Lewis Hamilton from the German. However, on the final lap he and Vettel made up an 18-second gap to overtake Timo Glock, who was struggling on dry tyres, on the last corner to re-take fifth place and deny race-winner Massa the title by one point. This made Hamilton the youngest driver to win the World Drivers' Championship, the first black driver, and the first British driver to win the World Championship since Damon Hill in 1996. Hamilton was verbally heckled and otherwise abused during pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya by several Spanish spectators who wore black face paint and black
1954 German Grand Prix ahead of Mantovani, the last driver to travel the full race distance, getting some points for a saddened Maserati. Kling claimed the fastest lap point. Just ten of the 23 qualifiers finished the gruelling race. With an elapsed time of 3 hours 45 minutes 45.8 seconds this was the longest (non Indy 500) F1 championship race in history, until the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix, which lasted just over four hours. The win pushed Fangio further ahead in the championship, now to the point where he had more than double the points of his nearest rival Gonzalez. A win in the