Welcome to F1Minute for the 12th October 2008.

Alonso has taken a second surprise win in Japan, following his first victory of the season at the last race in Singapore. Both Ferraris and Hamilton ran wide at the first corner, which pushed them down the order, and allowed Alonso, Kubica and Kovalainen through into the lead. Massa tried to overtake Hamilton moments later, and spun the McLaren round. He received a drive through for this incident, whilst Hamilton was given a drive through for forcing Raikkonen off the road at the start.

After the penalties were taken, Hamilton and Massa were well down the order, and it looked to be a fight between Kimi and Heikki. However, Kovi’s engine blew up in a rare show of McLaren unreliability. Raikkonen kept his speed up but ended up third on the podium behind Alonso and Kubica.

Massa managed to claw his way back up to 8th, and after an incident with Bourdais as the Toro Rosso came out of the pit lane, found himself in 7th when the Frenchman was given a post-race 25 second penalty.

That’s it for today, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1Minute.