With only Winkelhock, Heidfeld and Trulli on
Bridgestone's extreme wets, the latter pairing pitted under the safety car to swap over onto intermediates, but a bigger surprise was to see Hamilton – who had been permitted to unlap himself under the safety car and therefore undertake the first representative flying lap of anybody in the drying conditions – come in to change over to dry tyres.
At the re-start Winkelhock got the initial jump, and it was a feisty-looking Alonso who was all over the back of a tardy Massa for second. The Spaniard's attempt to squeeze in-between the
Ferrari and the Spyker, however, failed to come off, leaving the Brazilian in the lead as Coulthard dived up the inside of team-mate Webber into third into turn one just behind.
As the two RBR machines continued to duel ferociously over the final podium spot, the next major action came down at the Dunlop Curve, as Hamilton found it had probably been a little too soon to make the switch over onto dry rubber by skating straight ahead. Though he was able to rejoin, the lap he had gained back on the leaders had been thrown away, leaving Lewis with it all to do all over again.
With Raikkonen now lying sixth, the Finn's next target was countryman Kovalainen, though the
Renault ace was not willing to give up without a fight, re-passing the Ferrari after Raikkonen had finally found a way through. Indeed, there was seemingly something in the Renault water as Fisichella similarly went all the way around the outside of Barrichello for ninth place at the final chicane.
A new fastest lap from Hamilton proved the track was now finally dry enough for slicks, prompting the drivers to begin peeling into the pit-lane, though any hope Alonso may have had of leapfrogging Massa were lost to front wing adjustments during the Spaniard's stop.
