As a consequence of the race, Alonso stretched his lead to fifteen points in the Drivers' Championship over Schumacher. Alonso's team, Renault, also increased their lead, but did so in the Constructors' Championship standings. This put them nineteen points ahead of Ferrari.
The bottom 6 teams in the 2005 Constructors' Championship and Super Aguri 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.
Three practice sessions were held before the Sunday race – two on Friday, and one on Saturday. The Friday morning and afternoon sessions each lasted 90 minutes; the third session, on Saturday morning, lasted for an hour.[3]
Saturday afternoon's qualifying session was divided into three parts. The first part ran for 15 minutes, and cars that finished the session 17th position or lower were eliminated from qualifying. The second part of the qualifying session lasted 15 minutes and eliminated cars that finished in positions 11 to 16. The final part of the qualifying session ran for 20 minutes which determined the positions from first to tenth, and decided pole position. Cars which failed to make the final session could refuel before the race, so ran lighter in those sessions.[3]
Alonso clinched his second pole position of the season with a time of 1:14.648, and was joined on the front row by teammate Fisichella. Michael Schumacher took third place on the grid, with a qualifying time more than one-tenth slower than Alonso's.
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