Massa wins as Alonso secures championship

F1 Grand Prix, GP Brazil, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, Interlagos

Felipe Massa has today easily won the Brazilian Grand Prix ahead of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button. It immediately means that Fernando Alonso has secured his second drivers championship in his career and offers the constructors' title also to his team. Michael Schumacher did the very best he could by setting incredible fastest laps but suffered car problems and was unable to fight equally for the title.

The Brazilian GP kicked off spectacularly just like in recent years. At the front places remained the same as apparently Alonso was not willing to take a chance to pass Trulli in the first corner. Behind Ralf Schumacher though the action is more heated up as both BMW Saubers and the Toyota go side by side through the Senna S. Michael Schumacher is initially blocked behind the fighters but is able to profit one further corner by overtaking both BMW Saubers in one simple move.

Even further in the field, both Williams drivers touch each other. Mark Webber consequently enters the pitlane to retire his final Williams race early while Nico Rosberg violently goes off track in the final corner before the finish. At the time the safety car is brought out to allow clearance of the track, Massa is first, Alonso 4th, Fisichella 5th and Michael Schumacher 6th.

The restart after 7 laps in the race does not change anything, apart from making clear that both Ferraris are extremely fast. When one lap later Schumacher takes the inside of Fisichella, Michael cut off his corner and passed the Roman but immediately afterwards he lost pace as his right rear tyre was punctured. Both men did not touch in the incident so the puncture may have been caused by some debris left out on track from Rosberg's crash. Michael rejoined the track in last position and about 10 seconds ahead of his teammate, albeit almost one lap down.

While Jenson Button strolls forward and is 6th after 15 laps, Jarno Trulli and David Coulthard see their season end early because of technical problems. Both men come to a halt at their pitboxes. The Briton's pace isn't however down to low fuel loads as he continues longer than any other front runner, except for Alonso who took the lead as he was obviously a little more loaded than the rest of the top 6. As Alonso rejoins the track he is just ahead of Raikkonen and Button.

After 31 laps Massa is clearly ahead of any other driver, but behind him a group has formed with de la Rosa at the steering wheel, followed by Alonso, Button and Raikkonen. De la Rosa is apparently on a single stop strategy and holds up the followers.

40 laps through the race and the saga for Schumacher simply continues. After having set the fastest lap of the race thus far and passing Kubica for seventh place he suffered yet another problem and missed one of the hairpins. We're not sure what happened but Kubica got passed again just one lap later. Ferrari's traction out of the final corner is really impressive.

There are now still 20 laps to go and an incredible battle unfolds as Michael Schumacher continues his quest towards the front of the race. Although the drivers' title is still far away, Schumacher's efforts are important for Ferrari. He is now just behind Fisichella but both men can see Raikkonen, Button and Alonso on the back straight. Once more though, Schumacher seemingly loses all power in the first hairpin and loses 2 seconds to Fisichella.

Few laps later Fisichella is passed by Schumacher after trying to defend his position thus hard that he actually missed the Senna S. Fisichella though put in all possible efforts to defend his place but the Ferrari is simply much faster. Only 4 laps later he is just behind Raikkonen but not allowed to pass just at that time as a yellow flag is waved because Nick Heidfeld was knocked out of the race after locking up his rear wheels under braking. The next few laps proved the talent of both men with clean and close fighting before eventually Schumacher passed the future Ferrari driver.