2005 would bring many unknown questions like "Who would be the guy that could take down Michael Schumacher🇩🇪?" The German had won his 5th world championship in a row with Ferrari and his 7th overall. He would be known as one of the greatest drivers of all time. And one driver who could be looking for redemption is Kimi Raikkonen 🇫🇮 the Finn was in the championship fight in 2003 for McLaren but lost out to Schumacher by just 2 points. 2005 could be redemption for he and McLaren. It would be a rocky start though as Kimi would stall on the grid and only finish 8th at Australia🇦🇺. Malaysia🇲🇾 would not be too good either as a tyre faliure would drop Raikkonen to 9th. Bahrain🇧🇭 would finally bring a bright spot for McLaren as Raikkonen would finish 3rd and Pedro De la Roasa🇪🇸 would get 5th setting the fastest lap of the race subbing for an injured Juan Pablo Montoya🇨🇴. At the 4th race of the season, the San Marino grand prix in Italy🇮🇹 seemed even better with new updates the McLaren MP4-20 is now the new fastest car on the grid and to this day is McLaren's fastest car they ever made. Raikkonen would start on pole and a win would be needed to close the points gap as he would be in 8th 19 points behind championship leader Fernando Alonso🇪🇸. He would get a good start and pull away EARLY on but the Finn's hydraulics caused a driveshaft failure putting him out of the race. Round 5 takes place at Spain🇪🇸 and Montoya would return only to finish 7th but that victory Raikkonen could have had at Imola he got in Spain by dominating the field. He would dominate Monaco🇮🇩 from pole to win once again. Kimi Raikkonen lies 2nd now to Alonso but he is 22 points behind but the momentum seems to be on his side. The European grand prix in Germany's 🇩🇪 Nurburgring as he would look to dominate again but about halfway through the race he would make a mistake in the 2nd sector to lose a lot of time but still kept the lead. Ok we are human Kimi Raikkonen is human everything is good right? Well with 26 laps to go Raikkonen would massively lock up his right front tire trying to lap 1997 world champion Sauber's Canadian Jaques Villeneuve🇨🇦. This normally might not be a problem, some people might think "Ok it takes about 20 seconds to make a pitstop and Kimi has a 14 second lead over Fernando Alonso, you could bite the bullet and pit for fresh tyres and just come out behind Alonso right?" Wrong, because in 2005 you are not allowed to change tires at a pitstop unless the tyre is flat. And insult to injury you can't fuel your car anyway if you are allowed to change tires and another thing is the tires have to be SCUFFED so they aren't brand new stickers. So the Finn has to make that tire last to bring his McLaren to victory. Things were heating up as Alonso was closing the gap to Raikkonen and it all came down to the last lap of the race and the tyre would let go creating a 170 mile an hour suspension faliure giving Alonso the win. Momentum seemed to be on the opposite side of McLaren as their championship rival Renualt's Alonso now has a 32 point lead over Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn needs some luck if he is going to make up the point deficit to the Spaniard. Button's BAR Honda would get the pole for the Canadian grand prix 🇨🇦Alonso starts 3rd teammate Montoya starts 5th and the Finn 7th. Both Renaults and both McLarens have amazing starts with Fisichella leading Alonso 2nd Montoya 4th and Raikkonen 5th while Button🇬🇧 splits everyone up in 3rd. Lap 10 Alonso claims he's being held up by his teammate... keep in mind team orders are banned so how is that going to work? The Italian don't care cause two laps later he sets the fastest lap of the race. McLaren would be running 3rd and 4th after Button pits. The McLarens are beginning to close the gap on the Renaults as lap 20 approaches. One advantage McLaren have is that they are on softer tyres than Renault. Alonso and Raikkonen make their fuel stops followed by Fisichella and Montoya a lap later. Fisichella leads with Alonso just beats Montoya after the Columbian goes too wide in the grass just off of turn 2 and Kimi Raikkonen stays 4th. Lap 30 and Alonso comes on the radio and complains more that he's faster than Fisichella and tells the spainard to overtake him the team gives him the green light to engage but Fernando has to work for it, Renault isn't going to make Giancarlo just move over and let him pass, Fernando is clearly getting frustrated as he made a mistake in turn 1 and 2 a lap later. Another lap later and Fisichella is slow out of turn 5 and lets Alonso pass but wait Montoya gets passed him and Raikkonen to! Something is wrong with Giancarlo's Renault and he is losing hydraulic pressure and its enough to force the Italian to retire! A tough break for him cause while Fernando is performing well Fisichella has had bad luck with the season opening win the only highlight. Well, Alonso got what he wanted but this isn't what he had in mind. Now he's being chased by Montoya and Raikkonen's McLarens. But he hits the wall and loses the lead and