Schumacher still hopeful of title

Alonso won a thrilling battle with Schumacher to finish in second place, behind Felipe Massa, to extend his lead in the title race to 12 points with four races remaining.

Early in the race, however, it looked like everything was playing in Schumacher's favour, the German and his teammate dominating the race.

Schumacher's gap was deleted when the safety car was deployed, and things were made worse when he had to queue behind Massa in the pits. That allowed Alonso to move to second place, a position he kept until the end of the race.

But Schumacher is still upbeat about his chances seeing Ferrari's strong form.

"We can see that Felipe and myself were very strong," said Schumacher. "If we can maintain that without having unfortunate situations like the safety car in the wrong moment, we could both be in front and if I could manage to be in front of Fernando then you can calculate what it means."

Schumacher said there was no point in thinking the safety car had cost him the race.

"Maybe, who knows," said Schumacher. "There is no point to speculate on it and what you have to look at is Felipe."

The seven-time world champion also praised his teammate Massa, who scored his maiden win today.

"Felipe did a superb job," he added. "He opened up in the early stages of the race quite a gap, he was very consistent. I managed to close in just before we went to the safety car but he didn't make a mistake. 

"He drove it home superbly and that is what is good for the team. That is what is good about our team, if someone doesn't have a good weekend the other can make up for it."