Iceman does it as McLaren melts

Kimi Raikkonen completed one of the greatest title comeback of all time in the sauna heat of Brazil. By MARK HUGHES

So to the crescendo. That seasonal-virgin Melbourne grid seemed so long ago; so much had been crammed into so short a time. Here were the 71 laps that would give context to this remarkable season. And any one of three basic endings on offer, each with a myriad of sub-plots. The sky was bluer than at any Brazilian Grand Prix of recent memory. The sun was brighter, the crowds happier, the stands fuller.

A beautifully soothing breeze shot down the start/finish straight, channelled through there by the humanity on one side and the pit buildings on the other, between the chants and the drums and the dancing on one side, and the constantly revving engines on the other as the hour approached. Mechanics nervously whirred their air guns, photographers staked out their places and fussed with their cameras - especially those down at Turn 1. Emerson Fittipaldi and Nelson Piquet moved among the narrow crowded paddock, instant credible opinions from old warriors, a brilliant thread of history between their times and now. Drivers got ready in the garages.

Down at Turn 4 the lake glistened, the distant metropolis buildings vague in a heat haze. The newly resurfaced black, black track soaked up the heat rays and its temperature rocketed to more than 60-deg C. The medical helicopter sat on the rooftop adjacent to the pitlane. An F1 engine - a Mercedes - revved, constant for 10sec or so, then rapid blips, then constant again. More whistles and cheers from the exuberant crowd as the course vehicles left the pits, and now all the garages were buzzing with revving engines.

Half an hour to go and they all began leaving the pits in a flurry, alternating accelerating and decelerating down the pit lane, a splash of noise and garish colour, and made their way to a grid no longer visible through a forest of people.

The cars were pushed, engines switched off, from the back to their grid positions. This was momentous, a huge occasion, carrying on its back all that had gone before it in this crazy, impossible season of off- track battles, the dazzling rookie, the moody but magnificent reigning champ and the impenetrable, imperturbable enigma in a red car. It felt good to be alive.

The formation lap, wildly snaking balls of fast-moving colour, and up to the gantry, tension building to bursting as Sakon Yamamoto was slow bringing his Spyker into position, the trigger for the red lights. They were held there for seconds that felt like hours. The sun glinted off the yellow helmets of the two guys on the front row: the pole man in the red car; the rookie in the silver. For Felipe Massa it was a strange feeling. It was entirely possible he could fight for the win - but only if certain other things out of his hands unfolded behind him.

Otherwise he might have to surrender his chances, here in his own backyard in front of friends, family and thousands of fans. But he could at least enjoy the first stint. On the clean side of the grid, already ahead and with a faster start system than the McLaren, he felt confident he'd be leading. Thereafter he'd await instructions from the team. He was confident the Ferrari was faster than the McLaren, but fully aware that he might have to move aside for team- mate Kimi Raikkonen.

For Lewis Hamilton it was an altogether more surreal situation, no matter how much he tried to normalise it. The enormity of the moment - with the title in his grasp, a small points lead and both his rivals behind him on the grid - wouldn't go away. Nonetheless he felt his best plan was to attack, the way he always does. He'd been slightly conservative in the last corner of his qualifying lap the day before and it had cost him pole. No, forget being tentative.

At last the lights went out, and Massa surged into the lead. But from the row behind, on the cleaner side and with that faster start system, Raikkonen was able to sprint past Hamilton, the Ferrari gobbling up the gap between the rows and slicing ahead even before they were into the Senna Esses. The two Ferraris were side by side into there, but anxious not to make contact. This was a tricky situation and Raikkonen - on the outside - locked his inside front as he began the downhill turn-in. Coming off the brakes so as not to be pulled out wide, he had a bit of an oversteer moment.

Now he'd been slowed, it was imperative for Kimi to prevent Lewis taking advantage of his loss of momentum. So he pulled one of the oldest tricks in the racing book and lifted off, just as Hamilton was trying to tuck in tight behind. From Hamilton's car it was quite clear: Kimi had already sorted the moment and was pointing straight, but instead of instantly accelerating the rear end suddenly loomed large, and it was all Hamilton could do to keep from driving into it.

As he reacted and lifted, so Kimi was accelerating away - and even worse, Fernando Alonso was thrusting his way through on the left. Maybe it was a bit of tit for tat from Kimi, after Lewis had compromised his qualifying lap the day before. Maybe it was just racing instinct. Knowing Kimi, it was almost certainly the latter. It wasn't clean, but all's fair in a final-round title fight.

Now Lewis appeared rattled. As they raced down the back straight to Turn 4, he was determined to retaliate and get back ahead of his team-mate. From a championship perspective he had no need to be trying the move. But it's difficult to pull your punches when the adrenaline's flowing. Alonso's racing instincts were as perfect into Turn 4 as they had been when he surged by through 2/3 with his wheels almost rubbing Hamilton's.

