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Hamilton remained the mathematical favourite but his chances looked under threat when surrounded by Ferraris at the front of the grid at Interlagos. Felipe Massa, whose championship challenge had disappeared a couple of races before, claimed pole for his home grand prix, with Raikkonen third fastest.

The Ferraris would be starting from the clean side of the track. Hamilton knew this could be tricky. Sure enough, the Ferrari drivers stitched him up like a kipper, Massa legitimately moving in front of the McLaren and holding Hamilton back just enough to allow Raikkonen alongside and into second place.

Hamilton probably could have swallowed that but, when Alonso seized his chance and pushed Hamilton down to fourth, it was one move too many. In a remarkable season noted for Hamilton's coolness under pressure, he momentarily lost the plot and tried an over-ambitious move.

Alonso was probably laughing his flameproof socks off when he caught a glimpse in his mirror of his tyre-smoking team-mate running wide and dropping to eighth place.

That might have been OK because Hamilton just needed to move into fifth place to keep the championship lead that he had held since the third round. Then his luck really turned sour.

Having gone for 16 races without a mechanical failure, Hamilton's gearbox chose lap eight of the final grand prix to select neutral. By the time Hamilton had pressed the reset button, or whatever it is that drivers do in this electronic age, he had dropped to the back of the field.

A hard-charging drive brought him into seventh place. Raikkonen, meanwhile, had slipped ahead of Massa during the pit stop sequence to win for the sixth time and take the title.

Meanwhile, the stewards were checking their thermometers. Fuel in a F1 can be cooled, but only to a maximum of 10 degrees less than the ambient temperature. The samples taken from the Williams and BMWs were found to exceed the limit by a couple of degrees.

At 10pm, the stewards decided there was too much doubt over how the ambient temperature should be measured and the results would stand. It seemed a spurious excuse. But that was the end of story.

Er, not quite. McLaren, knowing the entire championship is at stake, said they were thinking about an appeal. Meanwhile, Raikkonen was probably past caring. And so, truth be told, were most of the weary hacks in the media centre.