How Hamilton Lost the World — and Räikkönen Found It

Lewis Hamilton arrived at Interlagos for the final race of his debut Formula 1 season with a seven-point lead over Kimi Räikkönen and needed only fifth place to become the youngest World Champion in history. Fourteen months in Formula 1, one season of exceptional, composure-defying driving, and the title was his to take. He needed only to finish.

The day went wrong gradually, then comprehensively. Hamilton's McLaren developed a gearbox problem — the precise technical cause would be debated for weeks — and he lost momentum on the circuit. He dropped positions. Then more positions. At one point, he was classified eighteenth on the road, having worked his way onto the circuit from what felt like last place. The championship lead disappeared into the mathematics of the situation.

The McLaren pit wall worked with the controlled urgency of people who understood exactly what was at stake. They adjusted strategy, communicated patiently, kept Hamilton focused on finding pace. Slowly, agonisingly, he fought back. Past one car. Then another. The partisan Brazilian crowd — who idolised their own Felipe Massa and had seen Hamilton as an interloper, the cool Englishman who had come to their continent to take what was theirs — were audibly, vociferously against him.

Up ahead, Kimi Räikkönen drove the race of his season: clean, precise, composed. The Finn whom many had written off as too cold, too disengaged, too comfortable with his lifestyle to find the intensity required for a championship — that man crossed the line first in front of his employers' home crowd. Ferrari erupted. Hamilton finished seventh — one position below what he needed. Three drivers had a mathematical chance of the title that afternoon: Räikkönen finished with 110 points, Hamilton with 109, Alonso with 109. It remains the most compressed championship finish in the sport's history.

Felipe Massa won his home grand prix at Interlagos in front of the crowd that loved him, taking his second victory of the 2007 season and one of the most celebrated of his career. Kimi Räikkönen finished second for Ferrari — the result he needed, the position he controlled throughout. Robert Kubica brought his BMW Sauber home in an excellent third. Fernando Alonso was fourth, Räikkönen's Ferrari teammate Felipe had won but his title hopes were mathematical: Räikkönen had taken the championship.

Lewis Hamilton, who crossed the line in seventh after his gearbox drama and subsequent recovery, was second in the championship with 109 points to Räikkönen's 110. One point. Hamilton had driven superbly all season, winning four races in his debut campaign, but the final race had taken from him what the season had otherwise given. He was 22 years old.

The 2007 season was one of the most complex and contentious in Formula 1 history, dominated off the track by the espionage controversy in which McLaren were found to have been in possession of confidential Ferrari technical information. McLaren were excluded from the Constructors' Championship and fined $100 million — the largest fine in sporting history at the time. The team and drivers remained eligible for the Drivers' Championship, however, and Hamilton's campaign remained brilliant throughout.

The collapse in the final race reflected a mechanical problem and a championship mindset that Hamilton himself, in retrospect, acknowledged required adjustment. He returned in 2008 with something to prove. That season's finale, also at Interlagos, would provide one of the most dramatic resolutions in the sport's history. The lesson of 2007 — that championships are never won until they are mathematically secured — shaped the driver he would become.

October 2007 fell during the early tremors of the global financial crisis. Northern Rock had been bailed out by the Bank of England in September — the first British bank run in 150 years — and the markets were beginning to reflect the exposure of financial institutions to the subprime mortgage collapse in the United States. The iPhone had launched three months earlier, changing commerce and communication in ways that were not yet fully apparent.

In Brazil, the country was riding a commodity boom under President Lula's popular government, with rising living standards and growing international confidence. The Interlagos circuit, built into the Morumbi neighbourhood on the south side of São Paulo, sits at altitude and in a city of extraordinary human density. The atmosphere on race day — banked grandstands, flags, drums, the smell of barbecue outside the gates — is unlike anywhere else in Formula 1. On this particular afternoon, that atmosphere tipped from celebration to commiseration in the space of a lap.

Warm and overcast at Interlagos, with humidity characteristic of São Paulo in October. Temperatures were around 28°C. The clouds threatened rain throughout the afternoon but the race remained dry, which removed one variable from a day that already had enough of them. The lack of rain proved, in retrospect, relevant: Hamilton's recovery might have been aided by the changeable conditions that a wet spell would have introduced.