Now, from the middle of the track, he braked early - and Hamilton fell for it, braking late on the outside and locking up, sliding off onto the run-off area, rejoining back in eighth, having made his job considerably more difficult than it had been just a few seconds before. For the first time all season he looked like a rookie, and it was difficult not to feel that he had finally cracked under the pressure.

The Ferraris led Alonso, Mark Webber's Red Bull, Robert Kubica's BMW - quicker off the clean side of the grid than the heavier car of team- mate Nick Heidfeld on the dirty side - Heidfeld and Jarno Trulli, with Hamilton slipstreaming the Toyota and diving down the inside into Turn 1. For all that he had made an error, he still looked well on course to claim his title. A fifth place was going to be enough, and as long as no damage had been done that looked comfortably achieveable.

Up front Alonso held onto the Ferraris for a couple of laps, but thereafter they stretched their legs and Fernando quickly came to realise he wouldn't be racing the red cars today. They were hugely faster than the McLarens - or Alonso's McLaren, at least. Fernando had every motivation to have been racing the Ferraris, given that the title was potentially his if he could get up to second place, even if Raikkonen won. So the fact that his best lap was a full 0.7sec off the best of the Ferraris tells you he was simply struggling for pace, just as he had been all weekend.

Hamilton, by contrast, would later set a best lap time just 0.061sec off Raikkonen's and reported that his car 'felt phenomenal'. But such performance came at a cost in tyre wear. The McLarens - especially Lewis's - were wearing out their left-fronts much faster than the Ferraris on this record-breaking track temperature.

The jet-black new surface was absorbing far more heat than the usual grey, and the Ferrari is always kinder to its tyres than the McLaren, which has a tendency to put too much heat into them. So the new surface had doubly helped Ferrari - by removing the bumps it can't cope with and inducing temperatures the McLaren finds difficult.

But that was soon to be the least of Hamilton's concerns. As the Ferraris continued to sprint away from Alonso, who had a queue comprising Webber and Kubica just behind him, Hamilton had a major moment over the Turn 5 kerbs as he tried to get a run on Heidfeld.

He eventually got by the BMW as Nick over-committed into Turn 1 on lap seven. So now Lewis was up to sixth, just one away from where he needed to be, assuming Massa was going to let Raikkonen win. Just ahead of him, Kubica sold Webber a dummy for fourth into Turn 1.

Lewis was now just 1.5sec behind the Red Bull but, as he went to downshift for Turn 4, he found a gearbox full of neutrals. Pathetically, the car rolled down the hill using only its momentum as car after car flashed by. For around 30sec Lewis frantically flipped at the paddles as he took instructions from the team about how to reprogramme the electronic glitch. Had something been disturbed during his two runs across the kerbs? Probably not - because something similar had happened on Saturday and the team had the gearbox cover off for inspection under supervision in parc ferme.

Eventually, Lewis was able to input the correct sequence, the electronics reprogrammed themselves and he was under way again - back in 18th place. Now his title chances looked slim, even as he quickly picked off the likes of Rubens Barrichello and Adrian Sutil. By the 10th lap the Ferraris of Massa and Raikkonen were already more than 8sec clear of Alonso, who was working hard just to stay out of reach of Kubica. The Ferrari drivers later insisted they weren't even pushing that hard, that there was a lot more performance there if needed.

It all pointed to a serious performance shortfall for Alonso's car. 'I had big problems with the tyres,' Fernando reported. 'We knew the softer tyre was going to be risky, but actually the most problematic tyre was the [harder] prime, with a lot of blisters. It made the tyre vibrate a lot from about lap five. So it was not too safe.'

Tyre durability in the higher- than-expected heat had been the concern of most teams. The super- soft was expected to suffer a high drop-off in performance due to graining, but there was also the worry of blistering. As such, three- stop strategies came onto the radar, to give the tyres an easier time by running lighter fuel loads. Most teams decided against this, as the strategy was theoretically slower, but Kubica had gone for it. Hence he was able to pull away from Webber after passing him, with Mark then left fending off the two-stopping BMW of Heidfeld - until lap 15, when Webber was forced to pull the Red Bull over to the side with yet another transmission failure.

Kubica kicked off the stops at the end of lap 19, with race leader Massa following a lap later and the other Ferrari of Raikkonen a lap after that. Kimi was fuelled for a longer second stint than Massa, this theoretically putting him in position to leapfrog him into the lead at the second stops, Ferrari thus priming itself for the championship. Alonso came in a lap after Kimi and was fuelled for a standard two-stopping distance.

