Zoom Massa just missed out on the ultimate prize

A thrilling finale to the 2008 world championship yesterday saw Felipe Massa dominate the Brazilian Grand Prix to claim his sixth win of the season.

The Ferrari driver was always at the mercy of where Lewis Hamilton would finish, but sadly for the Ferrari team and the Brazilian driver, even a race win was not enough to claim the title.

Fernando Alonso capped off a great second half to the season for Renault and finished in second position while Kimi Raikkonen claimed third in the second Ferrari.

It is a little later than usual in arriving, but here’s what the top three had to say after a dramatic Sunday in Brazil!

Q: Felipe, tell us your feelings about the race?
Felipe MASSA: It was such difficult weather in the beginning and then the rain came at the end. I am so proud about that race, I am so proud about the team and so proud about the people around who supported me more than ever, more than 100 percent. Much more than I expected. It’s really an emotional day for me because you get here and you have almost done everything perfectly even with the championship at the end but then we saw Lewis passing Glock again and that’s really mixed a lot of my emotions. But that’s racing. The race finishes with the chequered flag. We finished in the front and we have to be very proud about that and unfortunately we missed one point but that’s racing. We need to be proud of our job and our race and our championship and that’s why I am here. I know how to win and I know how to lose. It is one more day of my life and we are going to learn a lot from this day. That’s the way it is but for sure I am very emotional.

Q: Fernando, a great call early on with the terrible conditions and from then on you were always in a strong position.
Fernando ALONSO: Yeah, I think the start was difficult for everybody. It was wet obviously but especially turns one, two and three, so there were some problems there and then the safety car. But then when we restarted basically two laps after the restart I pitted for dry tyres. The team saw one BMW with dry tyres already quite quick, so they called me in. It was a very good decision as I was running P6 and suddenly I saw myself P3 with Vettel a little bit shorter than me on fuel load. At that point I think the race was quite good for us. I kept second place and a good fight with Kimi in the last couple of laps at the end. A fantastic result starting P6 and finishing again on the podium is much more than we expected.