Schumacher juggernaut keeps rolling on

Even by Michael's standards, this has been an exceptional year. The Belgian GP was his first real defeat of the season following his ridiculous exit in Monaco, when he was struck from behind by Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams in the tunnel during a safety car period. But Raikkonen's win in Spa was richly deserved, which Michael was big enough to admit later.

"Honestly and obviously I would have rather finished the championship with a victory," admitted Schumacher. "But today we simply weren't strong enough at the right moment and that's how it is. We have won so many races this year it was clear at some stage somebody else would win. Today it happened, the better one won, but we are quite happy with what we've achieved.

"To get the titles as early as we have shows how exceptional this year is, and how exceptionally Ferrari works as a team. Coming into this season none of us expected something like this to happen. The way Ferrari and all our partners, including Bridgestone, have reacted to last year's fight is more than impressive - it is unique. Most likely nothing like this will happen again to any of us, so we should enjoy it as long as we can."

"I have won a very important and very prestigious number of seven championships here in Spa, it's the 700th grand prix for Ferrari, so it's the right number for us!"

Despite failing to notch his 13th maximum score in Spa, he has almost amassed twice the score of third placed Jenson Button in the point standings. As for Ferrari, it holds a 125-point lead over Renault in the constructors' championship, not bad considering the Regie has only managed to score 91.

After the race, technical director Ross Brawn took things in his stride.

"Winning the seventh title hasn't sunk in yet, but maybe it will have tonight after a couple of drinks!" quipped Brawn. "It was a very eventful race will all the safety cars and things going on - we didn't get much peace on the pitwall to think about things. Michael was, quite rightly, being cautious today. We would have had a good race to the end without that last safety car.

"I said before the start of the race that I thought Kimi would be our main opposition here. He struggled in qualifying, but that all changed after the start and with all the safety cars. It takes a little while for our tyres to come up to temperature, so after such a long safety car, when the tyres get very cold, it took a while for them to come back, so they didn't really help Michael today."

Seven world titles, 82 grand prix wins, 12 wins in a season - statistics to make the rest of the grid read and weep. And neither Schumacher nor Ferrari shows any sign of slowing down.