HE'S slow now and he is retiring from the race due to suspension damage. So Kimi needed a little luck to close the championship gap to Alonso if the race finished the way it did he'd now be 24 points behind but he has to get by Montoya who has had a rough year so far by having to sit out races due to injuries and not getting a podium so far unlike Raikkonen the columbian isn't going down without a fight. With just 26 laps to go Nick Heidfeld🇩🇪 retires from the race from an engine faliure for his Williams car. 23 laps to go Jenson Button clashes with the wall of champions a tough break for he and BAR Honda which brings out the saftey car. Could it be for oil feom Heidfeld or is it a mistake? Nonetheless his race is over. Raikkonen, Rubens Barrichello🇧🇷, and David Coulthard🇬🇧 take advantage of it by making their final fuel stops. Michael Schumacher also pits and Juan Pablo Montoya hasn't pitted yet. This is strange because normally people believe F1 teams would take the driver who is 1st to prefer them in pitstops cause if both cars come in together it'll cost the second car time. Kimi Raikkonen was 2nd and he pitted first for McLaren, so why didn't they let Montoya in first? Maybe Kimi's engineers were thinking faster than Juan's? Well it was later found out the Columbian misunderstood it and never came in. Montoya gets gased up and comes out behind his teammate. But wait the Columbian is being under investigation, when Montoya came out of the pits he came out in front of Coulthard but the question is did he overtake under the saftey car? Anyway the green flag comes out with 19 laps to go as Raikkonen leads Montoya and as James Allen says on the live ITV broadcast "Black flag for car number 10 (Montoya) being excluded from the race!" But get this it wasn't for passing Coulthard its because he exited the pit lane while the red light was on! He could have pitted under safety car conditions but when the saftey car is on the pit straightaway you have to go to the back and he didn't. So there goes a McLaren 1-2 but Raikkonen would survive to win by holding off a late charge from Michael Schumacher and close the championship to 22 points to Fernando Alonso. Now we head to Indianapolis for the USA🇺🇸 grand prix. But the US grand prix would be remembered for ALL of the wrong reasons. It all began with Friday practice with Toyota's Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher crashing into turn 13 both were due to tyre faliures. In 2005 the F1 teams run a specific tyre for the year, Bridgestone or Michelin. Ferrari, Jordan,and Minardi ran Bridgestone tyres as all of the other teams use Michelins. Ralf Schumacher would go to the medical center for precautionary checks but the German would be sidelined for the race. And insult to injury all of the Michelin tyres with all the teams using them were wearing out really bad so they were not safe to race. So this is bad because 7 of the 10 constructors run Michelins and if they aren't safe how will they compete? They could just run slower in turn 13 but that's doing more harm than good. Cause the Bridgestone runners will be at full speed and noone knows how slow is slow enough for the Michelin tyres. So this means unless a solution can be found Raikkonen can't run in the race. Michelin tell the FIA that if they put a chicane at turn 13 that it will be safe to race but the FIA refused. This was very controversial because in Spain Ferrari had to retire Michael Schumacher because his tyres were just unsafe and the Scuderia tried to get sympathy from the FIA and Michelin for tyres but never got any so when Michelin tried getting sympathy they would never get any. Noone knew what was going to happen. Will we even have a race in USA? Will the full grid be able to participate with their full potential? Race day comes and STILL noone knows what is going to happen cause if the chicane doesn't come than the teams with Michelin tyres won't race, but all the cars are on the grid with Raikkonen starting 2nd and his championship rival starting 6th. Most drivers have the mindset of racing for the but still it appeared that they had no idea what they would be doing. The engines fire and ALL the cars are taking the formation lap and the crowd loves it! But wait David Coulthard is talking on the radio. So the Scottish driver is practically asking to let him go racing but it is still an unknown. But now here we go the formation lap is about to end and our worst fear has come true. Both McLarens retire Both Williams cars retire and so does Renault and ALL of the other teams that run Michelin tires. WE ONLY HAVE A 6 CAR GRID FOR THE USA GRAND PRIX! And the video below just defines how the crowd reacted.

