SINGAPORE - Fernando Alonso got the miracle he wanted on Sunday, with Renault's double world champion winning an incident-packed Singapore Grand Prix against all the odds.
If gremlins conspired against him on Saturday, when a fuel supply problem consigned the Spaniard to 15th place on the starting grid for a race where overtaking was deemed to be almost impossible, the gods of the night smiled on him.
He had said on Saturday he needed a miracle to win and it happened.
"Actually, I was hoping more for rain as you can make up quite a few positions in those conditions," Alonso told reporters after registering his first victory since winning the Italian Grand Prix for McLaren a little over a year ago.
"In dry conditions, you can normally only make up one or two positions from where you started or even lose the same number of places."
As the sport's dramatic first night race unfolded under the floodlights on the Marina Bay Street Circuit, the only rain that fell was on pole sitter Felipe Massa's parade after the Brazilian suffered a miserable evening of mishaps to ruin his chances of victory.
A disastrous pitstop when the safety car had been deployed after a Nelson Piquet crash on the 15th lap took Ferrari's title contender Massa from first to last in the blink of an eye.
The Brazilian's misery was compounded when he was slapped with a drive-through penalty for the dangerous stop.
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Alonso had pitted before the safety car came out and was able to move smoothly up the field and into the lead after two more penalties were handed out to his closest rivals for stopping when the pitlane was closed.
The Spaniard then cruised all the way to the chequered flag for a memorable triumph.
"I don't know... without the safety car, I may have finished in the same position," Alonso added.
"The brakes were running too hot all weekend so I came in early and we chose the right tyres for the race. Obviously, all these things worked in our favour."
Alonso, courted by other teams and with his future at Renault still uncertain, refused to be drawn into thinking the victory was a turning point with three races left in what has been a fairly miserable season.
"We will find out very quickly if the car has improved in Fuji because we cannot forget that this is a very special track," he added.
"It's a street circuit like Monaco... corner after corner in a low gear on slippery asphalt. I think on a normal circuit, maybe we can find the potential of the car a little bit better than on a track like here.
"The car is improving though and we are getting closer to pole position in qualifying and the top teams. But maybe that shows more because we were not at the right level at the beginning of the season."
