As the rain consistently eased off and the sunshine began to fight its way through, the race entered its closing laps with Hamilton now more than a minute ahead of Heidfeld and clearly still pushing very hard indeed in the treacherous conditions. Kovalainen’s hard work in passing Alonso for fourth was undone when he spun with just ten laps left to run, letting both the
Renault and Raikkonen by, with the pair proceeding to go at it hammer-and-tongs as Hamilton lapped all three of them and Massa went for spin number six entering Abbey, pitting shortly afterwards.
Kovalainen – clearly happier with his
McLaren as the track slowly but surely dried out – was quick to close back onto the duelling Alonso-Raikkonen battle again, in a near replay of the trio’s Melbourne squabble in the season curtain-raiser back in March. Raikkonen had a look at Alonso in the complex with seven laps remaining, only for the Renault to fend the
Ferrari off, but the game was over when the Finn got a slipstream down Hangar Straight and was fairly unopposed as he swept past into fourth, leaving the Spaniard to deal with the attentions of Kovalainen behind.
With six laps to go, Barrichello had closed to within as many seconds of Heidfeld in second, and seemed to fancy a sniff at the runner-up position. Kovalainen had a think about attacking Alonso down the Hangar Straight, with neither Nakajima nor Trulli far behind the pair and closing in at the rate of more than a second a lap and Rosberg rapidly coming along to play too. With less than four laps left, Kovalainen’s time was fast running out, and though he kept getting a peek, he could not quiet find a way by.
With two laps remaining, Kovalainen finally got past into the final corner – to roars of approval from the watching crowd – leaving Alonso under pressure from the two Toyota-powered machines behind him, and struggling to fight them off as the race entered its final lap.