The crowd later on would be frustrated and throw cans out on the track. The fans were absolutely furious. The race would end with Michael Schumacher 1st Rubens Barrichello 2nd Tiago Monterio🇵🇹 3rd Narain Karthikeyan🇮🇳 4th Christijan Albers🇳🇱 5th Patrick Friesacher🇦🇹 the last points finisher 6th. In a nutshell the 2005 USA grand prix is a race everyone wanted to forget. That's really unfortunate for Tiago because this would be his ONLY podium in his career. F1 would head to Magny Cours in hopes of providing an ACTUAL race for the French🇫🇷 grand prix. Well that is what would happen. Kimi Raikkonen would qualify 3rd but start 13th cause of new engine parts and hardly went anywhere at the start. But with the aid of his heavy fuel load at the start allowed the Finn to finish 2nd. Raikkonen would be playing catch up once again for another grid penalty in Britain🇬🇧. After starting 12th he'd get all the way up to 8th on the first lap and then a saftey car comes out for Takuma Sato's🇯🇵 stalled BAR Honda car to tighen things up. But he would spend the first stint of the race being held up behind Michael Schumacher and Jarno Trulli🇮🇹. But when they would pit he would stay out to use the overcut to jump them. He would also use it to jump Jenson Button later on in the race. Kimi Raikkonen would recover to 3rd after starting 12th behind his championship rival who finished 2nd and his teammate Juan Pablo Montoya who got an overdue first victory of the year. In Germany🇩🇪 Kimi would not have a grid penalty and start from the pole. He would get to a 11 and a half second advantage just past halfway through the race and Kimi is slow, Raikkonen is slowing and as James Allen would say "Oh I don't believe it! Kimi Raikkonen! His reliability worries once again." The reason he didn't make the checkered flag this time is a hydraulic faliure. This put him 36 points behind Fernando Alonso. With 7 races left in the season its like the song called "The final masquerade " with shadows floating over the stars began to fade. The championship seemed like it was out of reach for Kimi Raikkonen and West McLaren Mercedes. But in Hungary🇭🇺 opportunity came at the start, he got past Jarno Trulli's Toyota into turn 1 but Fernando Alonso has broken his front wing against the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher🇩🇪 which made him have to pit to get it changed. Kimi would also get past his teammate Juan Pablo Montoya and now can focus on getting by the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher. But it wouldn't be easy at the Hungaroring with it's tight and twisty turns, people say it's Monaco without the walls. This would make it difficult for Alonso to get through the field so Raikkonen needs to get the most points he can to cut the gap to Alonso. But after the first stint he would be stuck behind the German's Ferrari. But Schumacher would pit at lap 35 exactly halfway through the race so Kimi now needs to push to get in front to have a chance of winning this race. One lap later he comes for a splash of fuel and Schumacher comes out the final corner and Kimi Raikkonen gets in front of Michael Schumacher! Now he can hunt down Montoya who is on a different strategy than him but he is catching him and Montoya is slowing! And James Allen would say "Surely not! Surely not another McLaren problem!" But that's what it would be, a driveshaft faliure pits the Columbian out of the race and gives the Finn the lead. Another thing that Allen would say is that there seems to always seems to be a but with McLaren, they are an outstanding team with an outstanding car with 2 outstanding drivers but there always seems to be something mechanically wromg with the car at the worst possible time. But something good would happen for Kimi's title challenge as Alonso would have a miserable day not scoring any championship points. So he needs to take the biggest bite out of the points deficit as he can and that's exactly what he's going to do by winning the Hungarian grand prix! The 10 points he lost in Germany he gained back today and now is 26 points behind the championship lead. Now going to the inaugural Turkish🇹🇷 grand prix. And both McLarens and Renaults are in the first 4 spots so it is going to be a straight fight between the championship rivals. Kimi wins the pole for the race but loses out to Giancarlo Fisichella and nearly loses out to Alonso. But on the backstretch uses the slipstream to get back past and pulls away ever so slightly from the Spainard but when Fernando pitted he would get held up by Jarno Trulli. This opened the door for Juan Montoya to get past him. But there is a slight hiccup with the fuel rig. Montoya was released by the lollipop man when the fuel rig didn't completely get out and knocks the fueler over but he's ok as Kimi pitted the next lap but both are out ahead of Alonso after first pitstops. Things were looking very good as the closing stages of the race comes and it looks like the gap will come down to 22 points but Montoya is around, Juan Montoya gets spun around by Tiaga Montero! Now Alonso is right behind him, the Columbian needs to get back into the rhythm to hold off the Renault. But in turn 8 he goes off the track after making a mistake and loses the place to Fernando Alonso as Kimi Raikkonen wins the Turkish grand prix! It is a good championship day for Kimi but he needs Montoya to separate him and Alonso to gain the most points possible. Now