Trulli: Fisichella ruined my race!

2004 Monaco Grand Prix winner Jarno Trulli finished out of the points for the first time since Australia after a bump while passing Giancarlo Fisichella upset the handling of his Toyota.

After a solid run in fourth in the early part of the race, Trulli found himself stuck behind the tyre-troubled Fisichella for the rest of the duration. When he finally forced his way past in the closing laps - at the highly unlikely location of the Loews hairpin - he bounced heavily off the kerbs. Having gained the position, the Italian had a moment at the chicane and lost several places. A precautionary call at the pits to investigate a handling imbalance effectively finished his race, although the team sent him out for the run to the flag in case the attrition rate rose in the closing stages.

"It's that kind of race which can turn around better or not, and unfortunately it didn't turn around well for me," Jarno told Crash.net, "I really deserved a podium finish, but unfortunately I found Fisichella way too slow, which held me up a lot, and allowed the Williams to get ahead of me.

"He had big tyre problems, but my car was okay. I was just frustrated at being much too slow. I couldn't do anything and, when I tried to overtake Fisichella, he was too quick on the straight. The only place to overtake him was at that point [Loews], where he had a bit of a moment. Unfortunately, I think I damaged the car, which caused a bit of a handling problem."

Trulli eventually finished tenth, retaining third place in the championship after Kimi Raikkonen's victory elevated the Finn between himself and points leader Fernando Alonso.

"To be honest, I did a fantastic race, but it's no fun being stuck behind someone who is three seconds slower - especially if you can see that you are losing pace and you are losing positions," Trulli sighed, "Next time maybe, but that's Monaco."