Ferrari's Formula 1 team has decided to take its cue from the famous American saying "it ain't over till it's over" as they prepare for the last race of the season .
The team suffered a crippling setback on Sunday when Michael Schumacher saw his hopes for a career-ending eighth title go up in smoke when his engine blew up 17 laps before the finish line .
The seven times world champion had a clear lead and had already completed his last pit stop when his engine went .
This put Schumacher ten points behind reigning champion Fernando Alonso, who won Sunday's race in Japan, and Ferrari is now nine points behind Alonso's team Renault in the constructors' championship .
The only way Schumacher can clinch the title would be to win the next race and hope that Alonso fails to pick up even one point, by either breaking down or coming in ninth or more .
This would give him the same number of points but the Ferrari driver would take the title because he would have one more season victory than his Spanish rival .
Speaking after the race, Ferrari Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo said "at Ferrari we know how to accept defeat, just as we know how to celebrate victory and a day like today just gives us even more determination. Our world championship will end only in the very last meter in Brazil" .
The closing race of the season will be the Brazilian Grand Prix on October 22 .
Team principal Jean Todt was a little more realistic and observed "mathematically, we still have a chance for the title, but logic dictates that it going to be very difficult" .
Sunday was the first that Schumacher had blown an engine in over six years and more than 110 races and Todt had to admit that "it couldn't have happened at a worse time" .
"We still don't know the exact cause. And the engine was so badly damaged that's it's going to be difficult to figure out what happened," he added .
Taking a philosophic point of view, Todt observed that "when you've been in this business long enough you know that when you win you must be happy. And when you don't, you just have to turn the page" .
"It's a bit like indigestion: you just have to get over it," he added .
Schumacher had a poor start to the season and by the halfway mark the German driver was 25 points behind Alonso. The second half of the season saw him chip into the Spaniard's lead and they went level on points at the October 1 Chinese Grand Prix. The line "it ain't over till it's over" was by the legendary Yankees catcher and later manager Yogi Berra .
