Tyres prove Alonso's downfall as Schumacher wins Chinese Grand Prix

By Volker Gundrum Oct 1, 2006, 9:35 GMT

Shanghai, China - Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari on Sunday won his first-ever Chinese Grand Prix ahead of the two Renaults of Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella.

The victory sees the German overtake Alonso - who was struggling with the right choice of tyres during the race - in the championship standings with two races to go.

Both have 116 points, but Schumacher has one Grand Prix victory more this season and is positioned ahead of Alonso as a result.

Schumacher said he believed the championship would only be decided in the last race in Brazil. 'Not long ago we were so far behind that it is a bit of a miracle that we managed to be in the position that we are in now.

'The race in China was the one I expected the least from and I am very happy that we have now achieved the victory. We now go into the two final races in a good position.'

Jenson Button in a Honda secured fourth place on a dramatic last lap after moving up from sixth, while McLaren-Mercedes' Pedro de la Rosa was fifth. Rubens Barrichello was sixth in the second Honda, followed by Nick Heidfeld in a BMW-Sauber and the Williams of Mark Webber.

Alonso had no problems winning the start from his team-mate Fisichella, while championship challenger Schumacher, who started in sixth, kept his place.

McLaren-Mercedes' Kimi Raikkonen, who was Alonso's main challenger after moving up from fifth on the grid, had to retire with engine problems after 19 laps.

'I don't know what happened. There was a problem with the engine. It was still running but I could not put it into gear,' he said.

Alonso then ran into problems, possibly because of only putting on a new set of intermediary tyres in the front and lost ground on Fisichella and Schumacher who had fought his way up to third.

The defending champion was overtaken on the 29th lap and shortly afterwards then returned to the pits and changed his tyres.

The pit stop however proved to be disastrous as his crew struggled to free the back set of tyres and he lost a further ten seconds, coming out in fifth place.

Alonso said in hindsight it would have been better not to change the tyres the first time around. 'We decided to change the front tyres and this proved not to be a good thing. We were at a disadvantage then.'

As weather conditions improved Schumacher first came in to change to dry-weather tyres on the 40th lap and a lap later Fisichella followed suit but the Italian obviously had huge problems getting used to the new tyres and was overtaken by Schumacher on the first turn.

Schumacher said that he had taken a gamble on the tyres. 'We found the right moment to change to dry tyres - it was a gamble to stay on the tyres as long as we did.

'You have to judge what you are going to do - it was then right to change as the tyres were about to lose performance,' Schumacher said.

On his slick tyres Alonso started a furious catch-up phase and soon moved up to Fisichella, whom he managed to overtake on the 49th lap - with seven to go.

The Renault then pushed forward closing in on Schumacher but with a gap of ten seconds with five laps to go it proved just a bit too much for Alonso.

'After changing the tyres we were looking for a miracle, but it did not happen,' Alonso said, adding that he was still hopeful for the championship. 'The weekend showed that we were much faster in wet conditions and also faster in dry conditions.'

The rain started coming down again on the final lap and this caused chaos on the final bend as Heidfeld and Barrichello touched as they were trying to overtake a slower car.

This allowed de la Rosa to move into fifth while Heidfeld and Barrichello limped over the finish line with their damaged cars.

The final two races of the season are in Japan on October 8 and in Brazil on October 22.