Glock answers fans on Hamilton and Brazil 2008

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Bafflingly, the circumstances under which Lewis Hamilton won his first world championship in 2008 remains a point of dispute for some.

Hamilton clinched the title in a dramatic climax to the final race of the year when he passed Timo Glock on the final lap of the Brazilian Grand Prix that year. Some continue to allege Glock intentionally helped Hamilton, despite there being a clear reason why he was overtaken and the absence of any obvious motive for why he should assist his rival in his fight with Felipe Massa.

With social media abuzz over the recent Moto GP championship decider in which some accused Marc Marquez of trying to help Jorge Lorenzo beat Valentino Rossi, Glock became drawn into a discussion over whether he did the same for Hamilton in 2008.

“If your [sic] Timo Glock you must really hate when the Brazilian Grand Prix comes around where people remind him of the 2008 race,” suggested one Tweeter. “Not at all,” Glock replied, “because I didn’t do anything wrong I drove my race and scored points for my team with different strategy.”

Rain fell in the latter stages of the race, causing most drivers to switch from dry-weather tyres to intermediates. They included Massa – who was leading – and Hamilton. The Toyota drivers did not, moving Glock up the order, and though he lost two positions on the final lap he still finished higher than he had been running before the rain.

Glock has won twice in the DTM since leaving F1
Asked if he would have approached the race differently given the outcome, Glock said he would not have made the change to intermediate tyres, “because we gained two positions with that strategy call”.

Glock pointed out he was unaware of the championship situation on the final lap and even if he had been it “would have made no difference because I couldn’t do anything!”

“[Hamilton] would have overtaken me no matter if I knew or not.”

Writing about the incident recently on his blog, former Ferrari press officer Luca Colajanni admitted the team was initially suspicious about Glock’s driving immediately after the race.

“In 2008 at Interlagos, immediately after the end of the race many of us in the Ferrari garage had more than a suspect when Glock had let pass by Hamilton a few hundred meters from the finish, thus denying a world title to Felipe who deserved it, because that year he was undoubtedly the best driver.”

However they soon realised Glock had been powerless to keep his position. “Then, in cold blood, it was clear that the Toyota driver could not do anything because he was on slick tires on a track more and more wet.”

Glock left F1 at the end of 2012 after being dropped by Marussia in order to bring in a driver with financial backing. He now races for BMW in the DTM. “I am very happy where I am now,” he said on Twitter when asked if he wanted to return to F1. “Great to work for a brand like BMW Motorsport. Don’t want to go back.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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64 comments on “Glock answers fans on Hamilton and Brazil 2008”

  1. Glock comes over as a good guy who’s happy with where he is, not just here but also on the occasions where he enriched (to my mind) the RTL.DE F1 show – great to see. That twitter thread where he responds is pretty good fun too for the way he handles it.

    1. @bosyber I think it’s great, it’s exactly what social media was made for.

    2. I Agree with that @bosyber.

  2. To be honest I am fed up with people saying Glock let Hamilton win his first title. If he had pitted for inters then Hamilton would have ended up 5th anyway and by staying out he helped bring out probably one of the most memorable moments in F1 history.

    Also I believe he was the fastest person on dry tyres on the final lap as well.

    1. I recall that Glock was around 4 seconds quicker on that final lap than Trulli which is proof enough for me. I get the impression that the only people who believed in this conspiracy were fans who wanted to see Massa win the title. There’s zero evidence for it, so I assume it’s pure bitterness that their man didn’t win.

      1. There are facts regarding the last lap of the 2008 Brazilian GP, that some just choose to amazingly ignore. Glock on the last lap was caught out on the wrong tires, because of rain, while Hamilton under those conditions was on the right intermediate tires.

        Last lap of the 2008 Brazilian GP.

        Timo Glock……………..1:44.731
        Jarno Trulli……………..1:44.800
        Lewis Hamilton……….1:26.126

        Note the times of Jarno Trulli who was Glock’s teammate, and on the same tires, and strategy. Both seemed to have had the exact times, because of changeable conditions, should answer any questions why Glock lost so much time to Lewis on the last lap. To be exact….18.6

    2. I was watching and rooting for Lewis on that race, but man was he nervous. He was obviously quicker than his position demanded, he was playing too safe, and when he got passed by Vettel on a great passing move, I was thinking it was all over- and he had only himself to blame there. Luckily Glock’s tyres were struggling for grip on the last few fast corners and they could get by, but if Hamilton lost the title there, it would have been by his fault alone. Obviously Felipe drove well, but sincerely Lewis is the faster driver.

    3. @f199player that was na epic finale.

