Hamilton opens door for Alonso

MOTOR SPORT/Chinese Grand Prix:Another week in Formula One, another trip into the maelstrom. After torrential rain and minor earthquakes at last week's Japanese Grand Prix, yesterday's race in China was run under the threat of Typhoon Krosa, a monster storm that hovered off the coast of eastern China threatening to wreck what was shaping up to be rookie Lewis Hamilton's crowning moment. But in the end the bigger disaster was that caused by Hamilton himself after the Englishman squandered his golden opportunity to claim the title and slid out of the race to allow McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso back into the title fight with a single round to go.

Hamilton had gone into the weekend at the Shanghai International Circuit as champion elect. After Alonso had crashed out in the pouring rain at Japan's Fuji circuit a week earlier, Hamilton had a 12-point lead over the champion. In China all he needed to do was to finish ahead of Alonso and he would be transformed from prodigy to phenomenon - the first rookie driver to claim F1's drivers' crown.

It appeared routine. Hamilton has not buckled under any of the myriad pressures that have come to bear on him. A turbulent relationship with team boss Ron Dennis, a bitter and at times almost childish battle with his team-mate added to a spying scandal that cost his team €71 million, their constructors' points, have been shrugged off by the 22-year-old as mere sideshows. Even the suspicion if he does win the title it will be somehow tainted by allegations McLaren's car is less legal than those of their rivals barely left a mark on the youngster's confidence.

But yesterday that sure-footedness deserted him. After qualifying in pole and with the bulwark of the twin Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa between him and fourth-placed Alonso, it seemed like it would be a foregone conclusion.

When the lights went out Hamilton blasted away from the heavier-fuelled Ferraris. Behind him Alonso bypassed Massa but quickly lost the advantage again to settle into fourth. By the end of the first stint Alonso was a distant 17 seconds behind Hamilton.

Hamilton, with less fuel on board than his rivals, pitted on lap 15. Raikkonen was able to run four laps farther and when he made his first stop narrowed the gap from nine to four seconds.

The intermittent rain had stopped, the track was still sufficiently slippery to encourage the leaders to stick with their worn intermediates and this was to prove Hamilton's undoing.

As Hamilton began to suffer badly with tyre wear, Raikkonen closed right in on the leader. The Englishman was sliding around wildly and lapping 10 seconds slower than earlier on and he eventually ran wide at turn eight on lap 28, allowing the Ferrari through. Raikkonen then pulled away by up to six seconds per lap as Hamilton struggled, and Alonso - who finally passed Massa at the hairpin on lap 26 - closed in on his title rival.

Hamilton finally chose to pit on lap 31, but with his rear tyres now virtually down to canvas, he slid wide in the pit entry ending up in the gravel, beached and out of the race.

"We were having a great race," an emotional Hamilton said afterwards. "We didn't know whether it was going to rain or not and the tyres I was on were just getting worse and worse.

"At the end I could almost see the canvas underneath. I was coming into the pits and it was like ice. I couldn't do anything about it."

Despite frantic attempts to extricate himself from the gravel he could only watch as Raikkonen and second-placed Alonso roared towards the chequered flag. Alonso has now closed the title gap to just four, while Raikkonen becomes an outside contender, just three further back.

"We've still got one more race to go and don't worry, we can still do it," Hamilton said. "Obviously when I got out of the car I was just gutted, because I haven't made a mistake all year and to do it on the way into the pits is not something I usually do. But you can't go through life without making mistakes, and I'm over it."

Alonso pushed hard in the closing stages to reel Raikkonen in and narrow the gap to Hamilton to two but the Finn was too fast and took a well-deserved win.

"He was pushing hard," Raikkonen admitted. "He was catching me at first while I had some problems with the front tyres but once they started to work I could keep the gap the same. We're back in the championship and it will be interesting in the last race," he added.

After his retirement in Japan, Alonso had said he'd need a miracle to claim his third title on the trot. Asked if his prayers had been answered, he suggested it is still unlikely he will be crowned once more in Brazil in two weeks' time. "It was maybe not a miracle, but something similar," Alonso said of Hamilton's retirement. "It will still be very difficult for the championship. I know it will not be easy to take the four points off Lewis. I still need something really dramatic if I want to win."

While Alonso's wish was granted another small miracle was occurring behind the podium trio of Raikkonen, Alonso and Felipe Massa. Scuderia Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel had maximised a very risky one-stop strategy to clamber up to fourth. The 20-year-old German, who was promoted to race driver in mid-season, had been given a 10-position penalty in Japan for crashing into the back of Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber, had had this penalty rescinded on Friday in China and then received a five-place grid demotion on Saturday for blocking Renault's Heikki Kovalainen in qualifying.

That left him 17th on the grid and in a show of blistering pace, solid judgment and brave luck, he held on to fourth ahead of Honda's Jenson Button, with Vettel's team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi finishing a startling sixth to give Toro Rosso eight points, their biggest haul of the season and their first, if an appeal against the stripping of a point for Liuzzi in Japan goes against them.