He may have been retiring at the end of the afternoon, but Schumacher was determined to go out in style. Even if he continued to publicly deny his chances of another individual crown, a constructors' title for
Ferrari was something close to his heart, and he set about his recovery with gusto. The lesser lights proved no match for the German, although some made it a little
too easy for him, including the
BMW Saubers, and he quickly reduced the 70secs+ deficit to his team-mate, who continued to lead - to the delight of the partisan home crowd.
Such was Massa's pace out front, that he was 7.5secs up on second-placed Raikkonen five laps after the restart and continued to pull away, a string of fastest laps only interrupted by his equally fired-up team-mate. The Brazilian was among the first to pit, but held his place, eventually emerging ahead of de la Rosa when the cycle played out. The Spaniard, for the record, had opted for a one-stop strategy having started twelfth, and was to drop back to a more representative position mid-race.
As one Spaniard pitted, so another took his place as pursuer-in-chief to the fleeing Massa, Alonso having run later into the race than many of his front-running rivals. A solid stop by the
Renault crew turned the champion-elect around in quick enough time to get him out ahead of Raikkonen, who subsequently lost another place to the charging Button, whose
Honda was nicely hooked up on the sweeps of Interlagos and showed just what a setback his traction control problems had been in qualifying.
The Briton even had the temerity to take a look at passing Alonso for second into the same first turn that had proved so lucrative against Raikkonen, but was rebuffed as the Renault driver did his bit to maintain a firm hold on both championships.
