FORMULA ONE

• Raikkonen wins in China, championship still up for grabs

  
  

  Shanghai, China (Sports Network) - Kimi Raikkonen took advantage of a rare Lewis Hamilton error and captured Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Speedway. The No.6 Ferrari driver crossed the finish line 9.806 seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso.

  The victory was Raikkonen's fifth of the season and 14th of his F1 career. The win was the 200th for Ferrari.

  With rain on the way, Hamilton brought the field to the green flag for the scheduled 56-lap event.

  Hamilton got away cleanly while Felipe Massa and Alonso exchanged third and fourth place twice on the first lap in some great side-by-side racing.

  By the end of the second lap, the steady rain had begun, but Hamilton was still building his lead.

  It was 1.5 seconds after the second lap and 4.0 seconds over Raikkonen by lap six.

  Meanwhile, Alonso was still stuck in fourth place, his championship hopes slipping further away with each passing lap.

  Hamilton wasn't resting on his laurels, he set "fastest lap of the day" on lap 12 to expand the gap to 7.0 seconds.

  It was 8.6 seconds when he came in for fuel on lap 15. However, they didn't change tires and sent him on the way after adding just five seconds of fuel. Raikkonen inherited the lead with Hamilton returning to the track in fourth place.

  Three laps later Alonso and Raikkonen came in for fuel only and once again Hamilton was the race leader, but by only four seconds over the Finn.

  The track was drying a bit, at least on the racing line, and eating away at the "intermediate wet" tires. The four leaders were still on their original tires which were almost down to cord and they were waiting to see if they should go to dry tires or the impending weather would arrive and they should put on another set of rain tires.

  Hamilton again began to pull away as news of rain predicted it was about 10 minutes away. A couple of cars ignored the forecast and went to dry tires - Alex Wurz and Mark Webber.

  Wurz set fastest lap of the race on lap 24. it seemed like a good move and half the field stopped on the next lap to change to the dry tires, including Massa.

  On lap 27 it began to rain and those on the dry tires were in trouble. Adrian Sutil crashed while Ralf Schumacher and Nico Rosberg spun out. Meanwhile, on lap 29, Raikkonen caught Hamilton and passed him as they hit the halfway point of the race.

  Hamilton was really struggling and Raikkonen was six seconds faster than the points leader. Alonso was also catching Hamilton, he was now just six seconds behind his teammate.

  It was lap 30 and Hamilton turned down pit lane, but he spun into the gravel trap and got stuck.

  Disaster for Hamilton as his day was over and hopes of a championship celebration up in smoke.

  Alonso and Raikkonen were told of Hamilton's problem and they attacked the course with renewed interest.

  Robert Kubica was the next to suffer race-ending mechanical problems as the field was quickly shrinking on every lap.

  Lap 34, 22 laps remaining and Raikkonen held 10.9 seconds on Alonso and 11 seconds on Massa.

  The new weather forecasts were for no more rain for 30 minutes which should be enough to finish the race.

  Alonso was charging, he could now see a championship "three-peat" if he could beat Raikkonen to the checkered flag. Lap 40 and Raikkonen's gap was 8.7 seconds. But Raikkonen battled to keep the margin in the eight-second range as the laps dwindled to just a handful. Raikkonen maintained the margin, made no errors and collected 10 huge points for the victory.

  Massa, Sebastien Vettel, Jenson Button, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Nick Heidfeld and David Coulthard completed the points-scoring positions.

  Three drivers still have a chance to win the drivers championship, Hamilton (107) still leads, but his margin is just four points over Alonso (103) and seven points over Raikkonen (100).

  "The tires were completely finished, but these things happen," said Hamilton. "Don't worry, we can still do it." The season finale is set for Brazil on Sunday, October 21st.

  10/07 04:01:04 ET