Schumacher Savours 'Tight' Victory

Michael Schumacher held off a late challenge from McLaren's resurgent Kimi Raikkonen to win the British Grand Prix for Ferrari on Sunday and celebrate his 10th victory in 11 races.

It was the 80th win of the German's career.

But he had a late scare when the deployment of the safety car 15 laps from the end, after Italian Jarno Trulli's Renault piled into the tyre wall at speed, offered the young Finn a glimmer of hope.

The six-times World Champion, smooth and controlled as ever, quickly snuffed out the threat to take the chequered flag as Raikkonen finished 2.1 seconds behind.

"It took away the comfortable lead I had built up by that stage," said the German of the intervention. "The safety car was going very, very slowly around. It didn't look like he was putting any effort into his drive."

Schumacher had made his final stop before the safety car came out and was fuelled to the finish but what had looked like a commanding lead evaporated as Raikkonen took advantage of the interruption to dive in for his final stop.

The Finn had made a remarkable start from pole position, leading Rubens Barrichello by 3.5 seconds after the first lap and staying in front to the first stop. It soon became apparent however that Schumacher was running a heavier fuel load, making two stops to Raikkonen's three.

The German took the lead as Raikkonen pitted and never looked back.

"I thought we had a very good strategy for the race but that it would play out so early - after the very first pitstop - was not the plan honestly," said the German. "After that it was just controlling it. It was tight in a couple of areas but not too tight."

It was Schumacher's third success at Silverstone, the circuit where he broke his leg in 1999, as well as dominant Ferrari's third in a row there. Schumacher has now 100 points to Rubens Barrichello's 74. Ferrari lead the Constructors's Championship with 174 points to Renault's 79 with BAR on 67.

Barrichello, second in the Championship and last year's British winner, remained the only driver to have scored points in every race this season after coming home in third place today.