Although Lewis Hamilton’s paddock saw some happy moments in 2008, the mood at Ferrari, who believed they had won the championship, could not have been different.
Rob Smedley, the former Ferrari engineer, watched Lewis Hamilton pass Timo Glock in the pit straight while peering through a thick cloud of rain at Interlagos. The scene will live in his memory forever.
Smedley was beating away his teammates who had fallen off the pit wall in celebration as Hamilton floored it on the final lap. They believed they had succeeded. Felipe Massa overcame the dry and rainy conditions in Brazil to win what seemed to be his maiden Formula One World Championship victory.
To win the championship, Ferrari needed to triumph in South America and hope that 23-year-old Hamilton placed sixth or below. The Brit dropped to sixth after stopping for wet tires, practically giving Ferrari the championship on a silver platter.
Massa was ecstatic, his Ferrari teammates were having a blast, and it’s possible that F1 organizers were decorating the title with Ferrari ribbons. Smedley was aware that they were not quite in control of the championship, though. Perhaps only Smedley realized that Ferrari was celebrating a win that would never come.
Over sixteen years later, Smedley is about a year into his next venture, the Global Karting League, which he started with the goal of offsetting the expenses associated with becoming a top Formula One driver by up to 96%. One may argue that he’s searching for Hamilton’s successor. Smedley recalls that tragic day with a wry smile in an exclusive chat with Mirror Sport.
“I knew going into that we had to do everything perfectly, we had to get every single point on the table, and we had to dominate during the weekend,” added the 50-year-old. “The goal of the entire domination strategy was to disadvantage both McLaren and Lewis.
We needed to perform very well because he would have had so many points ahead of him if you had entered the race only a half or tenth of a second ahead of Felipe that he could have played shotgun the entire weekend and still won the world championship.
“Felipe was so fast that he dominated the entire practice. He qualified on pole when we moved on to the qualifying round. He never made a mistake during the rainy and dry race. When it came to the tire calls we made, the team was excellent. Felipe was winning the race at a canter, and it was incredibly tough to control.” The GP was won by Massa by more than 13 seconds.
Along with his teammates, Massa’s family was also rejoicing over what they believed to be his maiden Formula One victory. “When he crossed the line in first position, people started to celebrate because at that point, with where Lewis was, in sixth position, Felipe would have won the world championship,” said Smedley.
“My attention shifted and I began to study the timing screens during the last 30 seconds or so. As celebrations got underway, people began to gather and drag me over the pit wall.
Yet even as I tried to continue watching every data panel, they were removing me from the pit wall and declaring, ‘Oh, we’ve won.'” We have triumphed. We’re the world champions, and I was like, “Look, stop, stop,” since I was still working.
“I was nearly on the ground after being dragged from the pit wall. However, I had a view of the pit lane. I witnessed the two cars coming up the hill at Interlagos. If you’re sitting on the pit wall and you look right, you can see the pit exits.
“I watched to see which one was ahead, and the silver one was it. I was aware of it at that time even before they crossed the boundary. I reasoned, ‘Well, he’s leading now. At some point, he managed to get past the bottom and reach the conclusion of the circuit, ultimately crossing the line. I believe the following sixty seconds or so were spent in a gradual awareness. It required a lot of time.
