Hamilton had the hammer down in the opening laps, taking successive seconds out of Raikkonen before the Finn stabilised the gap, while his team-mate set about trying to undo the damage his start had done. Webber was put back in his place at turn one on lap three, with Kubica following suit next time around. That, however, only brought Alonso onto the tail of
Ralf Schumacher, and the
Toyota proved a tougher nut to crack.
Sakon Yamamoto's first race with Spyker was a short one, the Japanese returnee crashing out on lap six, but early retirements proved to be rare, with no-one joining Yamamoto on the sidelines until lap 36, when last year's winner,
Jenson Button, succumbed to engine failure.
With overtaking opportunities likely to be rare, pit-stops would take on greater significance, and it was Heidfeld, Rosberg and Alonso who cracked first, calling in on lap 18. While the two Germans were serviced in around seven seconds, however, the world champion was stationary for fully 9.9secs, hinting at the diversity of strategy on offer.
McLaren's tactic prevented Alonso from vaulting past Schumacher when the German stopped next time around, the German coming out directly ahead of the world champion, and there was no chance of him making inroads into the leaders when they stopped on lap 20. Hamilton and Raikkonen returned to the track still holding first and second positions, both appearing to join Alonso on a two-stop gameplan while the other frontrunners opted for three.
Those further back, of course, were experimenting with just two stops, but with long first stints in an effort to make up ground. For the likes of Massa and
Giancarlo Fisichella - like Alonso, penalised five places for blocking in qualifying - the tactic failed to work, both only making up a place on their starting slot by the chequer.
