Raikkonen Refuses to Give Up

Kimi Raikkonen is still clinging on to his dream of winning the world championship despite seeing his masterful victory in the Belgian grand prix count for little in the title chase.

The Finn braved tricky conditions on a damp Spa-Francorchamps to take his sixth win of the season but McLaren team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya's late crash took the shine off his victory and put Fernando Alonso within a whisker of the title.

Montoya was running second when backmarker Antonio Pizzonia punted him off four laps from the end, lifting Alonso to second and leaving the Spaniard's championship lead at a healthy 25 points with three races left.

Raikkonen has suffered terrible luck this year with mechanical failures robbing him of several victories, and Montoya's second costly clash with a backmarker in three races has further dented his title hopes.

Alonso only needs six points over the remaining three grands prix but Raikkonen is not giving up.

"We are aiming for both championships but I think the luck is not on our side," he said after winning at Spa for the second race in succession.

"There are still three races to go so we will try to win them and hopefully it will happen. A win is a win always, it will help us in the championship, but maybe not as much as we hoped."

McLaren are still chasing their first one-two for five years and Raikkonen cursed Pizzonia's apparent error - which came as he tried to unlap himself - for ruining a flawless race.

Raikkonen, who passed Montoya for the lead in the pits late in the race, added: "We could have had a one-two because we deserved it. We deserved to have both cars on the podium.

"If they keep finishing behind us it is not possible to catch them any more but we will fight as long as possible and we will do everything we can as a team to score as many points also for the team.

"We were very unlucky today because we had a perfect race and everything went well. We didn't need to risk anything and then unfortunately this thing happened and took quite a lot of points out of us.

"But that is racing and we need to try to make it better at the next race."

Alonso, who can become Formula One's youngest-ever world champion with third place in Brazil, admitted he had been cruising to third place with an eye on the title standings.

Even before today's events, Raikkonen's hopes were rapidly being extinguished but Alonso confessed luck was again on his side to put him within an ace of making history.

"We didn't do our maximum, we tried not to make any mistakes," the Renault driver said. "I really just backed off and tried to take points - second place is much better than I expected.

"We did the right thing, it was not time to take risks at this point in the championship. We just tried to stay on the safe side.

"Again I had some help from McLaren. Third place was perfect for me but second is even better. All championship I have been lucky but I am always there."

Montoya's problems helped Jenson Button score his second podium of the season with third place after an eventful race for the BAR-Honda driver.

The Englishman struggled initially on the wet track but as the water evaporated he found his speed and surged through the field late in the race and took advantage when Montoya hit trouble.

Mark Webber kept clear of trouble to snatch fourth place for Williams with Rubens Barrichello taking advantage of the changing conditions to net fifth place for Ferrari.

Jacques Villeneuve scored sixth for Sauber with Ralf Schumacher's Toyota seventh and Jordan driver Tiago Monteiro claiming an unlikely point for eighth.