With the safety car out, the situation was able to be briefly assessed with Fisichella beached in the turn one gravel trap, Davidson stopped elsewhere on-track and Button, Vettel and Webber all touring back to the pit-lane – the latter cementing his mantle as the unluckiest driver in
Formula 1 as he failed to complete so much as a racing lap in front of his adoring home fans.
Back on the track, meanwhile, Hamilton held the advantage from Kubica, Kovalainen, a fast-starting
Nico Rosberg up three spots from his grid position in fourth, BMW-Sauber's
Nick Heidfeld,
Toyota ace
Jarno Trulli,
Rubens Barrichello in the surprising
Honda RA108 and Raikkonen, whose stunningly aggressive tactics all the way around the outside of turn one had gained him a staggering seven places already.
When the safety car disappeared at the end of lap two, Hamilton was again forced to hold off a decidedly racy-looking Kubica with – further down the order – the incredible sight of
Super Aguri's
Takuma Sato hounding former double world champion
Fernando Alonso for a spot in the top ten.
As Hamilton began to stretch his legs out front, Kubica settled into a comfortable second spot just out of reach of Kovalainen – biding his time in third, although five seconds in arrears of his imperious team-mate after as many laps – with Rosberg and Heidfeld duelling over fourth, Trulli a lonely sixth and Raikkonen pushing Barrichello for all he was worth in an effort to move up to seventh, albeit already a gaping 10.7 seconds behind the race leader.
