Kimi Raikkonen scored a 9.8s second win over Fernando Alonso in the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday to keep his and Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's hopes alive in the 2007 Formula One World Championship as major rival Lewis Hamilton slid off the pit access lane after 30 laps of the 56 lap race. Raikkonen was backed up by Felipe Massa in third place.

The race was full of drama as it started on a wet track - but not as wet as Fuji the weekend before - dried out before a small shower dampened it again around half distance. It then dried out again to the finish. Hamilton led away from pole position with Raikkonen taking second and Massa third, but Alonso came around the outside of the second Ferrari to take third only to lose it again on the first lap. Alonso challenged Massa for the first few laps, as Hamilton pulled away out front, opening up an 8.6s lead by lap 14. Behind, Raikkonen was pulling away from Massa, opening up a five second gap while Massa was shadowed by Alonso who was only a couple of seconds behind.

The first pit stops came on lap 15 when Hamilton came in, while the other contenders came in successively from lap 17 onwards, but all remained on what were by now fairly well-worn wet tyres. After the last stop, Hamilton's lead had been halved to four seconds, but the margin to Massa in third had now grown to 12s with Alonso slightly closer behind him. Massa came in on lap 26 for his second stop on what was virtually half distance as the rain returned for a brief shower, and that instantly allowed Raikkonen to close onto Hamilton's tail, and on lap 29, he swept past. Hamilton promptly had a moment off track, so that on lap 30, Raikkonen's leading margin had leaped to 8.0s.

But now the track was beginning to dry, and Hamilton - among others - headed for the pits to fit dry tyres. The pit lane includes a sharp lefthander, but Hamilton's tyres were so badly worn that he had little grip and slid straight on, into a gravel trap where he remained, out of the race. Raikkonen and Alonso both pitted on the next lap and rejoined with the Finn 11s ahead of Alonso, who in turn had rejoined just ahead of Massa. The leader, on the road, was Robert Kubica who had made just one pit stop after 25 laps but he led just one lap before rolling to a halt with a recurrence of hydraulic failure which had plagued the BMW Sauber team all weekend.

Raikkonen now led by 10s from Alonso in second place while Massa was in third. Alonso reduced Raikkonen's lead to 7.9s over the remaining laps, but it was usually at least eight seconds. By contrast, Massa was falling back with graining tyres to a 10s deficit behind the Spaniard, but then the tyres cleaned themselves up and Massa set four fastest laps in the last five laps. He was 3.0s behind Alonso at the end.

The rest were left far behind, but it was the Ferrari-engined Scuderia Toro Rosso of Sebastian Vettel which scored a remarkable fourth place ahead of Jenson Button's Honda and Vettel's teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi. Nick Heidfeld and David Coulthard scooped the final points. The championship now heads to Interlagos on the outskirts of Sao Paulo in Brazil for the final round of the series, with Hamilton still leading the championship on 107 pts, from Alonso with 103 and Raikkonen still in with a chance on 100 pts.

Kimi Raikkonen thus secured Scuderia Ferrari's two hundredth victory from 757 Grand Prix entered in the Formula 1 World Championship. It is Kimi's fifth win with the team, his fourteenth from 121 races. It is Ferrari's eighth victory of the season and its third in four runnings of the Chinese Grand Prix.
 

Jean Todt: "It is great to be able to celebrate Scuderia Ferrari's two hundredth victory in Formula 1, here in Shanghai, at the end of a difficult race, further complicated by the unpredictability of the changes in the weather. Kimi brings his total tally of the season to five and this is the team's eighth. He drove an extraordinary race, without committing the slightest error. Felipe had a good race, helping us to see how the dry weather tyres were working at a critical moment. Unfortunately, the rain returned for a brief period, which affected his race. All the team had taken badly what happened at a difficult weekend in Fuji which we left with much less than we deserved. I also wish to congratulate our friends at Toro Rosso, who picked up some important points: it is great to see four Ferrari engines in the top eight. We know our aim of bringing home the Drivers' title will still be very difficult to achieve, but we will give it our all, right up to the last lap of the last race!"

Kimi Raikkonen: "I am very happy! It is a really great result for me and the whole team, who done a truly excellent job. We needed this win and we got it. At the start of the race, I had a lot of understeer but then the situation improved. I was one of the last to switch to dry tyres but this was a help as after a little while the rain began to fall again. Even after the second stop I had a bit of understeer, but as before, the situation improved in the final stages. I knew Alonso was very quick but I was in full control of the situation. The car overall was working well both in the wet and in the dry. Last week in Fuji, we were unlucky but today things went right for us. We have had yet another example that in this sport anything can happen. The situation in the Drivers' classification is still difficult, but I will try everything to win in Brazil, even if the final outcome does not just depend on what we do. It should be a great battle, very hard to predict and interesting."

Felipe Massa: "I had hoped to be fighting for the win, but the race was affected by the changing weather conditions. At the moment I switched to dry tyres, the timing was not ideal. The rain came back immediately and it was really difficult to stay on track. In any case, in these instances, it can pay off to take risks: sometimes it works out and sometimes not. After a few difficulties with graining, the situation to the extent that, in the final part of the race, I was going very well. All in all, finishing on the podium in a race like this is very important and I am very happy for the team. There is one race to go: anything can happen and we must continue to work to stay ahead of our rivals."

Luca Baldisserri: "This was probably one of the most difficult races of the season, characterized by very unstable weather, with the rain coming and going. After the first pit stop, Kimi gradually made up ground on Hamilton and could have got past earlier but for the yellow flags. Then, as the track was drying, Kimi stepped up the pace and controlled a possible attack from Alonso. Maybe with Felipe, we rushed the switch to dry tyres, but the rain did not help. Now we can say it was a great race, run by two exceptional drivers who are capable of adapting very well to the changing track conditions. It will be tough in Sao Paolo but we will give it our best shot right down to the final corner."

Race details: Kimi Raikkonen: 1st 1:37.58.395 56 laps chassis 262; Felipe Massa: 3rd + 12.891 56 laps chassis 263; Weather: air temperature 28 °C, track temperature 28 °C, rain, then overcast.