They threatened to kill me! Timo Glock admits some facts after the 2008 Brazilian GP. Even his parents were scared, he says

One of the most famous Formula 1 races in its history – this is how we can safely interpret the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix. In the last race of the season, the world championship was decided by Lewis Hamilton. However, Timo Glock played a significant part in this, revealing that he was even threatened with death.

The battle for the 2008 championship was influenced by the German Glock (Panasonic Toyota Racing), albeit in a very different way to the way the battle for the overall championship was dramatised by Nicholas Latifi in last year’s final in Abu Dhabi.

But objectively, we can note that in this case the saying “this is sport, it happens” is true.

Glock, however, was in fifth position in the final laps of the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix. It should be noted that there were two drivers fighting for the championship at the time – Hamilton (McLaren) and Felipe Massa (Ferrari).

A close final

Before the grand finale of 2008, Hamilton was the leader of the drivers’ championship with 94 points, seven points ahead of second-placed Massa. The Ferrari driver thus logically had 87 points to his credit. During the race it looked like the Brazilian driver would take the coveted victory, but the end of the race brought rain and great confusion.

And that’s when the Glock played its part. The German driver in the service of Toyota on dry tyres stayed on the track. Well, thanks to the heavy rain, Hamilton passed Glock on the last lap of the 2008 season to take fifth place.

So even though Massa won the then Brazilian Grand Prix, it was fifth place that was enough for Hamilton to take the title. In those days, the scoring system was still very different. Compared to today, only eight drivers scored points at the end of the race, with the winner receiving ten points, the runner-up eight, third six, fourth five, fifth four, sixth three, seventh two and eighth only one.

The now seven-time champion won his first title in 2008, decided by a single point – Hamilton 98 points, Massa 97. An absolutely heart-stopping finish for everyone involved.

Glock’s confession

In a recent episode of the official F1 podcast called Beyond The Grid, Glock then explained his situation.

“I tried to do my best on track that day. We were seventh and ninth and decided to stay on the track on dry tyres. I remember telling the team with three laps to go that it was going to be a disaster because the clouds would come in one or two laps.

I said to myself that if it rained, it would be chaos. I was told from the pit wall that we were going to stay out, that we had nothing to lose. Before the last lap I saw it was raining and I told the team I had to stop, it was impossible for me to survive that last lap. They told me that I couldn’t stop anymore, that the pits were closed for the podium ceremony,” said Glock.

In the above attached twitter post you will find onboard footage that reliably documents the whole situation. In short, Glock had no grip in the rain on dry tyres and was completely defenceless against Hamilton’s attack.

“After the race, my engineer told me that Lewis was the champion, but he didn’t tell me that I had decided the world championship. When I reached pit lane, I shook his hand and congratulated him in front of thousands of Brazilian fans. Moments later all the journalists came up to me and asked me why I had helped Lewis, why I had decided the title,” Glock revealed.

Letters, threats and anger from Brazilian fans

Glock then faced massive criticism from the fans, and it is fair to say that some of the letters sent to him by the fans themselves were far beyond the pale in their content. This simply has nothing to do with sport anymore.

“Reading the letters I received gave me the chills, even my parents were scared. Some of them asked to ban me from racing forever, others even wanted to kill me. It wasn’t easy to go to Brazil every year, but when Formula One released the onboard camera footage, everything changed. I don’t understand why it took five years. A lot of people changed their perspective,” he concluded.

F1, Beyond The Grid podcast, F1 Sport