Second success for Alonso as title rivals collide

Renault's Fernando Alonso wins a race where rivals Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa collided during the second lap.

The Renault Formula One driver Fernando Alonso of Spain celebrates with his team after winning the Japanese F1 Grand Prix at Fuji Speedway in Oyama on Oct 12 2008.

Fernando Alonso and Renault won their second successive race as championship rivals Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa collided during a dramatic Japanese Grand Prix yesterday in Fuji. The Spaniard took the 21st win of his career after a superb drive, finishing ahead of the BMW Sauber of Robert Kubica and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen. The success came two weeks after his triumph in Singapore, and he said: "Obviously the Singapore win was completely unexpected. OK I won with special conditions with the safety car, but today we had nothing and we won again, and at a circuit that is not particularly good for our characteristics. I cannot believe it right now, back-to-back wins." But the main talking points to come from the 67-lap race was the driving of the title protagonists, who made costly errors that led to both getting drive-through penalties. Massa's Ferrari recovered to finish seventh and close the points gap to Hamilton to five as the McLaren-Mercedes man could only finish 12th. Hamilton had made a poor getaway from pole position and had dropped behind Raikkonen off the line. However, the McLaren-Mercedes driver braked desperately late to retake the lead at the first corner, but ran wide forcing Raikkonen and Massa to go off the track as well. Further back in the pack suspension failure caused David Coulthard's Red Bull to crash at high speed as the cars accelerated away towards the second turn. The chaos allowed Kubica, who had started sixth, to take the lead ahead of Alonso, with Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren in third. Hamilton had slipped down to sixth with his front tyres badly flat-spotted by his first corner manoeuvre, but he was on Massa's tail on the second lap. At turn 10 the Brazilian ran wide, but as Hamilton went round the outside the Ferrari came back on the kerbs and clipped the back of McLaren to spin him around. Hamilton fell down to 18th place and pitted at the end of the lap to replace his ruined tyres. Any hope of gaining points were lost for the championship leader when the stewards gave him a penalty for forcing the Ferrari drivers to run wide with his driving at the start, leaving him more than a minute behind. But Massa was also penalised for hitting Hamilton and causing an avoidable accident and he dropped to 13th after driving down the pitlane at reduced speed on lap 21. At the front, Alonso leapfrogged Kubica to take the lead after the first round of pit-stops, with Raikkonen in third after passing Jarno Trulli's Toyota. Kovalainen had been running third, but a miserable day for McLaren was completed on lap 17 when the Finn's engine failed. Running a short middle stint, Alonso opened up a 12-second lead over Kubica, who was struggling with an unbalanced car. He successfully maintained that advantage after his second pit-stop and cruised to a deserved triumph that rewards Renault's successful development of what was an uncompetitive car at the start of the season. Kubica held off a brief challenge from Raikkonen to secure second, and the Pole remains in the hunt for the title, now only 12 points behind Hamilton with two races of the season left. He said: "I finished second and this is a great result for team because it is a difficult moment. It is a good boost for us, we are still in the fight, so let's try." Renault's best result for more than two years was capped by Nelson Piquet's battling fourth place finish, ahead of Trulli in fifth. Sebastien Bourdais had finished sixth for Toro Rosso, but was given a 25-second retrospective penalty which dropped him to 10th after the race following an incident with Massa on lap 50. The Frenchman was leaving the pitlane and tangled with the Ferrari as Massa tried to go around the outside at the first corner. The Brazilian was spun round and the stewards decided Bourdais was at fault for the incident. This promoted the second Toro Rosso of Sebastian Vettel to sixth, with Massa, who passed the BMW of Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber's Red Bull in the final laps, up to seventh to secure two points. Webber took the final point for eighth. [e-mail]