Hamilton Wins Championship in Dramatic Fashion
With only five laps left in the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix the sky was threatening and drops of rain were beginning to fall. Felipe Massa was leading from Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, and Lewis Hamilton, who needed to finish fifth or better to win the world championship. On the next lap all the front-running cars pitted to change to intermediate tires, but the Toyotas of Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock decided to gamble on finishing the race with dry tires. Hamilton was now in fifth place behind Glock and under serious pressure from Sebastian Vettel for the position.
With a little more than two laps left in the race Hamilton bobbled and ran wide in the wet conditions, allowing Vettel past into fifth place and moving Massa into first place in the championship! The home crowd went crazy cheering for Massa to win while Hamilton slipped further behind Vettel on the last lap. It seemed unbelievable that he would be robbed of the title in the last race for the second year in a row. Massa crossed the line to win with the other cars behind him, including Glock who was hemmoraging time on dry tires as the rain increased.
Incredibly, in the final corner of the last lap Hamilton was able to overtake Glock and run up the hill to the start/finish line in fifth place, making him the youngest Formula 1 champion by a single point. It was a truly amazing finish to the race, straight out of a Hollywood movie. Massa was crushed to have seemingly won the title and then lost it again after he had taken the checkered flag, but he behaved like a true champion in his acceptance of the defeat. This season has been tainted by several controversial and suspicious penalties, but in the final race it was the competition between the two title contenders that proved to be the greatest entertainment. Roll on the Australian GP in March 2009!