Hamilton dream dies as Raikkonen wins Brazil GP and F1 title
Lewis Hamilton's dreams of being the youngest and first ever rookie world champion were dashed as early as the first lap in the Brazilian Grand Prix. Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, known as 'Iceman', stayed cool while Hamilton's frustrations boiled over. The Finnish driver clinched the chequered flag and edged out the Stevenage-born racer by one point.
Only the 1984 Championship was closer, when Niki Lauda beat Alain Prost by 0.5 points, though there has never been a Drivers' Championship with so few points between the first three.
This will be of little consolation to McLaren, however. Hamilton, who finished the race out of the points in seventh place, had gone into the seventeenth and final race of the season leading the championship, and had managed to qualify behind Ferrari's Felipe Massa on the front row of the grid.
From pole position home-favourite Massa helped his team-mate angling his car across Hamilton when the lights went green. As a result Raikkonen, sitting in third before the race, was able to pass the McLaren racer, and went into the all-important first corner in first position.
Hamilton appeared annoyed, and - in what could be perceived as an indication of his youth - attempted to pass team-mate Fernando Alonso, who was also in the running, on the fourth corner, only to drive off the track.
He recovered from that set back, but fell further off the pace thanks to a mechanical fault with his gear box. McLaren chairman Ron Dennis was utterly disappointed at how the race had gone.
"We were so close - we needed just one car to stop," suggested Dennis. "Lewis would have been in with a fighting chance then."
On the technical problems, Dennis explained: "It was just a default in the gear box. It was selecting neutral for a period of time."
After losing out to bitter rivals, and after a controversial season that included alleged espionage and a whopping £500m fine for Dennis' team, he found it difficult to accept defeat.
"It is hard to find the right words, but I think the whole team has done a good job all year and we should be proud of their achievements. This is a sport, and we will be sporting about it. We have to be positive and sporting and look forward to next year."
Raikkonen, who won his fifteenth race of his career at Interlagos, let out an uncharacteristic show of emotion on claiming his championship title - the third Finn to do so.
"I'm going to enjoy today, for sure," said Raikkonen. "I'm very happy.
"I got a very good start, going side-by-side with Felipe. The main thing was to get past Hamilton. I saw in the mirrors on corner four that he went off and I knew that then we would have some chance.
"We could have gone much faster in our cars but we didn't need to. It was perfect teamwork by us. It paid off very well."
Hamilton's failure, along with England's 2-1 loss to Russia in the Euro 2008 qualifiers, bookends a wholly sorry week for English sport, with the rugby players failing to beat South Africa in the World Cup final last night.
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