  3. Hopefully this one can be put to bed now, for good. However had Massa won the title, many would probably be bringing up Spa even to this day.

    It’s just a shame that BMW stopped developing their car in the middle of the year, because I felt Kubica was superb all season long in 2008. We could have had a truly epic three-way showdown at Interlagos.

    1. Don’t mention Spa! Massa certainly didn’t deserve to win that day.

    2. Massa got bonus points at Spa, but also at China when Raikkonen let him past – Massa was so slow, Raikkonen had to virtually pull over and put the hazard lights on for him to get past. Not against the rules, but hardly boosting his ‘deservingness.’ Also Hamilton’s penalty in Japan, which almost irritates me today more than Spa. He braked heavily and locked up at the first corner, causing – wait for the drama – Raikkonen to run wide and lose a few places. Symptomatic of a season where Ferrari were being helped out by FIA at every opportunity. No, Massa was not the best driver. He wasn’t even the best Ferrari driver.

      1. Don’t forget about massa getting screwed over by renault and crashgate in Singapore if that doesn’t happen massa wins easily that night and probably wins the championship.

      2. Massa did the same for Kimi in 2007. So Kimi was merely paying back.

        1. Massa gave up a win at his home GP

      3. Hamilton’s late braking at Japan was ridiculous and the penalty was deserved. Just take a look at 2:04 in the video… this would have been a penalty under any year’s regulations. It was ridiculous driving.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifQ2sqNKR4

        1. @todfod: But didn’t the stewards know Hamilton was the “king-of-late braking”

        2. Amazing how you didn’t notice that pretty much half the field missed their brake point. It was a difficult start yes.

          Or did you notice that just about every race some of drivers lock up a wheel for the first corner? Never a penalty. Just the last race Massa flew past. Did he get a Penalty? That looked seriously dangerous too, because all the others guys were braking well on time.

          The difference is Alan Donnely.

          1. He pushed 2 cars off the circuit because of that dive bomb. Both of them lost positions because of it.

            Sure, a few other drivers missed their braking point, but how skid off the circuit and ruined 2 other driver’s starts?

            Let me answer that for you – None, other than Lewis

        3. It was a pointless penalty for an incident where nobody was hurt and where there was no contact or damage. It was given under Ferrari and Moseley pressure. And with these kinds of decisions over the years, Formula 1 has become increasingly dull, filled with robot drivers driving to delta times and protecting their tires rather than racing.

          1. How do you justify the Spa penalty for Ham, and gift for Mas?

      4. In 2008 Massa was good but certainly not the best. Often untouchable even to his team mate when Ferrari was superior car and he was starting from pole. Very average otherwise. And embarrassing in some other instances, like Silverstone with his infamous five-spin-race performed while his title rival shown a Senna-esque display of superiority to the rest of the field.
        I respect Massa as a good driver, but I believer that he didn’t deserve to win a championship. His following season proved me right.

        1. His following season proved me right.

          I know this was a typo, but 2009 was his best season up to his crash, in my opinion.

      5. In my opinion, Singapore GP should be excluded from the 2008 championship. But that would change the outcome of the WDC significantly, so I understand FIA’s decision on this case.

    3. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
      12th November 2015, 13:36

      Still one of the most frustrating things about the 2008 season. If BMW continued developing that car, they would have been in good contention. Instead they wasted their time and money on the dog of the car that was the 2009 car.

  4. I think its pretty clear that Glock didn’t let Lewis past to gift him the championship or anything. He was on dry tyres on a track that was getting wetter, His tyres were losing temperature as a result & on that final lap he was clearly struggling for grip as the OnBoard shot from his car on the end of year DVD showed:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4LMm5PXVRU

  5. “thus denying a world title to Felipe who deserved it, because that year he was undoubtedly the best driver.”

    ha, ha. Nope.

    He had the best car but squandered his chances with shambolic drives in such races as silverstone, where he could barely keep his car pointing straight and was lapped by the eventual championship winner, and Spa, where he was nowhere to be seen as he trundled around way off the pace, only to be gifted points by race stewards, who also deducted points off his closest title rival.

    1. You got that right N

    2. Hungary and Singapore, Hamilton gained points from massas falling back and retirement Massa lost them, he lost 10 whole points in Hungary, massa was better in 2008

      1. Hahaha nobady seems to remember that Lewis had a puncture on that same race losing points as well.

    3. And he threw it off in Malaysia. But he figured out the whole “red means stop” thing a year before Hamilton did, so I’ve gotta give him credit for that.

