's victory in the was the best possible result the race could have produced for the world championship battle.
It means the Spaniard, in a car that is now absolutely competitive after recent updates, has closed the gap on leader and the prospect of a five-driver battle for the world title remains very much alive.
Of course, that point has become rather lost in the intense controversy about how Alonso secured the 23rd victory of his career.
The Spaniard was clearly handed first place on a plate by team-mate on lap 49, the Brazilian slowing down out of the hairpin at Turn Six after his engineer Rob Smedley had told him on the radio: "Fernando is faster than you."
Ferrari have been fined $100,000 (£65,000) for a breach of article 39.1 of the F1 sporting regulations, which says: "Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited." The race stewards decided not to change the result but have referred the matter to the World Council of motorsport's governing body the .
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Ferrari claimed after the race that they had not ordered Massa to let Alonso past, which strictly speaking is true, even if the whole watching world understood the subtext of Smedley's message as clearly as the Brazilian did.
Let's be clear about this: Smedley's message was a clear, coded instruction to Massa to let Alonso through and this was therefore clearly an example of team orders.
But that is where the situation gets a bit murkier.
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