Alonso celebrates 'fantastic' second

The Renault driver, starting from sixth, took full advantage of the tricky conditions to move up the field and, despite a late charge from Kimi Raikkonen, the Spaniard managed to stay in second behind Felipe Massa.

The result allowed Alonso to move into fifth place in the standings, having outscored all his rivals counting the races since the Belgian Grand Prix.

"I think the start was difficult for everybody," said Alonso. "It was wet obviously but especially turns one, two and three so we had a few problems with there.

"Then safety car came out and two laps after the restart I pit for dry tyres. The team saw BMW with dry tyres going quite quick, so it was quite a good decision because suddenly I found myself in P3, so at that point I think the race was good for us.

"We kept second place until the end, fighting to the end. It was a fantastic result and finishing on the podium was much more than we wanted."

He added: "I think Massa was a little bit quick today and I was more concerned with the gap to Kimi and the race victory that I knew was there."

The Spaniard, winner of two races this year, is expected to announce next week that he will be staying with Renault for another season.