Let’s get into a time machine and go straight to one of the most electrifying fights for the World Title in Formula 1 record.
Background History:
Despite mistakes during the season, like in Malaysia where he spun practically alone, or Singapore, where Ferrari made a mistake in the pits, Felipe Massa arrived in Brazil for the last race of the season with a 7 points gap to his rival and championship leader, Lewis Hamilton.
Being the favourite for the race, the conditions for the Ferrari driver to take the championship was: Massa had to come 1st and Hamilton could only end up 6th or lower.
Qualifying:
The Qualifying session took place on a Saturday afternoon with tensions high in the air as the Constructor’s Championship was also very tight, with Ferrari holding an 11- point lead over McLaren.
Massa took his sixth pole of the season half of a second ahead of Hamilton, who qualified fourth. Between them there were the Toyota Italian driver, Jarno Trulli, who got his best qualifying result of the season (2nd) and Kimi Raikkonen starting on the racing line behind his teammate.
After the session, Hamilton said: “Tomorrow, I will be focusing on my own race: it will be a tough afternoon but I’m comfortable with the fuel strategy we chose; the guys in front are probably on a different strategy. But we’re in a good position to finish in the same place as we are today – and that’s got to be our aim. We don’t need to do anything spectacular.”
It´s good to remember that in those days the cars could still be refuelled during the race, and the cars which competed in the final part of qualifying were not allowed to refuel before the race, as such cars carried more fuel than in the first two parts.
Race:
Chaos. That’s a word to describe that Sunday afternoon.
The race start got delayed due to heavy rain and all the drivers changed the tyres from dry-weather tyres to intermediate ones. Only Kubica waited until the formation lap to make the change, which resulted in a pit lane start.
The top 5 held their position into the first corner, and meanwhile in midfield Coulthard was hit by Rosberg in turn two, and following the incident, he collided with the other Williams driver, Kazuki Nakajima, resulting in an early end to the Red Bull driver’s last race. Piquet spun and hit the barriers at the next corner, bringing the Safety Car to the track at the end of the first lap.
The track started to dry quickly and at the end of lap 2 Giancarlo Fisichella took the risk with the dry set up. On lap 5, the race resumed and by lap 11 all the drivers had changed to dry-weather tyres.
While Massa was setting fastest laps and amplifying the gap to Vettel, Hamilton was fourth with a quick pace, but still struggling to get past the others drivers. The German Toro Rosso driver was the first driver to refuel, re-joining in sixth position behind Timo Glock.
By lap 51, we had Massa leading, Alonso in second, Raikkonen in third, Hamilton in fourth, followed by Vettel in fifth and closing on the Briton. All of them had already stopped to refuel for the rest of the race.
Rain came again on lap 63, changing the whole race scenario. Heidfeld pitted choosing for the intermediates again, and not long after all the frontrunners did the same, except for Glock, and that was the key moment for the championship final battle.
With two laps to go, the water started to fall harder from the sky, as Hamilton made a mistake that costed him the fifth position to Vettel. Felipe Massa saw the chequered flag first followed by Alonso and Raikkonen, and the whole Ferrari box and grandstand went crazy since the McLaren driver was in sixth position and in that scenario, he couldn’t take the championship.
But it was all a matter of time until the McLaren crew realised Glock was struggling on track due to his dry set up on the wet track and they told Hamilton to overtake him. Vettel and the McLaren driver overtook him in the final corners. And that was the moment where all Brazilian dreams and hopes were dashed as Lewis Hamilton finished the race in fifth place and became the 2008 World Champion by one single point.
Hope you liked this awesome title deciding race! Thanks for reading. Make sure you stay tuned for more Flashback Fridays! You can find more content here on the blog and on our social media platforms. Don’t forget to like, share and let us know what you think.
Written by Maria Fernanda
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