IT WAS perfect fodder for conspiracy theorists around the world. Last corner of the last lap of the last grand prix of the season. Timo Glock, a German driving a Toyota whose Formula One team is based in Cologne, dramatically slows allowing Lewis Hamilton – driving a Mercedes-powered McLaren – to claim the fifth place he needed to become world champ. A carve-up?
"Listen, you've got absolutely no idea how little grip Glock had in that last lap, and especially in those final three or four corners," said Sir Jackie Stewart. "With the dry tyres he had fitted to his car, it was amazing he kept the car on the trac
k, let alone finished the race."
Glock of course, unlike the main protagonists – Ferrari drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, McLaren duo Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen and Renault's Fernando Alonso who all fitted intermediates – gambled on remaining on slick tyres as the rain fell over the closing four laps. What happened over the closing two corners of the race will go down in sporting history.
"Never in the history of Formula One has a championship been decided in such dramatic fashion," triple world champion Stewart continued. "But anyone who questions Glock's professionalism doesn't know what he's talking about. He and the team took a huge gamble which almost paid off. They could easily have won the race, but in the end he was left trying to drive a Formula One car on a surface akin to ice. When rain hits the Interlagos circuit it tends to be very territorial in so much as it can hit one part of the track and miss the rest. When it came on Sunday it was wettest in the final three or four corners and though they look relatively slow on TV, they are in fact very fast turns.
"Glock's times through the first two sectors of the final lap were slower than what he had been achieving, but once he got to four corners from the end he really hit the bad conditions. On slick tyres, in those conditions with so much water on the track, there is, quite simply, no grip. No grip also corresponds to no acceleration so, in essence, all you do is get slower and slower. You become a sitting duck, which is exactly what Glock became. I've driven in the wet at Interlagos and I can tell you it isn't fun. It's one of the toughest and least forgiving tracks in the world."
But despite the contribution of Lady Luck, Stewart praised Hamilton's achievement in becoming the sport's youngest-ever world champ.
"There's no denying Lewis deserves to be world champion. He has driven excellently right through the season and didn't let the disappointments of last season get him down. There's also no question he drove too conservatively in Brazil and, for the second year in succession, the world championship could easily have slipped from his grasp.
"Of course, before the onset of the rain in the closing laps, Lewis was on course for the fifth place and the four points he needed, but in the end it was lucky for him that Glock's car finally ran out of grip.
"As for Massa, what can you say? When he crossed the line to win the race, I know he was being told on the radio that Hamilton was sixth. The noise from the Brazilian crowd was deafening on his slowdown lap, but then Hamilton overtook Glock and the atmosphere changed dramatically. You can only imagine the emotional rollercoaster he went through. One second world champion, the next it had been ripped cruelly from his grasp. Massa though should hold his head up. His behaviour afterwards was impeccable and he spoke very eloquently in defeat, even though he must have been hurting like mad.
"In the end the championship was decided by two choices of tyres and three or four very wet corners. This time it went in Lewis' favour, but it could all so easily have been very, very different."
• A Senna will be back in a Formula 1 car this month when Bruno, nephew of the late triple champion Ayrton, tests for the Honda team.
Honda, who have yet to confirm their 2009 lineup, said in a statement on Monday that they would test the Brazilian at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya from Nov. 17-19.
"We are delighted to provide Bruno with the opportunity to test for us later this month as we continue to explore all the driver options available to us for next season," said team principal Ross Brawn.
