulthard into the final points paying position.

Ralf Schumacher joined Alonso and Raikkonen on the podium, with talk now that the German may be stripped of Toyota's much needed first podium of 2006 due to passing under yellows.