Dateline: November, 2, Interlagos, Sao Paulo

The day and the build-up to the season-ending and title-deciding Brazilian Grand Prix

Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One commercial rights-holder: All the attention was around the fact that Felipe Massa had to win and Lewis Hamilton had to finish in the top five. There was all the speculation: Could Massa win and if he did, what would happen? What would happen to Lewis? Would he fall off the road at the first corner and all this business? My feeling was that Lewis was going to win the race. I felt he was going to come good.

Phil Prew, Hamilton's race engineer, on the McLaren-Mercedes pitwall: For it all to come down to the final race put increased pressure on every single aspect of our racecraft, driving and operational. So it was just a case of making sure we completed everything as we knew we had to and as we knew we could. It was fairly cool - it was just the worry of something going wrong. There were so many things that could have tripped us up.

Ian Phillips, director of business affairs for Force India: It was a fabulous atmosphere, but then Interlagos always has one of the best atmospheres of any circuit in Formula One. It might be dirty and dangerous, but it is always incredibly passionate and even more so this time because the local hero was, perhaps, going to win the world championship.

James Allen, ITV commentator: Twelve months ago, we'd all said, 'Do you think he is going to do it today?' and the feeling then was we were not sure and he didn't, of course, and Kimi Raikkonen won the title. It was very much the same thing. 'Do you think he is going to do it today?' And a few people were saying, 'No', but I, for some reason, felt that he would. But I felt it wasn't going to be easy and there might be a twist or a complication of some kind.

The early stages of the race

Phillips: From a Hamilton point of view, I don't think anybody could have been sure whether this was going to work out right for him. I am a great believer that in sport you have to play your natural game at all times and he wasn't playing his natural game.

Ecclestone: Obviously, we could see Lewis was not going to win the race and it was looking more like he wasn't even going to finish in the top five. It just didn't look like that was going to happen.

Damon Hill, Formula One world champion in 1996, watching with Hamilton fans at Silverstone: It was a bit like the egg-and-spoon race; Lewis was trying not to drop the egg, but go as fast as he could at the same time.

Allen: McLaren took a very strange decision on Saturday to take aerodynamic downforce off Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen's cars which, given that there was a strong feeling it was going to rain the next day, seemed to make them possibly a bit vulnerable. Of course, when we got the first signs of rain, the cars didn't look too great.

Prew: We had a reasonable start and held position there and we were following Massa - we didn't want to change tyres before Massa, so when he pitted, we pitted the following lap. That cost us track position, but it was an acceptable compromise. At that point it was OK, it was fairly under control. We had lost some positions but I was confident about our pace at that stage. Lewis was able to get past [Jarno] Trulli, then we had [Giancarlo] Fisichella. We expected to get past Fisichella and the fact that Massa was pulling away wasn't an issue. Lewis was very calm in that situation - he knew what was happening in the race.

When Sebastian Vettel overtook Hamilton with two laps to go

Hill: I remember sitting there thinking, 'Oh no, this is awful.' The whole clubhouse went really flat and you were watching with that awful sense - it was like seeing someone die on stage. You're there in the audience and thinking, 'Oh my God, no, don't let this happen'. It was really like that. It was just so awful to watch.

Allen: Lewis was vulnerable to anyone who had decided to stay on the dry tyres to the very end and that person was [Timo] Glock. Even then, I didn't think it was all over for Lewis. It had been such an unpredictable day and such an unpredictable weekend in terms of weather. They were forecasting rain at the end and it was just a question of how hard it rained. Lewis was a minute away from losing the world championship; if the rain had held off for another 60 seconds, he would not have won the title.

Prew: It was a massive sinking feeling and there were obviously flashbacks to the previous year when we had come so close and then lost it. At that point we had to try to convey to Lewis that we had three laps to go and he had to try and find a way past Vettel. It was rather a sick feeling of, 'Oh no, we've thrown this one away' but you are still very much focused on what the car was doing and trying to help Lewis find a way to get past. When Vettel went past we were still fairly convinced that the Toyotas would have to pit and that the rain was going to come. It was probably the second lap behind Vettel that we realised that maybe this rain wasn't going to come and they are not going to stop.

