andrewlighten.com

Link cloud shamelessly stolen from Thomas Hawk.

Lewis Hamilton has won the 2008 F1 world championship after this year’s final race in Brazil.

Going into the race weekend only 2 people could win the championship: Hamilton and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. Hamilton had a 7 point lead, and Hamilton only had to finish 5th or better to guarantee he was champion regardless of where Massa finished.

Massa, a Brazilian, was always odds-on for winning his home grand prix. He’s always very strong at the Interlagos circuit in São Paulo, having qualified in pole position for the last 3 years and winning in 2006.

Because of Massa’s obvious advantage at this track, most commentators felt that Hamilton would play it safe by aiming for a top 5 finish rather than a victory.

The race was delayed by a brief shower just before the scheduled start, but remained dry for most of the day. As predicted, Hamilton ran a conservative race, content to sit in 4th or 5th for most of the time while Massa lead from the start and never looked troubled.

Five laps from the end of the race, however, the rain hit again, so most of the cars came in to change from dry tyres back onto wets.

Once everyone was back on the track and the positions became clear, Hamilton was 5th, just in front of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. Vettel is known for his wet weather driving and slithered past Hamilton with 3 laps to go, putting him down to 6th and out of championship contention.

On the last corner of the last lap both cars passed Timo Glock in the Toyota, putting Hamilton back up to 5th and giving him the championship. Glock hadn’t stopped for wets when the rain hit, and had lost 17 seconds on his last lap.

After 18 races all over the world the championship had came down to the last corner of the last lap of the last race. What a finish.

Hamilton is the youngest driver ever to have won the championship, eclipsing the record held by Renault’s Fernando Alonso.

Quite a storm coming through tonight. Lots of thunder, lightning and scared dogs. Not as much rain as we’d like, but at least there’s some.