Heading into the final round, McLaren driver Hamilton led the Drivers' Championship with 94 points; Ferrari's Massa was second with 87. A maximum of ten points were available, meaning Massa could still win the title if Hamilton finished sixth or lower. In the event of a points tie, Massa would win on countback due to more wins. Behind the top two, Robert Kubica was third with 75 points for BMW, and Räikkönen was fourth with 69 points.
In the Constructors' Championship, Ferrari led with 156 points and McLaren-Mercedes were second with 145. If both Ferrari drivers finished in the top six, Ferrari would secure the Constructors' title even if both McLarens finished one-two.
Had Hamilton won the championship, he would have become the youngest World Drivers' Champion at 23 years and 300 days. A Massa win would have made him the first Brazilian World Champion since Ayrton Senna in 1991.
Prior to the race, Hamilton was criticised by several pundits for a lapse of composure at the Japanese Grand Prix. The Times columnist Edward Gorman wrote that Hamilton might "suffer another one of his rushes of blood to the head and do something utterly unnecessary at Interlagos." Former team owner Eddie Jordan controversially suggested Massa might attempt to take Hamilton out; both drivers rejected the remarks, with Massa stating: "Playing dirty has never been part of my game."
The weekend marked David Coulthard's final Formula One race. His Red Bull RB4 was decorated in the colours of "Wings for Life," a charity dedicated to raising spinal cord injury awareness. Red Bull Racing received FIA approval to run Coulthard's car in different colours than teammate Mark Webber's. It was also the final Formula One race broadcast by ITV in the United Kingdom and by Telecinco in Spain, and the last race for the Honda team before their withdrawal from Formula One due to the 2008 financial crisis.
Practice sessions on Friday and Saturday were affected by damp conditions and high track temperatures reaching 36 °C. Massa set the fastest time in the first practice session; Fernando Alonso was quickest in the second and third sessions.
Massa clinched his sixth pole position of the season with a time of 1:12.368, his third consecutive pole at Interlagos. Jarno Trulli qualified second for Toyota in his best qualifying result of the season. Räikkönen qualified third. Hamilton qualified fourth, half a second behind Massa; his slower pace in the final session suggested he was carrying more fuel than his title rivals. Heikki Kovalainen qualified fifth, followed by Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Nick Heidfeld, Sébastien Bourdais, and Timo Glock. Kubica qualified 13th. Coulthard qualified 14th. Rubens Barrichello was 15th, faster than Honda teammate Jenson Button in 17th.
Race day attendance was 149,600. Conditions on the grid were damp, with air temperature at 28 °C and rain expected. The start was delayed ten minutes when heavy rain hit at 14:56 local time. All teams except Kubica's BMW switched to intermediate tyres; Kubica started on dry-weather tyres then pitted at the end of the formation lap to switch to intermediates, beginning the race from the pit lane.
Massa held his lead into the first corner. On the opening lap, Nico Rosberg hit Coulthard from behind at Turn 2, spinning him into a collision with Rosberg's Williams teammate Kazuki Nakajima. Coulthard's suspension was damaged, forcing retirement in his final race. Nelson Piquet Jr. spun off at the next corner and hit the barriers. A safety car was deployed at the end of Lap 1. Racing resumed on Lap 5. The track dried progressively; Giancarlo Fisichella of Force India was first to pit for dry-weather tyres on Lap 2 and climbed as high as fifth. By Lap 11, the entire field had changed to dry tyres.
Massa and Vettel traded fastest laps mid-race. Timo Glock was fuelled on Lap 36 to run to the finish without another stop, remaining on dry-weather tyres. Light rain began falling on Lap 63. Heidfeld, Kovalainen, Alonso, and Räikkönen all pitted for intermediate tyres; Hamilton and Vettel stopped on Lap 66. Glock stayed out on dry tyres. As the rain intensified on Lap 69, Hamilton ran wide and Vettel moved into fifth. Hamilton was told by radio to pass Glock. In the final corners, both Vettel and Hamilton passed Glock, whose dry tyres were sliding on the wet track. Massa crossed the line first to win the race. Hamilton finished fifth, winning the Drivers' Championship by one point. Räikkönen's third place secured Ferrari the Constructors' title. After the race, Button's car caught fire in the pit lane.
Massa said he had "almost done everything perfectly" and congratulated Hamilton: "We need to congratulate Lewis because he did a great championship and he scored more points than us, so he deserves to be champion." Räikkönen acknowledged disappointment in the Drivers' result but said "we won at least the team championship." Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo reportedly destroyed the television he was watching the race on.
Hamilton received congratulations from Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and Leader of the Opposition David Cameron. Damon Hill called Hamilton "one of the greatest drivers we have had in this country." Michael Schumacher praised both Hamilton and Massa. Massa was widely praised for accepting defeat with grace.
Glock maintained that staying on dry tyres was the correct strategy, noting: "We were running seventh before the rain came and we would have probably finished there if it had been totally dry. Instead we finished sixth." He stated the conditions were so poor that "I didn't even know that Lewis had overtaken me until after the race." Glock and his family subsequently received hate mail from fans, particularly from Italian journalists.
Kubica finished 11th, losing third in the championship to Räikkönen on win countback. Coulthard's first-lap retirement ended a Formula One career of 15 years, 246 starts, and 13 wins. Red Bull principal Christian Horner called it "a great shame for David to be eliminated from his last Grand Prix at the first corner." Coulthard continued with Red Bull as a testing and development consultant in 2009.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
Gallery · 4 related images
