November 9, 2008
Choking back tears through the smog at the Brazilian Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton's victory and a farewell to friends made Sao Paulo emotional
Martin Brundle

LAST weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix was a rollercoaster ride for me, for reasons that extend beyond Lewis Hamilton keeping us on the edge of our seats until the final corner to become the youngest Formula One world champion and the first British winner for 12 years.

Before the weekend I was arguing with myself whether it was right, as an impartial broadcaster, that I was hoping Hamilton would clinch it. After all, either he or Felipe Massa would have been a worthy champion. I satisfied myself that if this had been an England versus Brazil World Cup final, there would be nothing wrong with wanting England to win, so long as I honestly called it as I saw it. After all, I am a British former F1 driver and I don't need to hide from that.

I have spent most of my life working with teams of people, including ITV-F1 this past dozen years. This race was our last broadcast. Together we've travelled, worked and partied, creating award-winning programmes, including 12 Royal Television Society gongs and two Baftas. We have taken a lot of flak for cutting to adverts during the race action, but that's just the way it is: ITV gets the ad revenue, BBC gets the licence fee and Sky gets the subscriptions and ad revenue.

There was an emotional ITV party for the 40 of us present at the event on Saturday night. It turned out to be great, not the wake I had been fearing, given that several team members, like so many others in this difficult economic climate, are heading into an uncertain future.

James Allen said a few words including, "Tomorrow we will disband", which was sobering. We had no way of knowing that the next day was going to be such a thrilling cliffhanger watched by 13m people, otherwise we might have had fewercaipirinhas,Brazil's national cocktail.

Interlagos was the perfect place for a title decider. It is without a doubt the scruffiest, most ill-equipped venue we go to, yet there is something magical about it. It is in the grubby city of Sao Paulo, where favelasand five-star hotels perch side by side, a city of Porsches mixing it with rusty, beaten-up old Chevrolets. You never feel completely safe there, the smog catches the back of your throat, the bathwater is brown and you walk out from your hotel to find people with missing limbs begging.

The track looks old, the paddock is so ridiculously narrow that you see the tyre guys impatiently wheeling the would-be world champion's tyres through the middle of a crowd of nearly famous people. But it has the most fantastic atmosphere sitting in a natural amphitheatre that exaggerates the feeling of a coliseum.

To add to the drama, we had a downpour just as the race was due to start, delaying it by 10 minutes. Three teams told me the possible rainfall had dispersed. Nobody had umbrellas, the sky looked initially calm, but the downpour descended in 10 minutes. I remarked on television that, looking through the letterbox slot of his crash helmet, Lewis appeared more relaxed about the rain than Massa. It was because he had known it was coming. The McLaren forecasters had apparently predicted the correct time and intensity of the downpour to within 15 seconds. That confidence would be a significant factor five laps from the finish, but it could so easily have cost them the championship.

Through the first corner we lost Britain's David Coulthard from the race, another poignant moment for me because he is a former rival and long-time friend and I have negotiated his driving contracts for the past 11 years.

When the ITV commentating role first became available I didn't want it, because I was expecting to be an F1 driver in 1997. I seemed to be the last person to realise that I had already completed my last grand prix.

Coulthard can consider himself a lucky boy because he knew it was his last outing. There was an overwhelming, spontaneous feeling of goodwill towards him from pretty much the whole paddock. The team painted up a pedal car in Red Bull colours for his forthcoming baby boy, the mechanics arranged that he be bagpiped into the car and there was a photo lineup with the other drivers.

I've learnt a lot from him. Having observed F1 and Coulthard closely, if I had known then what I know now, I'd have been a lot more successful as a driver. I beat Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen, three of the great champions of my era, in the same car on the same day. Yet I didn't translate those performances into proper long-term results.

My time with Coulthard made me realise that I wasn't 100% focused. I should have had more people around me, such as a full-time trainer and a physio. I should have engaged the sport's powerbrokers with more frequency and confidence. I needed to have been more ruthless and selfish, less trusting and compliant.

Coulthard will have regrets too. He should probably have taken a world championship. Surely only Schumacher and the likes of Sir Jackie Stewart and Alain Prost could be fully content with their complement of championships, reputations and limbs intact, and proper money in the bank. Or maybe not, because none of them seems able to leave the sport alone.

Last weekend Massa was supreme and Hamilton was tight with fear of losing, his normal flamboyance at the wheel missing as the team carefully guided him to a necessary but overcautious fifth place. The final rainfall gave us one of the most exciting grands prix in history. McLaren did the only sensible thing in bringing Hamilton in for rain tyres, as did Massa, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel ahead of him.

However, with Toyota's Timo Glock staying out on dry tyres - a brave but smart decision that would eventually gain him a place and with Hamilton being overtaken by Vettel, suddenly he was sixth and out of position for the title. Hamilton went into the last lap 12 seconds down on Glock, who had just completed the penultimate lap only three seconds slower. But his tyre temperatures and pressures were falling off a cliff face.

Finally the heavy rain arrived, later than forecast, and we saw a Toyota struggling from Hamilton's onboard camera as he desperately tried to repass Vettel, a driver he had been told not to fight just a few laps earlier. In the next camera shot we saw it was Glock, and Hamilton was through.

Already crossing the line more than half a minute ahead, it seemed Massa could well be the champion, but, especially in such conditions, it's crazy to celebrate too early. Many people missed the Glock pass, but thankfully up in the commentary box we had it all under control.

With a tear in my eye, I decided that all caipirinha limits were immediately lifted. It was serious party time for so many reasons.

Brundle on the final moments

Felipe Massa's mother, father and close family celebrate his supreme victory from pole position in treacherous conditions in front of the adoring Brazilian fans in their own back yard in Sao Paulo, where Massa started racing. They also believe he has won the World Championship but the caption already shows Hamilton in a critical fifth place.

Moments later, a Ferrari team member tells them that Hamilton has passed Toyota's Timo Glock at the last corner, has crossed the line and is, in fact, the 2008 world champion. Utter disbelief and despair follows. Massa and his family have handled themselves throughout the season with style, class and dignity, never more so than in the final race, making this image all the more sad. For a TV commentator, however, there was no better way to end the season.

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