Hamilton beaten to world title
Updated on 21 October 2007
British driver Lewis Hamilton has been pipped to the Formula One world title by Kimi Raikkonen.
Hamilton finished seventh in the Brazilian Grand Prix after making a disastrous start.
He started in second place on the grid, but he was overtaken by his McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso at the first bend.
Then Hamilton dropped to eighth before the end of the first lap when he made a mistake and ran wide on a bend.
A gearbox problem forced him to drop to 18th place, when fifth place would have been good enough to win the drivers championship.
Instead, Raikkonen passed his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa and earned the full ten points for winning the race, leaving him one point ahead of Hamilton and defending champion Alonso.
Hamilton's father Anthony said: "Things are sent to try you, and we are going to be positive, we are going to come back next year."
Meanwhile, McLaren team principal Ron Dennis said: "At difficult moments like this you just have to have a sporting attitude to the outcome.
"Lewis has enjoyed phenomenal reliability from his car this year. It was just a default in the gearbox which selected neutral for a period of time but then sorted itself out.
"It was so close, we needed just one car to stop. It's hard to find the right words but I think the whole team has done a great job all year and should be proud of their achievements."
