Nigel Roebuck: Fifth Column

Although Felipe Massa consummately won last year's Brazilian Grand Prix, the suspicion, going into this year's race, was that Interlagos should slightly favour McLaren over Ferrari. The bumps, you see. All season long, the MP4-22 has handled them - and high kerbs, as at Montreal and Monza - like nothing else, and Interlagos has never been renowned for its even surface.

Until this year. In time-honoured fashion they were still slapping a bit of paint on the ancient grandstands through the practice days, but the track itself had had a makeover, and the resurfacing took away a lot of the bumps.

That gave Ferrari folk a reason to smile, and they were further cheered when forecasts of mixed weather for the weekend proved wide of the mark: after a damp first practice session, it was hot - very hot - all the way through. If Bridgestone had perhaps miscalculated, in bringing only soft and super-soft rubber to Brazil, it would hurt Ferrari less than most: the F2007 has always been kind to its tyres.

As well as that, there was inevitably less pressure on Ferrari than on McLaren. The constructors' championship had already been decided (by Messrs Stepney and Coughlan), and the team had only one driver in contention for the title - which necessarily meant that the other was available to help the cause.

Obviously Massa wished to win again, in front of his own people, but he is more of a team player than most in this era, and made it clear before the race that, if necessary, he would do the right thing. Already he had taken the pole, delighting the Paulistas - and there was also that snug feeling that comes from a fresh three-year contract in your pocket.

Then there was the Kimster, and his curiously detached attitude to motor racing. Sometimes it seems as though Raikkonen long ago studied a list of possible fallibilities in a grand prix driver's make-up, and erased those he felt might be a nuisance. Susceptibility to pressure, for example. If any one of the three contenders were genuinely going into this title-decider in a relaxed frame of mind, it was assuredly he. Quite apart from anything else, there were no options over which to agonise: seven points out of the lead, he simply had to go for it. Do his usual thing, in other words.

The last time three drivers fought out the championship at the final race was in 1986, when the Williams-Hondas of Mansell and Piquet faced the McLaren-TAG of Prost in Adelaide. Whatever happened to the other two, Nigel needed only to finish third, and was thus the heavy favourite, while Alain, in a car conspicuously less powerful, was very much the outsider.

He wasn't fazed. 'Actually,' he said during practice, 'I like this situation. In a way, it's like driving for your life - you have to win. For Nigel, it's more difficult, because he has choices he can make. Of course he has to be favourite, but I will fight to the end.'

Ditto Raikkonen last Sunday. And there was another parallel, too, for while both Williams drivers - who, incidentally, disliked each other intensely - were in contention, Prost knew he could rely on help, if necessary, from his team-mate Rosberg who was on the cusp of retirement from Formula 1.

'What I've come to know this season,' said Keke on race morning, 'is that Alain is the greatest driver I've ever seen. For me, it would be a joke for anyone else to be world champion, and I'm going to do everything possible to help him.' That he did. And in the end Prost won both the race and the championship, just as did Raikkonen on Sunday.

Massa, as we know, is brilliant at his home circuit - Ye Gods, three years ago he qualified fourth in a Sauber - so it was no surprise that he took pole position, but Lewis Hamilton's last-minute displacement of Raikkonen from the front row was not in the script.

Kimi may not be the most stimulating interviewee motor racing has known - on occasion it seems difficult for him, let alone us, to keep awake through his droning - but this resolutely unemotional approach frequently serves him well indeed. In the course of his final qualifying lap, he was slightly, if unintentionally, impeded by Hamilton, and probably that cost him the front row.

Many another driver would have raged, even gone crying to the stewards, but Raikkonen simply let it be known he wasn't too thrilled, and let it go at that. It reminded one of Mika Hakkinen's behaviour immediately after the 2000 Belgian GP, when, in words of one syllable, he quietly advised Michael Schumacher that he didn't care for intimidation tactics at 200mph. No histrionics, and not a word said to the outside world. When the pair arrived for the press conference, Schumacher looked suitably chastened.

I was impressed by Finnish calm then, and again on Saturday. Hakkinen, who knew all about the sometimes frightening depths of the feud between Senna and Prost, and had no wish to become involved in something similar himself, kept a lid on things, and Raikkonen, conscious of the need to maintain equilibrium at a crucial moment, did the same. Ferrari, significantly, did not start screaming in outrage on his behalf.

It wasn't the end of the world, Kimi said: after all, he, unlike Lewis, was starting on the clean side of the track. And when the lights went out, the Ferrari drivers put into effect a perfectly choreographed 'play', Massa slotting across in front of Hamilton, and Raikkonen shooting into the space vacated by his team-mate. Into the first turn, the red cars were side by side, while Hamilton, obliged to lift momentarily, immediately fell prey to Alonso.

If the body language of his car were anything to go by, this seemed temporarily to have thrown a switch in Lewis's composure. Intent on getting by Fernando again as soon as possible, he was all over the place on the approach to the left-handed Descida do Logo, locked his brakes, and went off, losing four places.

It was not this that cost Hamilton the world title - hydraulics later saw to that - but it could have done and Lewis, who ordinarily personifies calm, on this occasion simply appeared to lose perspective. Yes, both his championship rivals had passed him in the opening seconds, but he was the man with the points lead, after all. Almost at once it became clear that an oddly detached Alonso couldn't live with the Ferraris; whatever happened to Raikkonen, all Hamilton had realistically needed to do was keep the other McLaren in sight.

After a diffident start to the season, during which he struggled to find a set-up with the new Bridgestone tyres that suited his driving style, Raikkonen really came alive from Indianapolis on, and few would disagree that he was the outstanding driver through the second half of the year.

As of now, given that McLaren has appealed against the decision - somewhat anomalous in this day and age - not to punish two teams apparently in contravention of the rules on Sunday, Raikkonen's name on the world championship roster cannot be written in ink. That said, it would amaze me if the Ferrari driver were to lose his title in a boardroom. Stranger things may have happened, but none that immediately come to mind.

Having scored six victories, Kimi has two more than anyone else, and it is always pleasing to see wins rewarded with championships, but ponder this: back in March Nigel Stepney murmured to Mike Coughlan that it might be worth 'seeking clarification' from the FIA as to the legality of the floor of the new Ferrari. After the Australian Grand Prix, Charlie Whiting decreed that it was not acceptable and Ferrari didn't run it again. But Raikkonen had won that race - and his victory still stands.