This afternoon my neighbors might very well have wondered what was happening as they heard shouting coming from my apartment. But the shouts weren’t part of anything ugly, rather my hyper-energetic shouts of encouragement to British Formula One race driver, Lewis Hamilton, as he made a pass on the last corner of the last lap that would crown him Champion of the world!
Fewer races have ever been so charged with excitement in the closing laps, and I simply couldn’t help but shout at the TV as if Lewis could somehow hear me.
I’ll confess that I would have also been delighted to see the only other contender, Felipe Massa, win the title. Both men wear yellow crash helmets, inspired by my hero and Formula One legend, the late Aytron Senna from Brazil. Senna was killed when he crashed out of the lead at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.
Seeing a yellow crash helmet in a McLaren is a joy that harks back to my younger days when Senna was himself a McLaren driver. It’s easy to be reminded of Senna when one sees Lewis’s unswerving self belief and breath-taking skill.
Massa is a Brazilian and also draws inspiration from his late fellow countryman. This years final race took place near Sao Palo, close to where Massa grew up, so winning the world championship at his home race would have probably been the highest point of his career, however it was not to be. While Massa won the race this afternoon, Lewis’s dramatic and frighteningly close 5th place finish allowed the Englishman to win the title by just a single point.
Oddly enough, after all these years, I’m always left feeling a little deflated at the end of the F1 year. It’ll be months now until the first race of 2009 when the whole circus starts again.
Next year the British TV coverage returns to the BBC, and frankly I’m not excited about that. ITV’s F1 coverage has been peerless as far as I’m concerned, and I can’t imagine the BBC will deliver the sport to us with quite the same flare that their TV rivals have over the past 12 years, however I’ll be happy to be proved wrong on that.
Well done Lewis! Though next year I might just have to cheer for Felipe Massa.
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Lewis Hamilton becomes youngest Formula One champion
Lewis Hamilton admits: “I just don’t know how I kept my cool”
Ayrton Senna remembered
Wrote the following comment on Nov 3, 2008 at 3:10 am
Timo Glock was 15 seconds ahead of Hamilton at the start of the final lap, yet Hamilton finished some 6 seconds ahead of Glock, a swing of 21 seconds. Does this not seem rather a lot to anyone? The six seconds that Hamilton made up on Glock were all made on the home straight!
Wrote the following comment on Nov 3, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Brazilliant indeed :-) I can’t understand how anyone can call F1 boring after the last 2 seasons, utterly brilliant couple of years that simply has me yearning for the next race in 5 months time.
When Vettel passed Lewis, I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing, that Lewis was going to lose the championship by even less than he did last year, he would be equal on points and lose based on who had won the most races. As with Simon, I was screaming at the TV. I have never watched a less enjoyable race, I was just far too nervous to enjoy it. I’ve since watched the final half hour about 5 times :-) This was truly a classic race and championship that will be talked about for years, and will go down in F1 history.
I think Lewis’s achievement is even more memorable, because it seems that this year the FIA were determined to rob him of the title, due to some very dubious penalties, namely at Spa and Fuji. I sincerely hope the FIA sort the whole steward thing out next year, and they appoint permanent stewards to all the races, hopefully we can then get some consistency.
Lewis also needs a team-mate that actually turns up on a race weekend, Heiki needs to sort himself out if McLaren are to have any hope of winning the constructors championship.
Roll on 27th March 2009 :-)
Wrote the following comment on Nov 3, 2008 at 1:34 pm
As a sporting spectacle that last lap was equal to anything i’ve ever seen. The championship changed hands twice, and both teams were on camera celebrating victory at the same time, until Ferrari got the news through. Everyone forgot about Glock until the second last corner.
Amazing stuff indeed!
Wrote the following comment on Nov 3, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Very glad for Hamilton, he’s a great story and seems like a class act. I do question his ability under pressure though, I mean he choked away the title last year and by all rights should have choked away the title this year but for some good luck on the last lap. Hopefully the success this year will give him confidence in these situations in the future.
Wrote the following comment on Nov 3, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I’m a card carrying Ferrari fan but because of work I couldn’t watch it live so I had to wait until I got home. I plugged in my ipod to make sure I didn’t hear the result, then walked past a Commet store just as the news was on, I glanced at the screens and saw Hamilton celebrating! F**K F**K F**K!! The final race of the year ruined for me. Watching it after that was just no fun.
Hey, nice blog by the way Simon.
Wrote the following comment on Nov 3, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Really pleased that Hamilton made it stick and won the title – i think that he deserved throughout the year. Look at were his teamate finished in the same car (7th). I think that tells us what a good driver he actually is.
As for the race, well we have had two like that this year. One thinks back to Spa and Belgium and how that race ended.
Perhaps then should spray all the tracks with a little water to spice things up a little?
Wrote the following comment on Nov 3, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Really stunning finish in today’s race! For 2 minutes what seemed impossible to us Brazilians almost became true. Unfortunately, the rain got too hard for Glock to keep the 4th place (he was bravo, though!). Massa did a great job too, his time will come. Hamilton deserves the championship, no doubt.
Wrote the following comment on Nov 4, 2008 at 9:14 am
Well what a race. well done to both contenders, they can hold their heads up high.
As for the conspiracy theorists……………….
“Timo Glock was 15 seconds ahead of Hamilton at the start of the final lap, yet Hamilton finished some 6 seconds ahead of Glock, a swing of 21 seconds. Does this not seem rather a lot to anyone? The six seconds that Hamilton made up on Glock were all made on the home straight!”
…….we wouldn’t be having this conversation if he had come in for wet tyres.
And although on the surface 21 seconds does seem a lot when you take into consideration the track temp, tyre temp, and a notoriously difficult last section in the wet with dry tyres i think the difference is correct.
On top of that Maclaren’s telemetry showed that Hamilton would overtake Glock on the last lap….i bet the whole team needed Diocalm after that!!
Wrote the following comment on Nov 4, 2008 at 12:39 pm
If you look at both Glock and Trulli’s lap times, they are nearly identical to each other for the whole race, including the final lap. Its simple really, after Lewis changed on to intermediates, Glock’s lap times were fine in sectors one and two but fell away in sector 3, on the penultimate lap he did a 1:28, on the last lap he and Trulli did a 1:44. It simply started raining harder, and you can see in the final corner, its taking everything Glock’s got to keep it in a straight line. Apart from Anything else, why would Glock do any favours to Lewis after being pushed wide by him at Monza, it makes no sense at all.
As Dom says, if Toyota hadn’t gambled, we wouldn’t be having this conversation as Lewis would have been ahead of them after they stopped, so whichever way you cut it Lewis deserved 5th place. Talk about cutting it fine though, what if it hadn’t rained harder for another 30 seconds? McLaren were very nearly caught out but sometimes you have to rely on a little luck :-)
Lewis was given 5 penalties this year, that’s a record, and he still managed to score more points than anyone else over the last 2 seasons. He is a deserved champion and I’m made up for him and his family.
Its already clear that the uK press are waiting to get their fangs in to him, we like noting more than ripping apart a successful British sportsman.