Behind them, Alonso was up to seventh at the start, taking advantage of team-mate
Giancarlo Fisichella's politeness at the opening corner, but soon found himself stuck behind
Jenson Button's
Honda. The Briton was happy to have qualified on the third row but both he and team-mate
Rubens Barrichello complained of a lack of straight-line speed, having had to revert to their Turkey-spec engines when the 2008 unit failed to live up to expectation on Friday.
Alonso remained mired behind the Honda until the first round of pit-stops, but a quick turnaround from the
Renault crew ensured that he was ahead by the mid-point. The order was confused by the split in strategies between the one- and two-stoppers, with Fisichella and Barrichello heading the former in making up ground. Heidfeld was among those making a couple of stops, and regained a couple of places - at the expense of Alonso and Button during his first. Unfortunately, he had done it by exceeding the speed limit and had to make an extra unscheduled call that dropped him out of the reckoning.
By the time the strategies converged, with less than a third of the race remaining, Schumacher and Raikkonen continued to run well ahead of their pursuers, now headed by Alonso after the Renault crew got him out ahead of Kubica. The pair pitted at exactly the same time, and with the R26 on the tail of the
BMW Sauber, but exited side-by-side as the Swiss/German team released its charge into the path of the accelerating Alonso. With a wide pit exit, the Spaniard was able to nose ahead and, in a mood not to be messed with, secured third spot by the chicane.
