By lap ten, Raikkonen enjoyed a near nine second advantage over team-mate de la Rosa, with Alonso, Button and Schumacher all giving spirited chase. Klien, however, had had his afternoon end on lap eight, halving the
Red Bull assault that now relied in veteran Coulthard in seventh, the Scot sandwiched between Fisichella and
Nick Heidfeld, who had taken up the
BMW cudgels after Kubica's spin.
As the rain intensified, Massa pitted for full wets - at just the moment that Barrichello, now on inters, spun.
Bridgestone, however, had little to lose by the Scuderia opting to change its tack, for the majority of its runners were going the wrong way on the leaderboard, if not the circuit. Fifth-placed Schumacher aside, its next best runner was
Ralf Schumacher's
Toyota, in tenth, with Michelin coming into its own, against expectation, in the wet conditions.
de la Rosa broke the
McLaren stranglehold by pitting for inters on lap 16, one ahead of team-mate Raikkonen, whose stop allowed Alonso into the lead. The Spaniard, of course, had been able to brim his fuel tank before heading to the grid, better placed to base his tactics on the conditions, and it was expected that
Renault was planning to only stop its champion once in the 70 laps. Raikkonen and the rest of the top ten starters were more likely to be on two-, or even three-, stop strategies, effectively playing into the hands of the new leader.
Schumacher, too, could have been rubbing his hands with glee - had he had the nerve to remove them from the steering wheel - but had seen his race plan upset by a clash with Fisichella. The Italian had been all over the back of the
Ferrari for some time, eventually forcing his way through on lap 17. Schumacher, in defending, had understeered across the line, clipping the back of Fisichella's Renault with his front wing, which broke on contact. Thus the German was forced to join Raikkonen on pit-road at the end of the lap, dropping himself to ninth by the time repairs had been completed.
