Rain was expected early in the 60-lap race but not as soon as the monsoon that rendered the track a skating rink on the opening lap. From pole position Kimi Raikkonen took the lead, with his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa overtaking Alonso for second. From 10th, Hamilton boiled up to sixth going into the first corner and fourth by the second, only to slow suddenly with a puncture that would ruin his afternoon.

By now it was raining heavily and the track was awash. Raikkonen led everybody towards the pits, but slid over the slippery pit-lane entry road and back on to the main straight. As the Finn was obliged to creep round for another lap before switching to rain tyres, Massa led Alonso back into the fight.

Jenson Button was chasing them as they went into the first corner for the second time, but the Briton was partly unsighted in their spray and the Honda snapped sideways and went into the tyre wall. Within moments his car was joined by Hamilton, who went straight on, Adrian Sutil, and the Toro Rossos of Scott Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi, whose suspension had been broken.

That left one man in the lead, a man whose Spyker team had presciently switched him to wet weather tyres after the parade lap, the debutant Markus Winkelhock.

Soon conditions were so bad that the Formula One officials wisely red-flagged the race, resuming when conditions were better, behind the safety car. In a gamble on conditions improving further, Hamilton pitted again for dry tyres on lap seven, but it was a shade too soon and he lost ground when he momentarily slid off the road.

When the racing resumed on lap eight, Massa quickly asserted himself over Alonso as both instantly dumped Winkelhock, but another flurry of pit stops, with drivers switching from intermediate tyres to dry tyres as conditions improved, enabled the canny Raikkonen to recover momentum and jump up to third place by lap 14.

The Finn's challenge came to a halt on the 35th lap, however, when his Ferrari developed a hydraulic fault, and as the race entered its second half Massa began to pull away from Alonso. Then the rain came back with 10 laps to run, prompting another rash of stops. Massa and Alonso came into the pits together on lap 53.

Later the Brazilian complained of a set of wet weather tyres that vibrated badly, and soon Alonso was able to reel him in before grabbing the lead on the 56th lap after they had touched a couple of times.

Massa clung on to second, while behind them Mark Webber just managed to keep hold of third place for Red Bull as Williams' Alexander Wurz moved in. The Briton David Coulthard made it a great day for the energy drink team with fifth, ahead of the duelling BMW-Saubers of Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica.

Poor Hamilton. After his chapter of early problems, all of which followed his nasty accident the previous day, he traded fastest laps with Massa as he climbed steadily back towards the points. He had moved up to eighth by the 53rd lap but then the need to pit for wet tyres dropped him back behind the Renaults.

Having already given Giancarlo Fisichella a driving lesson by going round the outside of him on Turn 12, he passed him again but just failed to catch the Italian's team-mate Heikki Kovalainen by the flag, the Finn taking the final point.

"This was an extraordinary weekend and a new experience for me," Hamilton said. "I made a good start and was sixth, then fourth when the two BMWs went off, then I picked up a puncture. The team took advantage of this and fitted rain tyres, but it just got too slippery and I went off. I managed to keep the engine running and a crane was able to get me free - thank you, Nürburgring marshals.

"After the restart I pushed as much as I could to catch up," he added, "but when you are almost a lap down you really have to rely on other people's misfortune. I was able to get ninth in the end, but no points."

Webber celebrated third place for Red Bull with typical Aussie bluntness. "Relief? You don't say, mate," he said. "It's a bloody huge relief, for the whole team and myself. We've been ripped off quite a lot in the past."

On a great day for his own campaign, Alonso thus reduced Hamilton's championship lead from 12 to two points, but initially he was unhappy with Massa's defensive tactics. There were some exchanges between them prior to the podium ceremony as the Brazilian, one of the more honourable drivers, was clearly angered to be accused of unsporting behaviour.

"I was really surprised when he came to say I did that on purpose," Massa said. "I would never do that. If he was a little bit unhappy, he's not my problem."

Subsequently, Alonso apologised publicly, attributing his comments to the post-race adrenaline rush. "It was so exciting to drive, and also to watch, I hope," he said of the race.

"The first three laps were unbelievable. It was so wet, we were aquaplaning everywhere. It was impossible.

"Then in the dry the Ferrari was a little bit quicker than us. At one point when I was second I was saying to myself, 'It is not the right time to rain'. I was happy with second, Lewis was out of the points, eight were enough for me.

"But I like rain, no doubt, I am always quite happy to go and have some fun in it," Alonso added. "The rainfall helped us a lot and our car seems to perform a little bit better in the wet, and I was lucky I had six laps to try and overtake Felipe.

"When I did it was so close. The line was getting dry, so to overtake you needed to go on the wet, and we touched each other two times. I must apologise to him maybe for what I said. I'm so thrilled to finish the race, now I just try to enjoy the victory and forget everything else."

Hamilton, meanwhile, knew that there would be days like this. His record run of nine consecutive podiums ended, but his driving showed that Saturday's accident in practice had not bothered him at all. He will be back.

Nürburgring finishing positions

1 F Alonso (Sp) McLaren-Mercedes 2 hr 6 min 26.358sec

2 F Massa (Br) Ferrari +00:08.155

3 M Webber (Aus) Red Bull 01:05.674

4 A Wurz (Aut) Williams 01:05.937

5 D Coulthard (GB) Red Bull 01:13.656

6 N Heidfeld (Ger) BMW-Sauber 01:20.298

7 R Kubica (Pol) BMW-Sauber 01:22.415

8 H Kovalainen (Finland) Renault +1 Lap

9 L Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes +1 Lap

10 G Fisichella (It) Renault +1 Lap

11 R Barrichello (Br) Honda +1 Lap; 12 A Davidson (GB) Super Aguri +1 Lap; 13 J Trulli (It) Toyota +1 Lap. Not classified: 14 K Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 34 Laps completed; 15 T Sato (Japan) Super Aguri 19; 16 R Schumacher (Ger) Toyota 18; 17 M Winkelhock (Ger) Spyker 13; 18 J Button (GB) Honda 2; A Sutil (Ger) Spyker 2; N Rosberg (Ger) Williams 2; S Speed (US) Toro Rosso 2; V Liuzzi (It) Toro Rosso 2.

World Championship standings:

Manufacturers

1 McLaren 138pts; 2 Ferrari 111; 3 BMW-Sauber 61; 4 Renault 32; 5 Williams 18; 6 Red Bull 16; 7 Toyota 9; 8 Super Aguri 4; 9 Honda 1.

Remaining races:

5 August Hungarian (Hungaroring)

26 August Turkish (Istanbul)

9 September Italian (Monza)

16 September Belgian (Spa-Francorchamps)

30 September Japanese (Shizuoka)

7 October Chinese (Shanghai)

21 October Brazilian (Interlagos)