Motor Sport British Grand Prix: After claiming victory in yesterday's incident-packed British Grand Prix, paddock conspiracy theorists would be forgiven for suggesting Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello travels with a personal retinue of disgruntled racegoers.

Three years ago, the Brazilian claimed his maiden Grand Prix win at the German Grand Prix aided in no small part by the intervention of an unhappy ex-Mercedes employee who broke through trackside cordons to stage an on-track protest.

Despite his four wins since, the Brazilian yesterday claimed what some may see as his first real win since that Hockenheim debacle and, lo and behold, the Ferrari driver's charge to the chequered flag was again helped by the timely intervention of an on-track invader, this time a kilted 56-year-old who waltzed down Silverstone's Hangar Straight bearing a sign reading "Read the bible, the bible is always right".

The invader was wrestled to the ground by a marshal and later arrested in "connection with an offence of aggravated trespass".

While it wasn't the kind of moment that changes a race - as the Hockenheim protest had been - it allowed the Brazilian to close a two-second deficit on leader Jarno Trulli and second-placed Kimi Raikkonen, who had blasted past pole-winner Barrichello as the trio raced towards Copse on the race start.

The protest, on lap 12, caused the intervention of the safety car for the second time - the detachment of David Coulthard's head restraint brought out the pace car on lap six - and almost the entire field took the opportunity to pit and take on new tyres and fuel, with the exception of Coulthard, who had stopped for repairs during the first pace-car period, and Toyota's Cristiano De Matta and Jordan's Ralph Firman, who had used that window to take on fuel and tyres.

As the non-stopping De Matta, team-mate Olivier Panis and Coulthard claimed the podium spots, Barrichello rejoined in eighth place, three adrift of Raikkonen, who had Trulli ahead in fourth. It was the cue for a blistering charge from the Brazilian. First he swept past the much slower Firman as the safety car went in, even as Raikkonen was tearing past Trulli to claim fourth.

And, as the chaos caused by the protester subsided, the pair matched each other move for move over the following laps. Raikkonen slipped past team-mate Coulthard to claim third and then hammered by Panis to install himself behind De Matta. The Ferrari number two had meanwhile bustled past Williams's Ralf Schumacher and was crawling over the back of now fifth-placed Trulli's Renault.

And so it went. Just shy of halfway, Barrichello had claimed fifth, and as half distance was cleared and De Matta made the second stop of a hampering three-halt strategy to let Raikkonen claim the lead, Barrichello was hovering in second, having got by Coulthard as the Scot pitted and ascended to second thanks to the stops of De Matta and Panis.

He and Raikkonen shuttled positions during their second stops but then came the decisive move, Barrichello applying the pressure as the pair diced into the 160mph Bridge turn. Raikkonen slipped onto the dirt and Barrichello was through.

"If I told you I never saw him (the protester) you wouldn't believe me," Barrichello laughed later. "They came on the radio and told me to come into the pits. That's all I knew. I was so concentrated on what was going on in the car I wasn't paying attention to anything else. It's the second race I've won with someone on race track. They're definitely gonna say he's a Brazilian for sure. But I swear to you I never saw him!

"I almost lost my nose passing Kimi," he added. "It was fair but it was aggressive. We went into Bridge and there was only one coming out. It was pretty good."

An emotional Barrichello went on to admit that the tears he shed on the podium were hard to curb. "It's always very hard to listen to the Brazilian anthem and not cry. When I'm on the podium in first place, I still remember my father selling his car to pay for me to go racing. So it means a huge amount."

Raikkonen's emotions may have been more of the angry kind. After ceding second he then erred again, running wide at Stowe under pressure from Juan Pablo Montoya on lap 47 to allow the Colombian claim another podium spot for Williams. Montoya is now third in the drivers' championship, 14 points adrift of Michael Schumacher, who retains his lead despite enduring a tough afternoon yesterday.

The champion, who started fifth, dropped to 14th in the blizzard of stops occasioned by the protest. But with typical doggedness he hauled his way to fourth.

"For me, fourth isn't too bad considering what happened and in terms of the championship, my lead over Kimi has only been reduced by one point," said Schumacher.

It was a frustrating day for Jordan. Firman initially profited from stopping in the first safety car period and moved to seventh as the bulk of the field pitted, but the EJ13's severe lack of pace meant Firman could not hold back the tide of quicker cars queueing behind and the rookie ended the race 13th.

Giancarlo Fisichella retired after a suspension failure sent him spinning off track on lap 45.

"We tried everything we could with the safety car to help our position, but having taken advantage the first time out, the second one probably didn't actually do Ralph any good and it equalised itself between all the cars," said Jordan's engineering boss, Gary Anderson.

"We were running all right in the race when we got into it and if we had qualified a bit better, we may have been able to get some points. So we should take encouragement and keep working at it."