The race began at 20:00 local time. At the start Massa, on pole position, championship rival Hamilton and Räikkönen all got through the first sequence of corners safely and retained their positions. Kubica and Kovalainen made contact at Turn 3, causing Kovalainen to lose two places to Glock and Vettel. Heidfeld and Alonso cut the first corner but they did not receive any penalty. Massa began to edge away from Hamilton, who in turn was moving away from Räikkönen. Jarno Trulli had begun the race on a heavy fuel load, and soon was holding up a number of cars with Williams' Nico Rosberg immediately behind him. It was not until the seventh lap that Rosberg finally passed Trulli's Toyota, and soon Nakajima and Alonso came through as well.
At the front of the pack, Massa had built up a lead of over three seconds to Hamilton within the first ten laps, with Räikkönen a further seven seconds behind him. On lap twelve, Alonso was the first driver who came into the pits. He switched his super-soft tyres for the soft compound tyres and rejoined at the back of the field. This was soon to play into the Renault driver's hands, as team mate Nelson Piquet, Jr. hit the wall at Turn 17 on lap fourteen after losing control of his car, prompting the safety car to be deployed. The two Red Bull cars managed to come into the pits before it was closed. With very little fuel left, Rosberg, Kubica and Rubens Barrichello had no choice but to pit despite the pit lane being closed. Barrichello's Honda then had a mechanical failure and became the second retirement of the race. After all the cars were behind the safety car, the pit lane was opened and nearly all the drivers pitted.
With both Räikkönen behind him and the lead to contest with Hamilton, Ferrari accidentally released Massa prematurely with the fuel hose still attached to the car. Like in Valencia, the Brazilian was also released into the path of Sutil, who had to take action to avoid the Ferrari. Massa went the full length of the pitlane before stopping just before the exit. In the time it took the mechanics to run down the pitlane and remove the hose from the car, he had lost track position and was now at the back of the field. A number of cars competing in the midfield prior to the safety car were leading the field because they had pitted already, or they were on one stop strategies and thus were not due in yet. At the front were Rosberg, Trulli, Fisichella, Kubica, Alonso, Webber, Coulthard and Hamilton.
Rosberg started to pull away from the heavily fuelled Trulli and Fisichella with the Force India driver holding up most of the field behind him. During the next few laps, Felipe Massa was given a drive through penalty for an unsafe release from the pits as opposed to the fine he received after a similar incident at the European Grand Prix. Rosberg and Kubica were given 10 second stop-go penalties for refuelling while the pitlane was closed. The Ferrari driver was the first of the trio to serve his penalty and rejoined the track in the same position he came in, last. Kubica was the second, coming into the pits in fourth and rejoining the race behind Massa. After building a lead of over fifteen seconds to Trulli, Rosberg served his penalty a lap later and rejoined the circuit in fourth behind Alonso. Jarno Trulli was now leading the race.
A lap later, Fisichella came in from second to make his first pit stop, moving Alonso into second and Rosberg into third. Trulli led the race for a further four more laps before making his one and only stop of the night, giving the lead to Alonso. He soon pulled away from Rosberg who pitted from second on lap 41, rejoining in seventh. Alonso made his final stop a lap later but still rejoined in the lead, just ahead of second and third placed Coulthard and Hamilton. Coulthard lost momentum and the McLaren overtook the Red Bull at turn seven. Both cars pitted at the end of the lap.
After 45 laps , Alonso led Timo Glock by just over six seconds and Rosberg by a further eleven seconds in third. The Toyota driver pitted two laps later, coming out in fifth. Four laps later, team mate Trulli began to slow down and soon retired after a mechanical failure. On the same lap, Räikkönen made his second and final stop of the race and rejoined in fifth. A lap later, Massa spun at Turn 18 and lightly tapped the tyre wall without sustaining much damage. Moments later, Sutil fell victim to the same corner and broke his front suspension, becoming the fifth retirement of the night. The incident brought out the second safety car period of the race.
The safety car withdrew from the circuit with nine laps remaining and Alonso pulled away from Rosberg and Hamilton. Glock, Räikkönen, Vettel, Heidfeld and Coulthard were in the remaining points positions. Rosberg was coming under pressure from Hamilton, who was looking to capitalize on Massa being out of the points. While chasing Glock, Räikkönen bounced off the kerbs at the Turn 10 chicane and crashed into the barriers with four laps to go, promoting Nakajima into the points. Alonso maintained his lead over Rosberg and took his first win for Renault since his return to the team. Rosberg held on to second and Hamilton settled for third. Massa finished in 13th place, and the points deficit between himself and Hamilton increased to seven points, improving Hamilton's chances of taking the Driver's Championship. With team-mate Räikkönen failing to finish, this was the first time the Ferrari team had failed to score any points in a race since the 2006 Australian Grand Prix.
Final Result :
[pre]Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points
1 5 Fernando Alonso Renault 61 1:57:16.304 15 10
2 7 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 61 +2.957 8 8
3 22 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 61 +5.917 2 6
4 12 Timo Glock Toyota 61 +8.155 7 5
5 15 Sebastian Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari 61 +10.268 6 4
6 3 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 61 +11.101 9 3
7 9 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 61 +16.387 14 2
8 8 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 61 +18.489 10 1
9 16 Jenson Button Honda 61 +19.885 12
10 23 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 61 +26.902 5
11 4 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 61 +27.975 4
12 14 Sébastien Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 61 +29.432 17
13 2 Felipe Massa Ferrari 61 +35.170 1
14 21 Giancarlo Fisichella Force India-Ferrari 61 +43.571 20
15 1 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 57 Accident 3
Ret 11 Jarno Trulli Toyota 50 Hydraulics 11
Ret 20 Adrian Sutil Force India-Ferrari 49 Accident 19
Ret 10 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 29 Transmission 13
Ret 17 Rubens Barrichello Honda 14 Engine 18
Ret 6 Nelson Piquet, Jr. Renault 13 Accident 16[/pre]