THERE was nothing lucky about the way Lewis Hamilton secured fifth place, and with it the Formula One world drivers’ championship, at the Brazilian Grand Prix, according to McLaren Mercedes team principal Ron Dennis.

Amid the euphoria surrounding Hamilton’s success last weekend, some have criticised McLaren for the conservative strategy they adopted in Sao Paulo - an approach that appeared to have backfired horribly when he was overtaken by the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel and began the final lap in sixth. Only on the last corner did Hamilton overtake the Toyota of Timo Glock, taking the championship by a point from Felipe Massa, who won the race for Ferrari. Dennis, however, insisted that the good fortune favoured the Italian team. While acknowledging that Hamilton drove the race according to precise team orders, Dennis, pictured inset with Anthony Hamilton, said there would have been no last-lap drama if the rain had stayed away. At the same time, he admitted “hearts were beating faster” on the pit wall when it appeared that Glock, who alone of the front-runners had elected to see out the race on dry tyres, did not appear to be losing pace sufficiently for Hamilton to catch him. “Starting the last lap, we thought Glock’s pace wasn’t going to drop enough, but then in the middle sector he was five, six, seven seconds off the pace, and we immediately knew Lewis would get him,” said Dennis. “The challenge then was not to push too hard and lose it in passing him, so Lewis passed Glock a few hundred metres later than he could have done. To carry out a surgical move, that was where it had to be, on the final corner. If it had rained later, we would have had more grip and been able to stay ahead of Vettel; if it had rained earlier, Glock would have been history much sooner. So it looked iffy, but the reality was, there was a degree of logic and race craft on the pit wall. Only for a moment did it look like it wasn’t going to play out quite as we expected, but then it did.”

Dennis said the rain also played into the hands of Massa’s “very surprising” three-stop strategy. “That was very, very high-risk, because if there had been any deployment of the safety car, or if the weather had dictated that they had to stop prior to their scheduled stops, cars on three stops would have been effectively out of the race.”

The McLaren boss also revealed that more attempts had been made to disrupt Hamilton’s build-up to the race than had been revealed. “We had lots of things thrown at us,” he said. “The black cat [a toy one, signifying bad luck, was thrown towards Hamilton on a Brazilian chat show], efforts to disrupt Lewis’s sleep, telephone calls, threats of putting an allnight samba band into Lewis’s hotel, all sorts of silly things – but you smile, you don’t waste energy on it and just get on with the job.

“The team was almost eerily calm, everyone was focused. We were so strong in the last two races; succeed or fail, we were going to do so together, but we did it, and did it our way.

“People can criticise, can jibe, but we did it in a very fair, sporting way.”

Dennis said that contrary to some reports, Hamilton would not receive a salary bonus for winning the world championship. “We have no links to performance in any of our contracts with either drivers or sponsors,” he said.

“We exist to win races, we don’t need any fiscal incentive. Lewis’s income is fixed for the duration of his contract. There is some flexibility in respect of what we can do together outside the contract, but his salary is not linked to success.”

In January, Hamilton signed a new five-year contract with McLaren believed to be worth between £7m and £10m per year. He has no agent - all commercial negotiation is carried out by his father, Anthony, and McLaren. He has one personal sponsor, Reebok (worth about £10m over three years) and is required to promote the team’s sponsors. In the most recent Sunday Times Rich List he was estimated to be worth £15m.

Dennis said talk of Hamilton winning more championships than Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher was pointless. “We’re just concentrating on winning the next race, the Australian Grand Prix,” he said. “You see Lewis’s name bracketed with Tiger Woods, but since the beginning of the relationship Lewis has had with McLaren and myself, he is just Lewis. He and Anthony never, ever sought to gain from anything other than claiming to be a really good, committed and dedicated racing driver.”

At the same time, Dennis acknowledged that Hamilton was aware of and prepared for the fact that he was now regarded as an international role model. Dennis also admitted that despite deciding to retain the title of team principal for 2008, his role at McLaren had changed.

“At the end of 2007 I was committed to adopting a different position and delegated some of the responsibilities,” he said. “After a lot of discussion we came to the conclusion that it wasn’t the right thing for me to cease being the team principal, but I didn’t take back any responsibilities, and that just made my year much better.

“But you can hang on and hang on until it’s to the detriment of the company. I’ll continue to go to grands prix next year because it’s a passion, but more than that I won’t say.”

Ron on the record

- Hamilton could have overtaken Timo Glock earlier but the team wanted to leave it until the safest possible moment

- Efforts to disrupt Hamilton before the race included not only the black cat thrown at him, but telephone calls and threats of putting an all-night samba band into his hotel

- Despite wild claims about how much he could now earn, Hamilton has his salary with McLaren fixed for the duration of his contract. It is not linked to his success