Schumacher: we were just not fast enough

The German driver could do nothing to stop Alonso from scoring his third consecutive win, Schumacher finishing over 13 seconds behind the Renault driver.

Worryingly for Schumacher, the chances of Alonso's lead narrowing significantly any time soon looked remote after another untroubled Sunday stroll in the sunshine for the youngest of champions.

The Ferrari driver trails Alonso by 23 points with 10 races left.

Schumacher moved to second place in the race after a long battle with McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen, who he passed during the second round of pitstops. The Finn finished third.

"I touched sidepods in Abbey, he moved over and I was already at the limit of the circuit," said Schumacher of his battle with Raikkonen. "He didn't want to give me the inside so I took the outside.

"We got stuck in the early stage of the race but nevertheless we can say we weren't quick enough this weekend and we will keep working on that."

Schumacher and Raikkonen followed Alonso closely to the first pitstop and the 37-year-old German then got ahead of the Finn after the second stop for tyres and fuel.

"We knew we had two sets of new tyres left," said Schumacher. "We knew all the other guys choose to use a new set at the start, so that was the only strategy: to come in a lap early and have a free lap of traffic and build gap to Kimi and at least get in second."

Schumacher's teammate Felipe Massa finished in fifth place.