Hamilton, meanwhile, had got himself up to 10th as he pitted, 40sec behind Alonso, 52sec off the lead. McLaren felt it needed to do something different to a standard two-stop to get Hamilton into his required fifth place. The team could see he was about to drop just behind a five-car gaggle when he rejoined, and was worried that too much time lost behind them would fatally compromise his chances.

So he was short-fuelled for a second stint of just 14 laps - and this stint was used to get the super-soft tyres on. They were reckoned to be the slower tyre over a stint, so it made sense to use them now if this was going to be the shortest. The lighter car and early grip might enable him to get quickly through the gaggle - and then he could come in and be fuelled to the end for a long final stint of 35 laps.

That was a sound plan. But as soon as he left the pits and McLaren looked at the state of the softs that had just come off - tyres that had done just 22 laps - the team realised this spec probably would not withstand a stint of 35 laps. The McLaren was just too hard on them. An extra stop was going to be necessary - almost certainly putting that desperately needed fifth place out of reach. The gamble had not worked. Had Hamilton been kept on a standard two-stop, it is feasible he could have made it to fifth.

Just to make it even more difficult, his engine was running too hot and he was being instructed to reduce revs and run it on a more conservative map. He pitted again on the 36th lap and was fuelled for a penultimate stint of 20 laps. On rejoining after his final stop, he was back in eighth and effectively half a minute behind the fifth place he needed. It was a hopeless case, even though he was lapping very quickly whenever he had a clear track. That gearbox gremlin had done for his title, making the tyre fiasco in China even more agonising for him and the team.

Assuming that Massa was at some stage going to be passed by team- mate Raikkonen, Alonso's only hope of the title was if either Ferrari retired. Second place behind Kimi would have done it for Fernando, but he was in no position to attain that while both Ferraris were healthy. He dropped ever-further back, and was almost a minute behind them when he made his second and final stop. He was even passed by Kubica on lap 33, though this was a false picture on account of the BMW's three-stop strategy.

In reality Kubica was fighting for fourth with two-stopping team-mate Heidfeld, as well as the two-stopping Williams of Nico Rosberg, who had leapfrogged ahead of Trulli by dint of a much longer second stint. The FW29 was working relatively well, being not so aggressive with the delicate tyres as the BMWs, and Nico was charging along, putting them under big pressure. Like Hamilton, Kubica was being compromised by excessive engine temperatures.

Leader Massa had a bit of a worrying moment on the 44th lap, getting very crossed up going into Turn 4. Had he gone off the title would have been Alonso's, but he gathered it all up and six laps later made his final stop, with Raikkonen having kept himself within 1.5sec of him at the critical time. Massa duly made quite soft in and out laps - each around 1sec off the pace - and Kimi reeled off three fast ones. It was enough to give the required change of lead, with Kimi now poised for an unexpected title.

But what was this? Another twist in the tail? Heidfeld and Rosberg were locked in a late gloves-off fight for fourth place, with Kubica watching from just a couple of car lengths back. Going into the 61st lap, just 10 from the end, Nico launched himself down the inside, forcing Heidfeld out on the dusty outer part of the turn.

'If I hadn't moved there would have been a collision,' said a slightly miffed Heidfeld. Had there been a collision and had neither finished, Hamilton would have been up to sixth and his title would have been touchable once more. Nico had gone in deep and, although he'd passed Heidfeld, it was all he could do to keep from teetering off the track. As both were fighting to regain control, Kubica nipped by the pair of them. Rosberg then set off after Kubica and again we wondered if Hamilton could yet clinch this crown, especially when Trulli pitted out of seventh for his final stop and thereby moved Hamilton up to that position.

On the 66th lap Rosberg and Kubica crossed the line absolutely neck and neck and came within inches of a collision into Turn 1, with the BMW just staying ahead. This was fantastic racing, but spiced by the possibility of it changing the outcome of the championship. The Williams's tyres were in better shape than the BMW's, and two laps from the end Rosberg finally got by into that first turn. Fourth place represented his best-ever finish and secured fourth place in the constructors' championship for Williams-Toyota.

Raikkonen blasted around that beautiful black track two more times, backed off on his final one, popped out of that uphill kink and looked for the chequer. There it was. Kimi Raikkonen: 2007 world champion. A second and a half behind was Massa. Almost a minute after that was Alonso. A lap down, in seventh, was Hamilton.

Massa was close to tears later as he explained how he was happy for Kimi and glad he could help, and how one day he wanted to be in his position. Raikkonen managed a smile or two, allowed that he might have a party later that night. Alonso wore the frown of a distracted man. They each sat and answered questions. One floor below, in the McLaren garages, Lewis Hamilton collected his dignity and prepared to face the clamour that awaited outside. It was still a beautiful day. And a rookie has still never won a world title.