With 14 laps left to run, only 3.5 seconds separated the
Toyota and
McLaren, whilst further back Alonso was pressing Webber hard for sixth place, with the much-improved Piquet a mere 2.5 seconds behind the pair of them. Hamilton flew by Glock on the straight for tenth place – with Coulthard next in his sights, just 1.6 seconds ahead, and the final world championship point only ten seconds further up the road.
As the rain began to fall and cars started sliding around a bit more, Kovalainen and Kubica were both right with Trulli, who had the prospect of ten laps left to run with two significantly faster cars now crawling all over the back of him. Scrabbling around for mechanical grip, the Italian found himself fighting a frantic rearguard action on worn tyres, whilst Raikkonen's exhaust finally flew off and Webber now found himself under attack from
both Renaults.
With five laps remaining, Trulli was continuing to gamely hold on around a track he knows intimately from his Prost days, though Kovalainen was still pushing extremely hard as the pair inched away slightly from Kubica. With the rain re-starting three laps from home, Kovalainen renewed his attack and Trulli's car was looking more nervous than ever – and the tension mounted.
In the tussle over sixth place, Alonso out-braked himself into Adelaide, allowing Piquet to get past his team-mate, and though the Brazilian would subsequently do the same thing only a handful of corners later, he held onto the spot.
There was yet more drama, however, as Kovalainen got right alongside Trulli on the penultimate lap in the same place where Hamilton had earlier controversially passed Vettel, and as the Finn similarly found himself rapidly running out of room, he was forced to run off-piste and a relieved Trulli retained the place.
As Massa motored on to comfortably take the chequered flag first, Raikkonen brought his wounded F2008 home just under 18 seconds behind to seal the runner-up spot and score his first points in three grands prix, albeit not quite as many as he had been hoping to.
