The 2008 Formula One World Drivers’ Championship ended in the most dramatic manner imaginable. It was not only decided in the last race, on the last lap, but on the very last corner – and while it brought heartache to Felipe Massa in front of his home crowd, it handed a first title to Lewis Hamilton.
Heading into the final race at Interlagos, Hamilton held a healthy seven-point lead over Massa, but the Brazilian put his Ferrari on pole (Hamilton was down in fourth) and with heavy rain forecast anything could happen. If Massa were to pick up ten points for first place, Hamilton needed to finish fifth in order to clinch the title. If Hamilton finished sixth, their points totals would be tied, but Massa would claim the title on a count-back by virtue of having more victories.
In a hint of what was to come, a downpour four minutes before the scheduled race time delayed the start by ten minutes and forced the drivers to switch to intermediate tyres. When the race did get under way, Massa retained his lead but with conditions still treacherous, accidents involving David Coulthard – forcing him to retire on the first lap of his last Grand Prix – and Nelson Piquet Jr, meant that the safety car had to be brought out until lap five. As track conditions steadily improved, drivers began to switch to dry-weather tyres but this merely served to underline Massa’s superiority. By lap 54 of the 71, he led Fernando Alonso by over nine seconds with Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in third and Hamilton in fourth, still on course for the title but being caught rapidly by Sebastian Vettel’s Toro Rosso. Then on lap 63, light rain began to fall, and most of the drivers pitted for intermediate tyres. An exception was Toyota’s Timo Glock who opted to remain on dry-weather tyres in the hope that the rain would soon pass. The team’s decision to stay out elevated the German from seventh to fourth as those ahead of him pitted. Suddenly Hamilton was looking vulnerable.
On lap 69 – just two from the finish – the rain became heavier and Hamilton ran wide, allowing Vettel to snatch fifth place. When Massa took the chequered flag, Hamilton was down in sixth. The Ferrari team celebrated wildly, certain that their man had won the title, but their joy was to be short-lived. Even on dry tyres, Glock had raced competitively on the wet track until, on the final lap, he struggled badly for grip. Approaching the final corner just a couple of hundred yards from the flag, he was off line and had slowed to a crawl, enabling Hamilton to pass him and snatch fifth place and the world title by a single point. Such was the chaos that Hamilton did not know that he had done enough until his team told him over the radio. Massa had been world champion for 30 seconds. The outcome was so unbelievable that a Hollywood screenwriter would have dismissed it as too far-fetched.
As conspiracy theories circulated, Glock defended himself. ‘I had no chance to resist the guys on intermediate tyres because they were just so much quicker. I had to stay off the racing line because there was so much tyre rubber on it, which becomes incredibly slippery in the wet. I don’t know how anyone can think I just pulled over. If Lewis had not overtaken me in that corner, he would have overtaken me on the following straight because there was no way I could go flat out on the dry tyres.’
So the title had been snatched from the popular Massa in the cruellest fashion. He has always had more than his fair share of bad luck in Formula One, and how he must have reflected back to Singapore and his team’s costly fuel hose blunder, which had turned a likely ten points into zero.