The Splash of the Titans

Hamilton was supreme at a rain-lashed Fuji, while Alonso crashed out and Raikkonen played catch-up. By MARK HUGHES

For 18 laps they held them under the safety car, and the participants were getting edgy. Visibility was horrific under the black Fuji skies and rolling mist.

These were exactly the conditions that made Niki Lauda pull out after a lap 31 years ago. Had Niki had the luxury of a safety car back then, he might have stayed out, might have won that '76 title as a result. But circumstances conspired against Ferrari's chances that day and played instead to the Brit in the McLaren. Same thing happened here again on Sunday. Lewis Hamilton took a majestic victory, Ferrari's chances were screwed by circumstance. As Hamilton's other title rival, team-mate Fernando Alonso, aquaplaned to a violent impact with the turn- six bank, so Hamilton's chances have taken a massive boost.

The locals were not at all surprised that Saturday practice had been cancelled, or that conditions were so bad on Sunday that the race had to start under the safety car. F1 had come to Fuji in late September - what did it expect? The mountain wasn't about to bestow her favours.

Safety car led the field from the start and stayed out for 18 laps © LAT

Or was she? Because what actually unfolded amid the intrigue, injustices and screw-ups was a bloody fantastic race.

Bernd Maylander, the safety car driver, led the most laps of the day. Initially they followed him in grid order: Hamilton, Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa, Nick Heidfeld, Jenson Button, Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel. But as early as the second lap Massa spun. He quickly rejoined, illegally repassing the BMW of Heidfeld which had passed as the Ferrari went off. Both Massa and Raikkonen had spun on the way to the grid too. There was a good reason - they were on the intermediate tyres rather than the full wets of everyone else.

Ferrari had won Malaysia '01 by doing this. The reasoning is that the safety car will guide you through the treacherous parts and by the time the track is good enough to race on, the inters will be perfectly serviceable and the team can save itself a corrective pitstop. But this time it wasn't allowed.

At 12.37pm, less than an hour before the start, race director Charlie Whiting sent e-mails to each team, telling them that only the extreme wets could be used during the safety car period: 'It is the view of the race director that all cars should be fitted with extreme weather tyres... for so long as the safety car shall remain at the head of the field immediately after the start.' If they were enjoying the protection from danger of the safety car, they couldn't then choose less safe tyres to try to gain a competitive advantage. They couldn't have their cake and eat it, in other words.

So Ferrari was running on tyres expressly forbidden by the race director. Once Whiting realised, he was on the radio to the team, asking what they thought they were doing. This was the first time Ferrari had heard about the directive.

Although Whiting sent the e-mail to all teams, Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali's laptop showed the received time as 1.37pm - seven minutes after the race had started and precisely one hour later than everyone else. Cue the jokes about it having been sent to Nigel Stepney's e-mail address in error, or it bouncing back from the McLaren computer firewall systems.

But for Ferrari, Raikkonen and Massa it was no joke. Massa was duly brought in to have his full wets fitted at the end of the second lap, Raikkonen a lap later. Significantly, both Ferraris took the opportunity to refuel. They rejoined at the back. Well, apart from Tonio Liuzzi's Toro Rosso, which was a lap down. More of which later.

Massa takes advantage as Wurz is biffed into retirement by Sato © XPB/LAT

At this point McLaren began to get very nervous. There was no prospect yet of the safety car coming in. Conditions were atrocious and the rain was continuing to fall hard.

If the race continued under the safety car until the McLarens - and everyone else - were forced to pit for fuel, the Ferraris would take the lead, all as an indirect result of having run an illegal tyre type.

Ferrari bought itself a potentially bigger advantage by pitting its drivers again on laps 14 and 15, still under the safety car and therefore still running at the back.

Whiting had a hell of a job on his hands on Sunday. Drivers were radioing their teams in the full knowledge that the race director would be listening and saying that conditions were too dangerous, that they couldn't see the car in front, that the cars were aquaplaning everywhere. So when should he let the field go? McLaren asked its drivers how they felt about racing and both said it was fine with them.

But McLaren had a vested interest in getting under way - and its two guys had a far better view than those further down the field. "It was way too dangerous to race," said Robert Kubica. "You had to go flat out down the straight to make sure you didn't get hit from behind, but you couldn't even see the red light of the car in front. If it had stopped, for sure you would have crashed into it. Then I began to get a problem with water affecting my engine and I was only doing [150mph] down the straight and I was just [hunched] waiting for the crash."

"They were the worst conditions I've ever driven in," said Anthony Davidson. "It's like being on a motorbike behind a truck at 70mph on the motorway just as close as you could get in the biggest spray. And water was actually being driven in through the visor, through the vents in your helmet and into your face, dripping into your eyes. You couldn't see, you were steaming up."

Webber was dealing with all this - as well as throwing up. He'd picked up food poisoning from a meal on Saturday night. He'd been ill on the grid and then all the alternate braking and accelerating as he tried to keep temperature in his brakes was making him feel even worse. On the fifth lap he had just radioed the team that he was going to have to come in, when he was ill again, inside his helmet. "I felt much better after that," he said post-race, by which time he was looking green again, "so I stayed out."