he is 24 points behind Alonso. Going to Italy🇮🇹 though struggles would arise once again for Kimi as he would win the pole...... but he would start 11th because of ANOTHER grid penalty for new engine components. It would cost him massively as he would be held up by 1997 world champion Jaques Villeneuve. But after the Sauber pits Kimi needs to push to salvage anything in this race as lap 20 comes Alonso is ahead who has already pitted but Kimi hasn't stopped yet and he would follow him through but on the next lap he is in the slipstream he sees the opportunity to get by Fernando Alonso and he does in 1 and 2 but Raikkonen goes wide and loses his momentum! The two championship rivals are going at it but in the second chicane Raikkonen gets past Alonso, brilliant racing! Lap 23 he seets the fastest lap of the race, a 1:21:7 he is really going for it teying to use the overcut to come out in front of Giancarlo Fisichella to get in the podium places. With 28 laps to go he would put to change his strategy to a 1 stop and come out in 5th place. But apparently the Finn can't catch a break as his left rear tire goes flat forcing him to pit and come out behind Jaques Villeneuve. So that's great, out of all the people the one he got stuck behind for the first stint of the race and he is in 12th now. But because everyone ahead of him was on a 2 or 3 stop strategy he'd climb back up to 4th even though he spun after the second chicane. Going to Belgium🇧🇪 the title race could end in this race. Of Alonso scores 4 more points than Raikkonen than it's all over. And weather is gonna be involved in this race. So intermediates are the way to go and the McLarens are in another zip code but a wreck from Giancarlo Fisichella would bring out the saftey car. Everyone pits for fuel and Raikkonen would only come out 4th because he tactically slowed down so the McLaren mechanics would be done with Montoya by the time he gets there. On the restart he would get by Villeneuve after he locked his brakes into turn 1. The track would begin to dry slowly so at lap 24 Ralf Schumacher tries dry tyres but he spun out in sector 1 ruining his strategy so he returns for intermediates. The track is getting faster as Kimi sets a 1:55:848 closing the gap to Montoya. As Sauber's Felipe Massa🇧🇷 pits for dry tyres and the Brazilian seems slow but the dry line is visible yet anyone who tries them fails and with 12 laps to go Alonso pits for intermediates. Followed by Montoya a lap later gifting the lead to Kimi Raikkonen who sets a 1:53:810 which was enough for Raikkonen to pit for tires and keep the lead. Well it's not going to be straight forward to the end as Webber pits for dry tyres and it FINALLY works followed by Rubens Barachello and the BMW Williams of Antonio Pizzonia🇧🇷. So it is finally working out for the dry tyres but Montoya is off the track! Juan Montoya is out of the race again at a bad time for McLaren as Alonso goes to second from this after Pizzonia on dry tyres was trying to get past Montoya but the Brazilian hit the McLaren damaging the Williams suspension and putting the Columbian into the wall as Raikkonen goes on to win the race doing everything he can to keep his championship hopes alive. But however he is 25 points behind Alonso. Going to Brazil🇧🇷 he needs some bad luck to happen to the Spaniard to have a chance at the championship as Fernando can clinch the championship in this race by getting 6 points. Honorable mention to Jaques Villeneuve who finished 6th for Sauber and Tiago Monteiro who scores a point in 8th place for Jordan. Anyway onto Brazil. Kimi Raikkonen would start 5th after locking up into turn 1 but by the end of the first sector on lap 1 he is 3rd. And he would stay 3rd. Lap 22 and Alonso pits giving Raikkonen the chance to push hard now to leap past Alonso. And that is exactly what he did with his constant 1 minute 12s he jumped Alonso at the stops and gets to 2nd place. And that is how it would end after 2nd pitstops, and the race and thw world championship as Fernando Alonso finished in 3rd place which is all he needed to clinch the title in Brazil. And to salten the wounds even more for Kimi Raikkonen is the is the 3rd time in a row he finished 2nd in Brazil. But in Japan🇯🇵 he had his greatest drive in 2005 by recovering from 17th on the grid to get past Giancarlo Fisichella on the final lap to win the race and finish 2nd in China🇨🇳 finishing the season 21 points behind Fernando Alonso. Kimi would only do one more season with McLaren before moving to Ferrari in Michael Schumacher's car and beating Fernando Alonso by just 1 point. But back in 2005 for Kimi there was 10 points lost at San Marino, 10 more lost in Europe, and 10 points lost in Germany along with unreliability in practice sessions and grid penalties all did their damage and it makes people ask "What if Raikkonen hadn't had so much bad luck? What if his car was more reliable? Or what might have been for Kimi Raikkonen in 2005? Or as Youtuber "The Iceberg" would say what if in 2005 Kimi Raikkonen had captured his missing ring?