Massa ended up at the back of the snake behind the Safety Car, and problems were confounded when he got a drive-through penalty for an unsafe release in the path of Adrian Sutil.

This is quite ironic, as Sutil was the man Massa was released in the path of in Valencia, where he got away with just a fine on that occasion. From then on, his head was down and he simply never recovered like he should have.

He had a very fast car so he had enough of a time advantage over his rivals in front of him to overtake them, and snatch himself a point or two.

Points scored in these disastrous situations can win championships. Massa simply didn’t deliver and was lucky not to retire when he scraped the wall on the entrance to the tunnel.

Raikkonen had another unusual race. He started slowly but then picked up the pace and looked a sure bet for second place. However the safety car queued him behind Massa in the pits, so he lost ground.

However, he did well to get back to fifth place and would have scored four vital points to keep Ferrari ahead in the constructors championship. But he pushed too hard and made a silly mistake at turn 10 and hit the wall. This ensured that Ferrari scored no points.

This weekend, Massa should have taken the lead of the championship; instead, he is now seven points behind. Ferrari should have extended their lead comfortably in the constructors championship, instead they are now one point behind McLaren.

They have to pick themselves up very quickly and ditch that lights system they currently use for their pit stops. If Ferrari lose both championships, they may well look back at this race.

Alonso returns to glory

After a frustrating season, this surprise victory came at a great time for Fernando Alonso. Admittedly, there was a lot of luck involved in this win. However, Alonso was in superb form throughout the weekend and maximized his opportunity.

Alonso had a great chance of starting at the front of grid, but a reliability gremlin in Q2 put him down in 15th on the grid. When Alonso got out of the car, you could see the sheer frustration. If someone had jokingly told him after that session, that he could win the race he would probably have thumped them.

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