Kubica was hit with drive-through penalty after contact with Lewis © XPB/LAT

On the 17th lap Tonio Liuzzi was given permission by the race director to unlap himself. He had started from the pitlane in the spare car because the one he'd qualified had dry settings. But the team had failed to realise that under a safety car start there is no formation lap - and Liuzzi waited a lap before joining. There seemed no real reason therefore to allow him to unlap himself, but in doing so it would allow Whiting to monitor his lap time and so gauge how bad the track really was. Liuzzi set a 1m36s, around 14sec off a dry weather time.

That decided it: the safety car would be in at the end of lap 18 - and the race would finally be under way.

Hamilton comfortably protected his lead from Alonso, but into turn one behind the McLarens it was mayhem as Button - desperate to use the rare opportunity provided by the conditions to showcase his ability - was over-eager to dispense with Heidfeld. He launched himself down the inside, Nick was unwilling to concede and the Honda made hard contact with the BMW, spinning it and knocking off Button's front wing.

Vettel was best positioned to take advantage, nipping around them both as well as Webber. Button got going again in fifth, behind Webber. Behind Button ran the two Renaults of Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen and the BMW of Kubica. At the end of this lap Massa served a drive-through penalty for his earlier passing under safety car conditions.

Button ran for a few laps at a pace that was very impressive for a car with no front wing - and he later admitted he had no idea it wasn't there. Which probably says quite a lot about the Honda's aerodynamics. The team could see the problem and brought him in for a replacement, dropping him out of contention. A subsequent engine sensor problem then ensured he ceased to be a factor for the rest of the afternoon. He probably spent the night kicking himself several different colours.

Hamilton, as the only guy with a reasonably clear view, extended his lead up to 3sec over Alonso by the 24th lap, these two well clear of Vettel and Webber, who in turn were pulling away from the Renaults. This was about as close to reasonable as the track got before the rain intensified again and cars began aquaplaning from puddle to puddle. Rivers were forming across turns four and 10. Alonso pitted on lap 27, Hamilton a lap later. Both were fuelled to reach the end.

McLaren blamed earlier contact with Vettel for Alonso's shunt © XPB/LAT

Critically, all those safety car laps had ensured there was much less field spread than usual at this stage of the race. Which in turn meant Alonso wasn't sufficiently far clear to exit in a gap in the traffic. He came out behind the yet-to-pit group of Fisichella/ Kovalainen/David Coulthard.

Also, he went straight on at a corner on his new tyres, further delaying him. Hamilton, on the other hand, by dint of the lead he'd built up and the additional lap, just cleared that group, ballooning his advantage over Alonso.

Raikkonen was scything through the midfield, a red flash that pounced from the gloom to snatch one place after another, sitting there blind at 190mph, listening for where the guy in front was braking, waiting, then launching down his inside. He'd been filled on his lap 14 stop, but that wasn't enough to get him to the end. He knew he'd need to be stopping again some time around lap 40. So he was taking no prisoners. Team-mate Massa's progress was less spectacular, and he strayed off-track a few times.

Vettel now led the race in a Toro Rosso. And they were not words anyone was expecting to have to write coming into the weekend.

Sure, he'd yet to stop and was really a net third, but ever since taking to the wet track on Saturday he'd driven superbly, taking full advantage of the extreme wet settings the team had gambled on.

He pitted at the end of the 32nd lap, putting the Red Bull of Webber into the lead. Mark theoretically had enough fuel to run for a further seven laps, but was brought in after just four. The team was anxious for no repeat of Montreal when he'd run out of gas on an in-lap, and he'd already done enough to leapfrog Vettel.

Upon rejoining Hamilton was finding the McLaren a bit of a handful. The long pitlane was allowing the new wet-weather tyres to cool below their operating window even after being heated in their blankets, and it was taking a while for fresh rubber to get back up to temperature and in the process they were graining.

So those cars yet to stop, as well as being lighter, were also grippier - and by lap 33 Hamilton had one of them all over him, that of Kubica. His earlier misfire now cleared, Robert had already launched himself past the Renaults - Kovalainen now ahead of Fisi on account of the latter running wide - and now the BMW was looking for a way by the McLaren.

DC dices with Massa; the Scot finished fourth, Felipe was sixth © LAT

"At this point I asked the team if these guys were going to have to pit again and if I should just let them past to make it easier and safer for me," said Lewis. "It was impossible to see through the spray behind and my visor had water on the inside, so I was struggling to see. Then there was the crash with Robert. I just couldn't see that he was inside me."

Kubica thought he saw a gap down the inside of Lewis at turn 13: "He went wide, I stayed on the inside, but he cut into the apex and I was already there." The McLaren spun as the BMW passed and Kovalainen got by them both.

Hamilton got under way again, now fourth but with only yet-to-stop cars ahead of him. Kubica was later awarded a drive-through penalty for the incident, losing him several places. This seemed a very harsh punishment for what was a genuine passing attempt. Hamilton's team monitored the car for damage as Lewis reported a vibration. "But we could see from the readings that it wasn't a suspension problem," said McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh, "and we were able to reassure him."