    4. shambolic drives in such races as silverstone, where he could barely keep his car pointing straight

      Same can be said for Raikkonen who had just as bad a race at Felipe did as both spun 4 times because Ferrari had gone the wrong way on setup with both cars & got caught out by the wetter than expected conditions.

      For whatever reason people like to forget about/ignore that & just go on & on about how it proves Massa is a rubbish driver who can’t race in the wet… Also ignoring the wet/damp races where he’s actually proved he’s just as competent in the wet as any of the other top drivers. Monaco, Monza or Brazil that same year for example.

      1. Massa simply couldn’t deal with the ban on traction control. He already spun off in the first two races which were dry.

        1. The spin at Malaysia had nothing to do with the ban on traction control, It was never a corner where TC was that active because its basically a flat out kink. Massa spun there as he just got slightly wide out of the previous corner & that put him onto the dirty part of the track for the 2nd part where he lost grip & spun.

          If Massa really was unable to deal with the PC ban then he would have been nowhere all year & any year since, however he was quite competitive through 2008 & 2009 & has been more than a match for Valttri Bottas these past 2 years in cars where the lack of TC is a far bigger issue due to the substantial amount of torque the current engines produce.

    5. Yet Massa is still there, blocking young racing drivers to show their potential.. Such a shame

  6. What Briatore pulled out in Singapour denied Massa his world title, not Glock in Brazil…

    1. Spinning alone in Malasya and Siverstone lose him the title. Pathetic performances in Monza and Fuji added to that.

      1. Yeah cos Hamilton didn’t deliver any pathetic performances in 08. If Renault don’t crash in Singapore massa wins that race easily and wins the championship. If massa was that bad in 08 then Hamilton must have been just as bad.

        1. I didn’t say he was pathetic all year. He was in those races. And i also didn’t say that Hamilton drove perfectly.

      2. I wouldn’t call Monza a ‘pathetic’ performance & Silverstone was more down to Ferrari going the wrong way on setup expecting the track to dry, Kimi had just as bad a race & spun just as many times as Felipe did.

        Its also fair to say that Lewis had just as many bad performances that year, Running into the back of Alonso at Bahrain after a bad start, The Montreal pit crash, Another bad start at the French Gp & then cutting the corner & getting a penalty as he tried to come back through the field, Awful qualifying at Monza & the mistake at turn 1 in Fuji.

        Something people ignore about Fuji is that Lewis’s race was ruined & he would have needed to pit on lap 2 even without the contact with Massa (Which was Massa’s fault) because he had flat-spotted his right/front tyre beyond the grooves at turn 1 & there’s no way he’d have been able to safely carry on for long with the tyre as badly damaged as it was.
        look at this video and how badly damaged the tyre was.
        https://vid.me/PVo5

        Both Lewis & Felipe had a lot of screw ups that year.

        1. Monza was ridiculous of him. He started 6th and finished 6th. Hamilton started 13th and finished 7th.
          One place up and Massa would have been world champion.

          1. @edmarques, Hamilton would have even won that race. So if we are talking about “what could have been” then Hamilton won that race.

            Hamilton was unfortunate with the weather change. He had to come in because his fuel was gone while they knew the weather would change in a few laps again. So Hamilton had to make 2 stops.

          2. When you start lower down in a fast car its always easier to make up more places against the cars of much lower performance than your own than when your already towards the front with cars of fairly equal performance in the conditions.

            And as i said before the Ferrari that year wasn’t brilliant in the wet, Certainly not as good as the McLaren. Look at Raikkonen that weekend at Monza he could only get to 9th & the week before in Spa as soon as it began to rain Kimi went from leading fairly comfortably in the dry to been under serious pressure from Lewis & eventually in the wall & As I said both Ferrari’s spun 4 times in the wet at Silverstone.

  7. Simply cannot understand whats the point of all these “IF…. , THEN…. ” responses … So ??? Can the history be changed?

    1. I especially enjoy that people think one race can lose someone the championship. The 2008 championship was contested over 18 races and a lot of them had a profound impact on the championship. Usually, when it comes down to the final race like this, there are many points lost by a driver over the season which could have all made an impact.

      I’m a Ferrari fan and was even more so in 2008, but all this ‘Glock lost Massa the championship’, ‘Massa lost it at Silverstone’, talk is so rigid and definitive, you’d imagine the 2008 was composed of 18 individual skirmishes or something..

      1. I should have been more specific in my first line, I think it’s strange that so many people think the 2008 championship was won or lost over one race.

