McLaren refuse to concede title as Hamilton vows to fight back

An inquiry into the temperature of the petrol in the cars that finished fourth, fifth and sixth in yesterday's Brazilian grand prix briefly threw the outcome of the race and the final world championship standings into doubt late last night, opening the possibility that Lewis Hamilton might yet be handed the 2007 world championship.

A decision to exclude the Williams of Nico Rosberg and the Sauber-BMWs of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld from the results would have lifted Hamilton from seventh to fourth place, giving him the five points that would assure him of the title, by 112 points to Kimi Raikkonen's 110. The petrol in the three cars was found to have been cooled to a temperature below the level - 10 degrees beneath the ambient temperature - permissible under formula one's regulations. The issue came to light during post-race scrutineering, but after five hours of deliberation it was decided that no action would be taken. Later Hamilton's McLaren team announced their intention to appeal against the decision.

Yesterday was an extremely hot one in Sao Paulo, the temperature at the time of the start of the race reaching 36C. The race was won by Raikkonen, who also took his first world title as a result.

Hamilton left the track last night before the news of the inquiry was made public, resigned to his failure to become the first rookie champion in formula one's history. "I am still quite happy," he said. "Who'd have thought I'd be ranked No2 in the world in my first season in formula one?" But he promised to come back next year, "fitter, more relaxed, more experienced and even stronger".

He briefly slid off the track during a hectic opening lap, dropping from fourth to eighth place, and then after recovering to sixth he lost a further 12 places on the eighth lap when his computer-controlled semi-automatic gearbox went into neutral, leaving him coasting around the back of the circuit as car after car flashed past. In the 30 seconds it took for his team to work out how to resolve the problem - they told him to reset the gearbox by depressing the clutch and selecting a lower gear - his chance of glory had gone.

"I haven't had time to analyse what went on," the British driver said afterwards. "It was my mistake at the beginning of the race. I locked up behind Fernando [Alonso] and I lost a couple of positions. I had the pace to get back but at turn four the car slammed into neutral and we don't know why yet."

When he got the car going again, he explained, "the team kept telling me on the radio that I could do it, and I believed that. I didn't give up until I saw the chequered flag.

"We've had a few tough weeks but the team did the best job we could and have done a fine job all year. I was runner-up in the world championship and beat my team-mate, the two-times world champion [Alonso], in difficult circumstances, and that was my goal at the beginning.

"It's 22 weeks to the next race and I'll go into next season with my head held high," he concluded before disappearing into the towering embrace of the supermodel Naomi Campbell.

Hamilton's father, Anthony, said: "None of us are in pain. We feel great. We just had one of the most fantastic formula one seasons ever. If someone had told me a year ago we would be fighting for the title at this stage I would have told them they were dreaming. We will come back and if we don't win it next year, we'll win it the year after. One thing's for certain - Lewis Hamilton is here to stay."

Ron Dennis, the McLaren team principal, had said before the race that his cars would be adopting a conservative strategy in order to secure the title, a promise that seemed to be contradicted when Hamilton flew off the road within the opening half-minute. Afterwards he defended the young driver against the suggestion that his inexperience had contributed to the outcome.

"It's easy to be critical but Lewis was trying to stay out of problems," he said. "He was trying to be careful and let people past because he had the pace that was required to win the world championship. The only reason we did not win it was the gearbox problem. That cost us 30 seconds and it was just too much time to make up. This is the first time that Lewis has had a mechanical problem in the race. Fernando hasn't had a single mechanical problem in a grand prix this season. Those are facts.

"I have total admiration for Lewis's ability to show such a positive attitude over the season as a whole," he added. "I'm a fighter and I'm here to win and so is the whole team, so it's not easy to have failed to win a championship that was so close to our grasp in the last two races. In the end, Ferrari suffered their reliability problems at the beginning of the season and we've had some today. We didn't have the perfection we were striving for."