A lap later and Alonso was in bother too, getting nudged into a spin by Vettel. "I just didn't see him in my mirrors," said Alonso, echoing his team-mate. Unlike Kubica, Vettel received no penalty, which seemed odd. Fernando got going again after dropping a couple of places, but with a damaged floor and bodywork the telemetry readings were showing a near-10 per cent reduction in downforce as well as a significant change in the aerodynamic balance between front and rear.

Seven laps later Alonso's car aquaplaned as he accelerated out of turn five and he was a passenger as the car smote the wall on the downhill approach to the hairpin. "It was almost certainly as a consequence of the damage that his car aquaplaned," said Whitmarsh, although Alonso himself didn't want to use that as an excuse. Hamilton's title chances had just had a massive boost.

With debris from the Alonso accident on the track, the safety car was deployed once again. They lined up behind in the order of Hamilton, Webber, Vettel, the out- of-sequence Liuzzi, Kovalainen, Fisichella and Coulthard.

Raikkonen had made his enforced fuel stop a couple of laps earlier and was a few places back, but the bunching up caused by the safety car worked to his advantage.

Just prior to the safety car Webber had been flying. Fuelled to the end he was nonetheless trading times with Hamilton, and only 1sec or so behind, aided by Lewis's earlier incident. He'd already set what would stand as third fastest race lap, the fastest non- McLaren.

This was a fantastic performance from the Red Bull driver, especially under the circumstances of how he was feeling. "It was just one of those days where you wondered what everyone else was doing," he said. "It was easy." Now, following the leader as they circulated behind the safety car, Webber was fancying he could take a pop at Hamilton.

So as the message came that the safety car would be coming in at the end of the 48th lap, the first three were all jockeying for position.

Hamilton, with his title chances to think about, was very concerned at Webber's aggressive behaviour.

"We needed to get heat into the brakes to stop them glazing as I was running quite a hard brake- compound material," said Lewis.

"So I was making sure there was a bit of a gap. I was on the radio to my engineers to tell the Red Bull team to get Mark to make a little more of a gap because I couldn't go any faster because the pace car was in front of me." Webber in turn was concerned at how aggressive Vettel was being behind him. "He'd been a bit leary under the first safety car too," said Webber.

It all came to a terrible point of conflict as Vettel momentarily took his eye off the ball. "I looked to the right and saw Lewis going really slowly," he said. "I don't know why but I thought he had a problem.

Probably he was heating his brakes.

By the time I looked forward again, I was already in the back of Mark's car." The impact ripped off the Red Bull's rear wheel and deranged the Toro Rosso's front, and both were out of the race. As those who heard Webber's colourful language on live tv will realise, he was angry in the extreme. Later he was more philosophical, but dumbfounded at his latest dose of plain bad luck: "Second was there for the taking, and maybe even the win."

Vettel lost his own chance of a podium. Until his expensive slip-up he had driven superbly, setting fifth fastest lap, and it was hard not to feel very sorry for him.

So as the safety car pulled off and Hamilton sprinted away it was Kovalainen who led the chase, with an out-of-sequence Massa in a temporary third ahead of Coulthard. Just behind, the charging Raikkonen quickly picked off Heidfeld (later to retire) and Fisichella. Soon he was all over DC, seemingly oblivious to the still atrocious conditions and near-zero visibility.

Coulthard stayed calm and put his Red Bull in all the right places, but had he been able to see his mirrors, they would have been filled with scarlet. Kimi's wet lines were different from everyone else's, but seemed to work. On the 55th lap, he tried a run around the outside of turn five, but couldn't quite keep the momentum to take him inside at the following hairpin.

A lap later, bolstered by the grip he'd felt on the outside, he simply went even faster there - and this time it was enough to carry him ahead into the hairpin. Fourth place was now his - and the car ahead was team- mate Massa, who two laps later had to make his splash 'n' dash fuel stop.

With Massa out of the way Kimi launched his late bid for second on Kovalainen. Although Heikki was on the verge of his first podium, "I really wanted second a lot more than third," and he was absolutely resolute in defence. Kimi would try the same outside line around turn five that had worked on Coulthard, but Kovalainen was too fast there to allow it to work.

They'd exit the hairpin as one, the Ferrari's nose virtually pushing the Renault along, and through the following flat-out kink both cars would suffer a sudden twitch every lap, their drivers staying foot to the floor. The order would remain this way to the flag, rarely more than a couple of metres of gloom between them.

Hamilton meanwhile was lapping quickly enough to make his team nervous. As he took the flag for a wonderful victory, we had echoes of Villeneuve/Arnoux Dijon '79 as Massa and Kubica fought a no- holds-barred scrap for sixth, behind Fisichella, finishing in that order.

"In the late stages we were telling [Lewis] to cool the pace," said Whitmarsh, "and he was telling us that he was. It was a fantastic drive under intense pressure in the most difficult conditions imaginable."

A champion's drive.