Benefiting from the melee were both Toro Rosso drivers - Tonio Liuzzi up to twelfth and
Scott Speed to 15th - and Spyker's
Adrian Sutil, who found himself in the rarefied atmosphere of 14th and ahead of the Super Aguris and
Honda's
Jenson Button, who had lost out perhaps worst of all.
Giancarlo Fisichella then joined the Briton at the back of the field, the
Renault driver spinning on his own at turn four and only retaking the track after a long detour through the gravel trap, another promising situation negated.
While Fisico embarked on a comeback of sorts, the race at the front appeared to be all about Hamilton, the leader easing out a bigger advantage over his team-mate with each passing lap. Both started, like the majority of the pack, on the softer Bridgestones and, by lap five, the Briton was nearly two seconds to the good, while Alonso enjoyed a similarly healthy gap back to Massa as
McLaren confirmed that it was the class of the field once again.
By lap ten, with Fisichella having passed Christijan Albers,
Anthony Davidson and Button to reclaim 16th, Hamilton's lead was up to 2.2secs, with Heidfeld and Kovalainen continuing to frustrate Raikkonen and Liuzzi doing likewise to Alex Wurz - who took repeated looks at the Toro Rosso on the run to turn one - Sutil,
Takuma Sato and Speed.
Wurz believed that he had the place won on lap twelve, the
Williams dummying one way then the other before claiming the inside line for turn one - only to run wide form his shallow entry and hand the position back again. The Austrian had only been able to make his move following the removal of the yellow flags that had flown since the lap one incident, and therefore did not incur the wrath of the stewards - unlike Sato.
