Schalke demolished Werder Bremen to cement their third place in the Bundesliga and make up some ground in terms of goal difference with a thumping 5-0 win at the Arena AufSchalke.
Raul put the Royal Blues on their way to victory with two goals in the space of four minutes in the first half and he completed his second hat-trick in as many games against Bremen after an hour.
Kyriakos Papadopoulos added a fourth in the 67th minute before Klaas Jan Huntelaar rounded off the scoring three minutes later.
Raul scored three as Schalke beat Bremen 4-0 in November last year and he showed once again how much he likes playing against Thomas Schaaf's men.
He netted his and the home team's first in the 16th minute when Tim Wiese pushed Huntelaar's header out to him and he made no mistake from close range.
His second goal in the 20th minute was equally easy as he only had to stick out a foot to turn Huntelaar's pass into the goal.
Bremen had a few chances to reduce the arrears early in the second half with Marko Arnautovic and Claudio Pizarro both going close before Markus Rosenborg tested Lars Unnerstall.
But the game was as good as over when Raul completed his hat-trick in the 63rd minute.
He spread play to Christian Fuchs and raced into the centre to receive the cross and head it past Wiese.
Papadopoulos made it four with another header after good work from Jose Manuel Jurado in the 67th minute.
Huntelaar then had a goal disallowed for offside, but he beat the offside trap a minute later to add the fifth - his 26th goal in 26 games between club and country this season.
The referee then spared Bremen from any further embarrassment by ending the game without any stoppage time.