Phillips: I remember thinking Vettel is going to be the next greatest star that Formula One is going to produce and that McLaren had over-managed themselves out of the world championship.

The chequered flag

Ecclestone: I thought that Felipe had won the race and championship, like everyone else. It's what I've always said I'd like to see happening - the last corner of the last lap of the last race. The chances of it ever happening again are millions to one. If the rain had started even a few seconds later, it wouldn't have happened.

Prew: It was just relief, relief that we had got the job done, hadn't let down anyone and hadn't been tripped over. There was disbelief as well, that it should have come down to the last two corners. We were literally just staring at each other, heads in hands, sort of, 'My goodness me, did that really just happen?' Lewis has said we didn't tell him until after he'd got to Turn 2. He is absolutely right; we had to wait until everything had calmed down a little bit and the results were actually posted before we wanted to tell him. When he got to Turn 1 my colleague said, 'OK, you're P5' and I just said to him, 'You're world champion.'

Hill: No one could have foreseen that it would all turn around because it doesn't usually happen like that in motor racing. The tide doesn't usually turn back again so quickly. So it was shocking really and there was a lot of struggling to work out exactly what had gone on. I was not in touch with the fact that Glock was the key. I thought he was just a back-marker. It was one of those situations where the uncertainty added to the excitement and everyone was going berserk.

Allen: I was just euphoric at the end of what had been such a dramatic grand prix with an amazing outcome. I felt very sorry for Massa who had done everything right and had done everything he could do. Lewis had been making things difficult for himself along the way, in the time-honoured tradition of great British racing drivers, but he had got the world championship that I felt he deserved.

Emotions afterwards

Prew: I reflected on the past two years we've worked together. Last year we had been in a similarly strong position and it had all been taken away through no real fault of Lewis, but this year, we had actually got the job done - we had won the world championship. Then you had to reflect on what Lewis had achieved over the past two years. It is really quite phenomenal and I am very proud of what we have achieved together as a team. I thought that Massa dealt with the situation as a true sportsman and a true gentleman.

Hill: You had to feel for Ferrari. Watching Felipe's father celebrating and then watching them go from celebration to despair in a matter of seconds was really high drama. Afterwards, I thought it was the most exciting grand prix I've ever seen and I've seen a few.

Ecclestone: It was extremely mixed because I'd always said it would be terrible if Lewis hadn't won after what happened to him the year before and it was terrible for Felipe to lose because it was nothing to do with him, it was the team that let him down. Felipe, in my opinion, is what a world champion should be - a gentleman.

Phillips: Bernie has probably got William Shakespeare tucked away in his office writing the script because no one else could have done it.

Chaos and confusion soon turned to tears of joy

by Mark Thompson, Getty Images photographer

Normally, three laps before the end of the race, we have to be on the gantry from where we photograph the podium. So I went there. But no one knew what had happened. We could not see a television screen, so there were about 70 photographers wondering what had happened.

Then, all of a sudden, the crowd started roaring and I was thinking: “He's blown it, Massa's won it.” I could see one of the officials on the podium checking everything and I whistled over and said: “Who's won it?” He signalled back with his hands that Massa had won the race and Hamilton was world champion.

It was chaos because, as a photographer, what you do not want is a world champion who is not on the podium. Also it was dark - people do not realise how dark it was - and that made it tricky to shoot.

When Hamilton came into the McLaren garage, he went into a room at the back. I saw Nicholas, his brother, and I just put my arm round him and I said: “You've done it, mate.” He put his arm round me and then pulled me into the room with him. I was the only photographer there with Nicholas, Lewis, Anthony, their father, Linda, his wife, and Nicole Scherzinger, Lewis's girlfriend, pictured left. It was amazing.

They were all crying. They were just hugging each other. It was a massive sense of relief. You could see the shock, especially with Anthony. First of all he was pretty cool, but then he cracked. All they were saying was: “You've done it, you've done it...” And Lewis was saying: “I've done it, I can't believe it.” And his father was almost in a trance.

I like Lewis. He is really cool and I am glad he won the title. At the same time I am very unhappy for Massa. I felt for him and he was brilliant in defeat. And Massa's father walking up to Lewis's father to congratulate him - that was class.