Ferrari's Massa wins Brazil race while Hamilton gets lucky

Hamilton won the title by just a single point after securing fifth place through the last corner during the final lap of the race this season. He finished the 2008 season with just 98 points. That's only one point ahead of a heartbroken, pole position and winner Felipe Massa yesterday afternoon.

Massa finished ahead of double world-champion, ING Renault's Fernando Alonso and team mate Kimi Raikkonen.

Sebastian Vettel finished the Brazilian Grand Prix in fourth, oblivious to the fact that his overtaking of Lewis Hamilton almost caused the Brit his championship title. This happened when Hamilton ran a little wide, following an unprecedented overtaking manoeuvre from an unrelenting Robert Kubica. This meant that Hamilton fell back to sixth, causing a tie in championship points with Massa. However, Massa would have won the title as it would have been his sixth race victory over Hamilton's five.

Of course, all was good and well until the final leading to the start-finish straight. There, Toyota's Timo Glock had dramatically dropped off the pace, falling behind Hamilton and Vettel and shocking tifosi all over the world during that last lap of the 71-lap race.

The German driver took a gamble and finished 6th. Unlike the other drivers, Glock remained on dry tyres during the closing laps of the race while the rain continued, putting a firm lid on the conspiracy theories that his sudden loss of speed and, consequently, two positions on the last lap could have been a deliberate action.

Hamilton is just twenty-three and a half years of age, making him the youngest champion in Formula 1 history, and McLaren Mercedes' third since their joint-venture , the last being Mika Hakkinen 1998 and 1999.

Team mate Heikki Kovalainen finished seventh, bringing their stand in the constructors' championship to second, with 151 points. This was behind Scuderia Ferrari, with an award-winning total of 172 points.

Glock's team mate Jarno Trulli finished in eighth, ahead of Mark Weber (9th), Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica in positions ten and eleven respectively, just outside the points. Williams' Nico Rosberg, finished 12th, leading Honda's Jenson Button in 13th and 14th place Torro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais, who once again had a hard time on track with Trulli.

Brazilian Rubens Barrichello wasn't the only Brazilian who found his Honda to be a handful in the wet, with Nelson Piquet Jr. canning his Renault in the early stages of the race, causing him to retire in 19th and 2nd last, ahead of David Coulthard, who sadly, was hit and crashed out just after the first corner on the last race of his career.

Force India's Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella finished 16th and 18th, respectively, with the Italian suffering from a spate of clutch engagement problems in the pit lane, dropping him from a stunning third all the way to the back of the field after his pit stop on lap 38.