        1. @npf1 Fair comment about it taking a whole season of races and circumstances to win a race. But what I do consider about that season and it’s last race is that huge credit should go to FM for doing everything right when the pressure was at it’s greatest, while LH did almost everything possible to lose it. That’s why I felt so bad for FM. It takes all 18 (for that season) races, but the pressure was massive for the last race given that it was the Championship decider. Far greater than the first race obviously, and that is one of the bigger tests as far as I’m concerned. They can all drive fast. How do they do when the pressure is that huge. FM was flawless when it counted most.

    2. If is F1 spelt backwards…..

  8. feels wierd that my question if he wanted to return is on fanatic, in a good way :) but i wish that people would let this conspiracy die and stop asking him if he let hamilton thru. i dont see where Toyota would benefit from making lewis champ?

    1. I guess we should say thank you for an extraordinary exchange with Glock. It was really a nice show of how social media can enrich a fans live @marussi :-)

      1. Sure is and i dont use twitter that often. Think it was my first or second log in this year and he answerd The question really Quick. He still Has me as a fan and i wish him The best im dtm. Maybe formula e test drive for glock in The future?

    2. The funny thing about this conspiracy is that is one of the most silliest because there is no motive(other than Massa-Ferrari fans not accepting reality). Usually such theories come up when people see some motive for something more sinister.

      But here there really is nothing. Hamilton and Glock weren’t best friends or had the same nationality. Glock didn’t have some grunge against Massa. And Toyota had no reason to help anyone or some close relationship with Mclaren. There really is nothing to find there that you could make an excuse about.
      The only thing left is that some fans of Massa and Ferrari are just frustrated and can’t swallow it no matter what.

  9. Also The Singapore gp. Even The crashgate it has nothing to do with massa driving away with The fuelrig

    1. yeah, saying Crashgate lost Massa the title, when he was hardly faultless there himself (could have happened for any other SC), is about on the same level as saying that Massa was clearly the most deserving champion that year. At mid season I though Kubica was driving the best season, shame about BMW setting for a single win.

      Hamilton was better overall than Massa, but he too had many incidents and made a lot of mistakes. And Massa was helped by quite a few dodgy FIA desicions too.

      1. Kubica only look good after Canada because Raikkonen and Hamilton were out and he won.

      2. Always fun to see People saw The same race as i did ^^ both drivers did mistakes but Lewis ended up doing one less

  10. ONE point is just very painful, because this point could always be found easily by Ferrari or Massa.

    1. Both Massa and Ferrari, as well as Hamilton and McLaren could have scored more points in 2008, but that’s the beauty of a season like 2008. After it’s over, there are so many races you can point to where either driver could have easily made up the deficit there was at the end of the season and usually there’s a case for the other driver as well. It’s sad so many people have one ‘definitive’ race when it comes to 2008, since it’s kind of revisionist to say something like that.

      1. Was the same in 2007 when Hamilton lost by a point.

  11. It was good for ‘The Show’… a Hollywood scripted season finale race just like Messr. Ecclestone wanted.

    Who wasn’t sitting on the edge of their seats?
    Was very happy for Felipe one second and the other second for Hami!

    Winning is winning! #f2f #toretto

    I just hated those image of Nicole Sherzinger in the garage.

    Other then that one of the finer moments in F1.

  12. 2008 Belgian Grand Prix, the FIA takes Hamilton’s rightful win away and gifts it to Massa.

    Never forget.

    1. If Lewis had given back all of the advantage he gained from cutting the chicane he wouldn’t have got the penalty.

      As somebody (GTRacer?) was saying on here a few days ago Lewis got the penalty because the DATA showed that by cutting the chicane he was faster through the timing loops than on any other lap and was much closer to kimi than he would have been had he gone through the corner behind kimi.
      yes he let kimi past but he didn’t give back the time he gained and this allowed him to be much closer to kimi than he otherwise would have been and this helped him get past at the next corner.

      its the same argument with the debate about track limits we have today, putting 4 wheels outside of the white lines on the exit of a corner may not get you ahead of a car infront but if it allows you go get closer than had you stayed inside the white lines then you gained an advantage!

      1. “If Lewis had given back all of the advantage he gained from cutting the chicane…”

        Take a good look at what you’re asking and expecting.

        Good luck trying to actually quantify ‘all of the advantage’ when they went into the corner side by side, in the middle of heated battle. Lewis did what most drivers never even actually do unless told to by either their team and/or charlie mid-race, and that was immediately give the place back. Not only that, but Raikonnen even later crashed himself out of the race, rendering the entire fiasco pointless. To take Hamiltons points away was a hideous decision which few people have ever agree’d with.

  13. Come on guy’s. I know 2008 feels like last year but it really happened 7 years ago. Great season but time to move on, and what that Ferrari guy said, is a matter of opinion, not fact.

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