None of the chaotic scenes affected Hamilton's concentration as he made a great getaway to lead into the first corner from Raikkonen's Ferrari.

Alonso passed Massa for third but was re-taken at turn three to establish an order that remained unchanged until the first round of pit-stops.

Hamilton was, as expected, the first of the big names to pit as he came in with a seven second lead on lap 15.

Significantly the McLaren team left him on the same set of intermediate Bridgestones that he started the race on, but changed those on Alonso when he pitted, as did Ferrari for both drivers.

The outcome was that Raikkonen, who made his stop five laps after Hamilton, halved his deficit to the championship leader and remained around three seconds behind for the next ten laps.

McLaren's tyre decision would come back to thwart Hamilton though as the track began to dry out on lap 26. His began to overheat with his left-rear in particular losing so much rubber that the tyre's canvas was clearly visible to all.

The affect was excessive oversteer that caused him to lose three seconds a lap to the Finn, allowing Raikkonen to close right onto his tail.

After a hairy moment on lap 28 when the pair ran side by side exiting turn three, Raikkonen finally grabbed the lead next time round as Hamilton slid wide at the sixth corner.

After losing eight seconds on his first lap behind the Ferrari, McLaren elected to call him in for a set of dries. But disaster struck for the Briton as he came into the pit-lane too quickly and speared off into the gravel at the tight left-handed entrance.

Despite gesturing to the marshals to push him back onto the tarmac, Hamilton's car was bogged down and he had no option but to climb out and trudge down the pit-lane.

Both Ferrari and McLaren took note and called Raikkonen and Alonso in for dries immediately, with the Spaniard emerging just a car length in front of Massa, who had changed tyres two laps previousl