Kimi Raikkonen won the Belgian Grand Prix for the second straight year Sunday, keeping alive his distant shot at the title while denying Fernando Alonso a first chance to become Formula One's youngest champion.
Raikkonen overtook McLaren Mercedes teammate Juan Pablo Montoya in the final stages for his sixth victory of the season. Alonso capitalized on Montoya's late collision and finished second with a contained and conservative race.
Jenson Button of Britain was third, followed by Mark Webber of Australia.
"It was a perfect race for the team but very unlucky for Juan Pablo," Raikkonen said.
Alonso pumped his fists on the victory stand as if he had won. The 24-year-old Spaniard leads Raikkonen 111-86 with three races to go, with the next one in Brazil in two weeks. Alonso can clinch the title there by finishing in the top three.
"We can be competitive there. I need six points," Alonso said. "I am very confident it will be possible."
Raikkonen had to finish within four points of Alonso to prevent the Spaniard from winning the title Sunday. The Finn easily did so but now he needs to keep winning and count on some poor showings by Alonso to extend his championship challenge beyond Brazil.
"If they keep finishing behind us, it is not possible to catch him anymore," Raikkonen said.
Alonso and Renault have proved remarkably reliable in racking up the points week after week.
"We don't need the risks at this point of the championships," Alonso said.
Montoya maintained his strong form after last week's victory in Monza. He was on the pole and led much of the way before losing his top place to his teammate during a pit stop. With three laps to go, he collided with Antonio Pizzonia.
Raikkonen finished the 44 laps around the 6.976km track in 1 hour, 30 minutes, 1.295 seconds, beating Alonso by 28.394 seconds. Button was 32.077 seconds slower and Webber trailed by more than a minute.
Dan Wheldon set an Indy car record with his sixth victory this season and all but clinched his first IRL championship, beating Helio Castroneves and Sam Hornish Jr. in a tight finish at the Peak Antifreeze Indy 300.
Wheldon beat Castroneves by about a hood's length, with Hornish taking third place at Chicagoland Speedway.
Wheldon will win the points title simply by taking to the track at Watkins Glen in two weeks. With Sunday's victory, the English driver broke a tie with Hornish for wins in a season.
"It's difficult in this series," Wheldon said. "To have won six is a very proud moment for me. To win six races is something I'll look back on and think that was a strong season."
Wheldon survived a pit speed violation midway through the race, regained the lead on the 179th lap, held off a pack in the final stages, and finished in 1 hour, 47 minutes, 49.6126 seconds -- 0.0133 seconds ahead of Castroneves. It was the eighth closest finish in IRL history, with three of the top 10 coming at Chicagoland.
Castroneves and Hornish made it as difficult as they could.
"Close to the end, when I saw Sam coming, I tried to make a move," Castroneves said. "I tried to take advantage of the momentum, put me side by side with Dan. But it just was not enough. If we would be like NASCAR and have bumpers, I'm sure we would have won the race by now."
Hornish, a two-time winner at Chicagoland, was followed by South Africa's Tomas Scheckter and Brazil's Tony Kanaan.
Danica Patrick, starting from the pole, was sixth -- the seventh top-10 finish of her rookie season. She lost the lead to Scheckter on the second lap and never got it back despite a push late in the race. She jump started coming out of a pit after the 188th lap and got knocked down two spots to fourth.
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