Massa celebrates maiden win
Massa triumphed by 5.5 seconds for Ferrari from Renault’s Alonso who had to fight off seven-times champion Schumacher several times over the last 15 laps to take a vital second place by just a car’s length.
The Spaniard came home just fractions ahead of his Ferrari rival to increase his championship lead over the German to 12 points with four races left.
Massa, who had started on pole for the first time, claimed his historic win in his 66th race and his first season with Ferrari.
“It’s just fantastic. I’ve worked so hard my whole career for this moment,” said a tearful Massa.
Alonso said: “Felipe was impossible to catch. We’ll just need to do something for the next race.”
Schumacher, meanwhile, paid tribute to his young teammate.
“Congratulations to Felipe. He did a superb job. There was quite a gap and he was consistent and drove superbly. That’s what is good about our team — someone might not have had a good weekend and the other one makes up for it.”
The 25-year-old Massa had blasted away from his first-ever pole start with Schumacher and Alonso dicing for second spot into the first corner with the German just winning out.
Alonso struggled to match Ferrari’s early pace and dropped 10 seconds adrift before he was handed a lifeline on lap 14 when Toro Rosso’s Tonio Liuzzi stopped on the edge of the track.
The Ferraris both pitted as the safety car was sent out but as Schumacher waited in line Alonso also pitted and was able to leapfrog his rival into second place.
Schumacher was unable to make any impression as in the middle of the race and crucially lost almost five seconds to his rival when he skidded wide at the notorious turn 8 on lap 29.
Massa and Alonso both made their final pit-stop on lap 39, but although Schumacher stayed out on track and in the lead for another four laps he still returned third, but was right behind the championship pacesetter.
Alonso said: “We were lucky with the Safety Car and overtook Michael there. I managed to pull away a bit and then Michael went wide at Turn Eight.
“The last laps were very close but I managed to finish in front by half a car to finish second. I am happy in one way but I’m not too happy we weren’t able to win.
“I felt confident I could hold Michael behind me. I was playing with the revs a little bit, going down and up depending on the distance with Michael.”
Schumacher said: “My second set of tyres, for whatever reason, I didn’t manage to go the speed I was supposed to. We had a pretty heavy fuel load and I lost significant time into turn Eight.
“I had to make up for it but over-drove the tyres a bit. It wasn’t supposed to be today, but that’s the way it is. But it was a nice fight.”
Britain’s Jenson Button followed up his maiden victory in the last race in Hungary with fourth for Honda while Pedro de la Rosa took fifth spot for McLaren Mercedes-Benz.
Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella of Italy was sixth despite losing his front wing on the first lap with Ralf Schumacher seventh for Toyota and Rubens Barrichello eighth in the other Honda.
The 58-lap race had got off to an incident packed start with fourth-placed Fisichella spinning causing chaos behind him.
The major casualty was last year’s winner Kimi Raikkonen in a McLaren whose left rear tyre was punctured after a collision with Toro Rosso’s Scott Speed.
“I just don’t know what happened,” said the Finn.
He had to pit, but must have sustained other damage as moments after returning to the crash he lost control at a tight left-hander and smashed into the barriers.
Renault’s lead in the Constructors’ championship is now just two points heading into the Italian Grand Prix in a fortnight with Ferrari, and Schumacher, still competing hard for both titles.
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