Friday drivers

The bottom six teams in the 2004 Constructors' Championship were entitled to run a third car in free practice on Friday. These drivers drove on Friday but did not compete in qualifying or the race.

More information Constructor, No ...

Constructor	No	Driver
McLaren-Mercedes	35	Alexander Wurz
Sauber-Petronas		–
Red Bull-Cosworth	37	Christian Klien
Toyota	38	Ricardo Zonta
Jordan-Toyota	39	Robert Doornbos
Minardi-Cosworth		–

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Practice

In practice, Christijan Albers lost his car out coming from turn 4 and crashed. Juan Pablo Montoya, Jacques Villeneuve, David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher crashed as they were coming up high from Beau Rivage. Montoya was judged to be the cause of this incident and thus was forced to start the race from the back of the grid.^[2]

Race

Polesitter Kimi Räikkönen led the field from the start of the race, and though he was at first closely followed by Fernando Alonso, he was more than five seconds ahead by the twentieth lap. Meanwhile, Narain Karthikeyan retired with a hydraulic failure. The race progressed otherwise uneventfully, with Fernando Alonso followed by Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli, and Mark Webber, until the twenty-third lap, when Christijan Albers spun his Minardi into a wall at Mirabeau, blocking about two-thirds of the width of the track. David Coulthard, arriving behind him, swerved and successfully stopped his Red Bull without damage; however, Michael Schumacher plowed into Coulthard, breaking off his own nosecone and damaging the Red Bull's suspension beyond repair. As more drivers reached the blocked turn, the Safety Car was deployed so that marshals could remove Albers' car.

Both Renault drivers pitted immediately, but Räikkönen—acting on instructions from McLaren chief strategist Neil Martin—continued on in what was to prove a winning move.^[3] Though this seemingly put Räikkönen in a bad spot, as all of his close competitors had pitted, he fought back with a series of brilliant laps that would give him a 34.7-second lead by the time he pitted on lap 42. Alonso, whose car was substantially slower as it was full of fuel, and whose rear tyres were wearing rapidly, was unable to catch up, and Räikkönen, after pitting, returned to the track still 13 seconds ahead. He would go on to win the race having led every lap of it.

Nick Heidfeld worked his way up from sixth grid position, passing his own teammate in the pits after Williams called him in a lap earlier whilst Alonso was badly holding the two Williams drivers up. After Heidfeld's stop, a superb overtaking manoeuvre into the Nouvelle chicane put him ahead of Alonso. Webber tried to follow suit a lap later, but on the first attempt Alonso cut the corner and stayed in front. On the second attempt Alonso cut the corner again, this time clearly intentionally, but Webber eventually succeeded in overtaking him and claiming his first career podium in Formula One and scoring Williams last double podium finish until the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix over nine years later. Alonso straggled into fourth, his rear tyres almost entirely bald. Montoya advanced from sixteenth on the grid to an eventual fifth, finishing on Alonso's tail, followed by Michael and Ralf Schumacher, who crossed the line almost side-by-side.

Both Red Bull Racing cars ran with the Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith livery and, for this race, the Red Bull Racing pit crew dressed up as Imperial Stormtroopers. It didn't help the team's fortunes, as this was the first race where they failed to score points.

Qualifying

More information Pos, No ...

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Total	Gap	Grid
1	9	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:13.644	1:16.679	2.30.325		1
2	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:14.125	1:16.281	2.30.406	+0.083	2
3	7	Mark Webber	Williams-BMW	1:14.584	1:17.072	2.31.656	+1.333	3
4	6	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:14.783	1:17.317	2.32.100	+1.777	4
5	16	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:15.189	1:17.401	2.32.590	+2.267	5
6	8	Nick Heidfeld	Williams-BMW	1:15.128	1:17.755	2.32.883	+2.560	6
7	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Cosworth	1:15.329	1:18.538	2.33.867	+3.544	7
8	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:16.186	1:18.550	2.34.736	+4.413	8
9	11	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber-Petronas	1:15.921	1:19.015	2.34.936	+4.613	9
10	2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	1:16.142	1:18.841	2.34.983	+4.660	10
11	12	Felipe Massa	Sauber-Petronas	1:16.218	1:18.902	2.35.120	+4.797	11
12	15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Red Bull-Cosworth	1:16.817	1:20.335	2.37.152	+6.829	12
13	20	Patrick Friesacher	Minardi-Cosworth	1:18.574	1:22.236	2.40.810	+10.487	13
14	21	Christijan Albers	Minardi-Cosworth	1:19.229	1:22.977	2.42.206	+11.883	14
15	18	Tiago Monteiro	Jordan-Toyota	1:19.408	1:23.670	2.43.078	+12.755	15
16	19	Narain Karthikeyan	Jordan-Toyota	1:19.474	1:23.968	2.43.422	+13.119	171
17	17	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	No time	No time	No time	—	182
18	10	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren-Mercedes	1:14.858	No time	No time	—	163
Sources:[4][5][6]

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Notes

• ^1 – Narain Karthikeyan received a 10-place grid penalty for an engine change.
• ^2 – Ralf Schumacher received a 10-place grid penalty for an engine change. In addition, his total time was added by 0.5 seconds for using the wrong tire in practice.^[7]
• ^3 – Juan Pablo Montoya's Saturday time of 1:14.858 deleted as punishment for role in earlier practice accident.

Race

More information Pos, No ...

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Tyre	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	9	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	M	78	1:45:15.556	1	10
2	8	Nick Heidfeld	Williams-BMW	M	78	+ 13.877	6	8
3	7	Mark Webber	Williams-BMW	M	78	+ 18.484	3	6
4	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	M	78	+ 36.487	2	5
5	10	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren-Mercedes	M	78	+ 36.647	16	4
6	17	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	M	78	+ 37.117	18	3
7	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	B	78	+ 37.223	8	2
8	2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	B	78	+ 37.570	10	1
9	12	Felipe Massa	Sauber-Petronas	M	77	+ 1 Lap	11
10	16	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	M	77	+ 1 Lap	5
11	11	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber-Petronas	M	77	+ 1 Lap	9
12	6	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	M	77	+ 1 Lap	4
13	18	Tiago Monteiro	Jordan-Toyota	B	75	+ 3 Laps	15
14	21	Christijan Albers	Minardi-Cosworth	B	73	+ 5 Laps	14
Ret	15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Red Bull-Cosworth	M	59	Accident	12
Ret	20	Patrick Friesacher	Minardi-Cosworth	B	29	Accident	13
Ret	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Cosworth	M	23	Collision damage	7
Ret	19	Narain Karthikeyan	Jordan-Toyota	B	18	Hydraulics	17
Source:[8][9]

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