One Point Divides Raikkonen, Rookie In Dramatic Fight For World Title

INTERLAGOS, Brazil — With just two races to go in the 2007 Formula One season, Kimi Raikkonen trailed championship leader Lewis Hamilton by 17 points.
After the dramatic finale in Brazil, however, Raikkonen clinched the world championship by a solitary point over Hamilton and Fernando Alonso.
The final standings show Raikkonen with 110 points, while Hamilton and Alonso have 109 each. Prior to the race, Hamilton had 107 points, Alonso 103 and Raikkonen 100. Raikkonen and Ferrari needed something just short of a miracle to snatch the title away from the McLaren Mercedes duo. And they got it thanks to McLaren’s first mechanical failure in a race all season.
Felipe Massa qualified his Ferrari on the pole, while Hamilton lined up second. Raikkonen started third and Alonso fourth.
At the start, Raikkonen powered by Hamilton to grab second place. Then Alonso squeezed by Hamilton as well. A flustered Hamilton tried to retaliate only to slide off the track at turn four and drop to eighth place.
Hamilton worked his way back to sixth but a far worse fate awaited him on lap eight when his car suddenly slowed.

SEA OF RED: Kimi Raikkonen (center) celebrates with the Ferrari team after winning his first world championship. (Steve Etherington Photo)

“The gearbox system went into what is called default, where it selects neutral,” explained McLaren boss Ron Dennis. “Then it took a while to mentally recover and the box worked perfectly after that.”
But now Hamilton was 18th and 33 seconds behind Alonso who ran third behind Massa and Raikkonen. McLaren switched Hamilton from a two-stop strategy, similar to what Alonso was on, to a three stop to keep him out of traffic, and that gained about 10 to 15 seconds for the rookie.
But it was not enough.
Hamilton finished seventh and he needed to be at least fifth to become champion.
“The only reason we did not win the world championship, and I stress the only reason, was the gearbox problem,” Dennis said. “That cost us 30 seconds and it was just too much time to make up against cars that were relatively competitive, the BMWs and Williams.”
Alonso, meanwhile, found that his McLaren simply could not match the pace of the Ferraris. That ended both the championship hopes for both Alonso and Hamilton.
The Ferraris have had their share of mechanical problems earlier in the season, but they ran faultlessly through the 71 laps around the Interlagos circuit. The only thing that “happened” was that Massa eased off slightly during the second round of pit stops to allow Raikkonen to take over first, which he needed to clinch the championship.
Massa, quicker than Raikkonen on this particular day, gave up the victory in his home Grand Prix.
The final results of the race and the championship were delayed by several hours as officials tried to determine if the cars of Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld, which finished fourth, fifth and sixth, should be disqualified for using cooled fuel. Had they been disqualified, Hamilton would have been elevated to fourth and won the championship, but the cars were eventually declared legal. McLaren later protested that decision.