Timo Glock has shared that many people still believe that he let Lewis Hamilton pass deliberately and subsequently let him win his maiden championship in the season finale at Interlagos in 2008.
The season finale of 2008 at the Interlagos will surely go down as one of the most dramatic title deciders in all of F1 history. The last eight laps of the race were met with progressively stronger rain causing all sorts of chaos.
Then McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton who narrowly missed out on the title the year prior only needed to finish the race in fifth place to clinch the title over his nearest competitor, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. Massa won that race but his celebrations were short-lived.
While Massa won the race in front of his home crowd, Hamilton was locked in a battle with Torro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel for that all-important fifth place.
Hamilton, who was struggling to pass Vettel was then given a ray of hope in his championship bid when Toyota’s Timo Glock who was running in fourth position started to drop off in pace. Vettel and Hamilton were able to pass Glock and this was the moment which decided the title in the Briton’s favour.
Having lost out on the title by just a single point, Felipe Massa’s celebrations on the podium were filled with emotions and sympathy by his home crowd. Massa ultimately never won a championship after this.
Also read: Felipe Massa makes harsh judgement on 4 time World Champion’s career in F1
Glock and Massa meet again in Brazil
Felipe Massa and Timo Glock met again at last week’s Sao Paolo Grand Prix where Glock finally decided to address the elephant in the room and talk about the 2008 finale with Massa.
In an interview with Martin Brundle, the German driver revealed that he still gets hate for his unintentional role in Hamilton winning the 2008 championship.
“There are still people out there that think I did it on purpose”
“I was reading comments where I said we have this interview coming up, that people say ‘ah, it’s really interesting to see how you explain to Felipe that you let the door open like this and you didn’t fight against Lewis’.
“I go to the airport when I left Brazil, I had a police escort to the airport. I got even letters sent to my family back home to my parents which were really under the limit.”
Glock pulled aside the curtain to reveal exactly what happened which caused him to go slower in the last few laps. His gamble to not fit the intermediate tyres as the rain poured down didn’t pay off and he was trying his best to stay on the track.
The Toyota driver wasn’t even able to correct his decision to stay out as the pitlane was in a mass frenzy as people anticipated a Massa championship.
“At some point, I said (over team radio) ‘guys, I don’t think we will survive these last two laps’,” recounted Glock.
“Anyway, there is no chance to come in anymore because there was already the whole preparation going on for the podium ceremony – everyone freaked out because he [Massa] in that moment actually was World Champion.
“They said ‘you cannot come in, the pit lane is blocked, you need to stay out’.
“It feels for me still hard to see that, knowing I was in that position to decide the championship, to see how much emotions went down the road.”
