Nurburg, Germany (My Sportsbook) - Fernando Alonso out-drove Felipe Massa over the final laps and captured Sunday's Grand Prix of Europe at the Nurburgring in Germany. The two-time World Champion crossed the finish line 8.1 seconds ahead of Massa.

The victory was Alonso's third of the season and 13th of his Formula One career.

The race was so exciting to drive and to watch," said Alonso. "The rain helped us a lot, our car seems to perform in wet conditions."

Winner of the last two events, Kimi Raikkonen, led the field into the first turn after winning the pole position on Saturday. But just as the green flag waved, rain drops began to fall and it caused havoc everywhere.

After the first lap all the cars pitted except for Raikkonen who slid past pit road and had to make a second lap. All other cars got their rain tires and by the time Raikkonen limped around to make his stop he had fallen all the way to seventh place.

Meanwhile, rookie Marcus Winkelhock, who got his bad weather tires before anyone else, was somehow the race leader.

On lap three six cars spun off the track including points leader Lewis Hamilton, and the safety car was sent out. Winkelhock had a 33.5-second lead but the cleanup was too much to do under race conditions and the red flag was brought out to suspend the race.

While the clean up was underway the rain stopped and the sun began to shine, though more rain was still possible.

Out of the race were Jenson Button, Adrian Sutil, Nico Rosberg, Scott Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi, but Hamilton was able to restart his car and was still in the race.

After almost 25 minutes the safety car led the field around the circuit and two laps later the race went back to green.

As the green flag dropped, reality struck Winkelhock and both Massa and Alonso quickly passed him. Hamilton's crew decided to "roll the dice" and went to dry tires, but he struggled over the still partially wet track.

Massa and Alonso began to pull away from third place Mark Webber as Winkelhock fell all the way to 16th place. By lap 11 the track had sufficiently dried and the teams all began to change over to dry tires.

Meanwhile, Hamilton set the fastest lap of the race and while everyone was on pit lane he made up the lap he lost during his spin off the track on lap three. Raikkonen was flying and slid into third place behind Massa and Alonso.

Massa opened up a 2.5-second lead on Alonso who was being challenged by Raikkonen. On lap 20 Hamilton set another fastest lap of the race, but he was still more than 80 seconds behind the leaders and 50 seconds out of a points position.

Massa continued to extend his lead. On lap 25 it was 4.8 seconds and at the halfway point the margin was 7.1 seconds. Third-place Raikkonen suddenly slowed on lap 34 and his day was done. The leader pitted for the final time with 24 laps remaining to be run.

Massa's stop was a clean one and off he went as Alonso was still 7.6 seconds back. Still, Alonso didn't quit and he slowly began to cut into the Brazilian's big lead. It was just under six seconds with 15 laps to go. The margin was under five seconds (4.9) with 13 laps to go, but catching a driver and passing him are two entirely different things.

Nine laps still to run and it appeared that another rain storm was about to open up. In advance of this, Renault put Heikki Kovalainen on rain tires. If it would rain hard enough, the rookie would have a huge advantage over everyone else who were still on dry tires.

One lap later the rains came and the leaders pitted for new tires. Massa beat Alonso off pit road and was still the leader, but the gap was under two seconds. Alonso was right on Massa's tail and with five laps to go he moved alongside Massa. Massa fought him off, but Alonso came back a second time and a third time and with five laps to go Alonso made a bold move for the lead. They touched slightly, but neither car was damaged as Alonso finally got around the Ferrari.

After the pass, Alonso simply pulled away from Massa and the race for the win was over.

"I like the rain, when it happens I am happy," said Alonso.

Webber, Alex Wurz, David Coulthard, Nick Heidfeld, Robert Kubica and Kovalainen completed the points-scoring positions.

Alonso's win pulled him to within two points of his McLaren teammate Hamilton (70-68). Massa is in third place, 11 points behind Hamilton.

The next race is scheduled for Sunday, August 5th in Budapest, Hungary.