Zoom Massa was magnanimous in defeat

Lewis Hamilton sent Felipe Massa a bouquet of flowers in the wake of their championship showdown in Brazil last year.

The McLaren driver, whose emotions at winning the title were rivalled by those of the defeated home town hero Massa in Sao Paulo, wanted to make a gesture to his opponent after the highly-dramatic events of the last-lap at Interlagos, the Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport said.

Having celebrated in the cockpit the first victory for a Brazilian driver on home soil since Ayrton Senna, Paulista Massa's joy turned to tear-soaked despair just moments later when his engineer told him Hamilton had moved ahead of Timo Glock in the last corner and therefore won the world championship.

"The frustration comes out of me, and the tears. I am crying inside my helmet - because I lost while winning one of the most special races ever, in my home town," Massa told Britain's Guardian newspaper this week.

Corriere dello Sport said Hamilton, 23, was impressed not only with Massa's strong 2008 campaign, but his sportsmanship in the spotlight of defeat.

"Some things are just written," Massa explained. "I'm not the kind of guy who will blame other people if things don't work out.”

"I also don't have a problem in showing my feelings. That's why I could cry after I lost the championship - but I know that, if it is written, it will happen differently one day. This is how life works," the 27-year-old Ferrari driver said.

Source: GMM
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