After 16 Years and Many Death Threats, Story of Lewis Hamilton’s Controversial 2008 Win Revealed by Timo Glock

Perhaps, after the 2021 title, the most controversial championship since the turn of the century has been the 2008 championship. Controversy marred the 2008 title, which Lewis Hamilton secured on the final lap and last corner of the penultimate race in Brazil. We are all aware of Felipe Massa’s side of the story. However, that was another man who faced the brunt of Hamilton snatching away the title from Massa at his home race.

Toyota’s driver Timo Glock not only faced abuse but even received death threats for ages after the 2008 Brazilian GP. Many fans believed, Glock, a German, let Hamilton pass him for the necessary P5 position in the last lap of the race to help McLaren-Mercedes (A brand powered by German engine manufacturers) win a title. However, as Glock has explained in the past and reiterated to Formula 1.com, it was the gamble he and his team made that did not pay off.

Glock expressing his surprise said, “I never thought this would happen to me. We tried to just do our race and make the maximum out of it and at the end we gained positions by staying out, but no one told me that I’m the guy who decided the championship.”

The 41-year-old then narrated his encounter with Hamilton after the race, “Even when I came back after the race and I parked behind Lewis, I asked my engineer who won the championship and he said, ‘It’s Lewis’. I went to Lewis, said congratulations, walked away and this whole bunch of journalists ran down. I thought, ‘OK, they’re all going to Lewis’, so I stepped aside. Then they all came to me!”

However, he was taken aback by the questions of the journalists. “I was asked these weird questions like, ‘Was it on purpose?’, ‘Why did you do that?’, blah, blah, blah. I was like, ‘What’s going on here?’ I had no idea. My physiotherapist came to me, grabbed me, pulled me back to the pits and explained to me what really happened. I said, ‘OK, now I understand what’s going on’. It’s part of F1 history,” he concluded.

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From the German’s perspective, it was an everyday race that did not play out in his favor. His team took a gamble, as most teams often do, and it backfired. Who would’ve thought Timo Glock would end up receiving death threats for years because of this innocent gamble? However, this is exactly what happened, and it did not stop until F1 released the onboard footage.

F1 saves Timo Glock from the Lewis Hamilton saga backlash after releasing the onboard footage

Glock was receiving death threats from thousands of fans every day for years. Every year around the Brazilian GP, his then-Twitter would blow up with fans abusing him like he played a part in Hamilton’s championship victory. This continued for a very long time until F1 released Glock’s last lap onboard footage from the race.

The footage shows how the German was struggling massively because of the wet conditions and his team’s gamble did not play off. Even Glock admitted, “It changed quite a lot when the onboard came out.”

“I don’t know why F1 waited five years for it. But when that came out, it changed a lot of people’s minds,” he added. This stopped the personal letters he would receive at home where he lived with his family and people stopped saying Glock should be killed for the 2008 Brazilian GP.

Sport does make you lose rationality from time to time because of the extremely emotionally charged incidents. For many Brazilians, it was the teary-eyed Massa on the podium.

WATCH THIS STORY: Felipe Massa’s Attempt to Take Back the 2008 F1 Championship Explained

However, in the end, the German was cleared of all his supposed crimes and there were no ill feelings harbored between any of the drivers involved in the controversy. Goes to show how quickly things can trickle down out of control if not handled with care.