YEARENDER: Hamilton to be the face of Formula One for years to come

Hamburg - Lewis Hamilton's dramatic clinching of the 2008 drivers' title in the last lap of the final race of the season heralds what many believe will be the Briton's domination of Formula One for the foreseeable future. British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton of McLaren Mercedes celebrates his championship after the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at the race track in Interlagos near Sao Paulo in Brazil, 02 November 2008. Hamilton finished 5th and won the title. EPA/GERO BRELOER

British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton of McLaren Mercedes celebrates his championship after the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at the race track in Interlagos near Sao Paulo in Brazil, 02 November 2008. Hamilton finished 5th and won the title. EPA/GERO BRELOERThe 23-year-old's passing of Germany's Timo Glock in the Brazilian Grand Prix to move to fifth place, helped the McLaren-Mercedes driver take the title by one point from race winner Felipe Massa of Ferrari. It also secured Hamilton's place in the history books as the youngest ever F1 champion. With the experience and financial backing of the McLaren team behind him, he is already favourite to make it two in a row in 2009. The victory at Interlagos banished the memories of his 2007 rookie season, when a disappointing seventh-place finish at Interlagos saw Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen beat Hamilton to the title by one point. Hamilton started the year strongly, winning the opener in Melbourne but had to wait until the fourth race of the season in Barcelona for his next podium finish, taking third in the Spanish GP. He followed this up with a second place behind Massa in the Turkish GP before truly signalling his intent by winning an incident- packed race in Monaco in difficult conditions to take the overall lead in the drivers' championship. Robert Kubica showed how much BMW-Sauber have closed the gap on Ferrari and McLaren in 2008 by winning the Canadian GP to briefly move top of the drivers' standings ahead of Hamilton, who bizzarely crashed into Raikkonen's Ferrari in the pit lane and had to retire. Massa retook the championship lead by winning the French GP at Magny-Cours but Hamilton bounced back with back-to-back wins in his home British GP and the German GP at Hockenheim. There followed controversy at Spa-Francorchamps when Hamilton thought he had secured a dramatic victory at the Belgian GP but was later demoted to third after incurring a 25-second penalty for cutting a chicane, handing the win to Massa. German Sebastian Vettel in a Toro Roso signalled he could be a challenger to Hamilton in the near future by taking victory in the Italian GP Monza to become the youngest ever winner of a F1 race. Perhaps the decisive moment of the season came in Singapore when Massa drove off with the fuel hose still attached at his first pit stop. Hamilton took advantage of the Ferrari pit-team error, taking third to extend his lead over Massa to seven points. Singapore will also be remembered as F1's first ever night race, with the organisers putting on a faultless show to perhaps indicate the future of the sport in the medium to long term. However, just as in 2007, when he threw away a 17-point-lead with three races remaining, Hamilton appeared to buckle under the pressure and finished out of the points in the Japanese GP after incurring a drive-through penalty and also spinning following a clash with Massa. But the McLaren driver regained his composure to win the penultimate race of the season, the Chinese GP in Shanghai before getting the fifth-place finish he needed in Brazil to take the title. While Hamilton is expected to be the man to beat next year, debut race wins in 2008 for McLaren teammate Heikki Kovalainen, Kubica and Vettel as well as podium placings for nine different teams shows F1 is more competitive than the days when Michael Schumacher was able to dominate completely on his way to seven titles. But the chances are slim that racing fans will again witness a finale like the one in Sao Paulo, which brought the curtain down on what was probably the most exciting F1 season in living memory. While 2008 will go down in F1 history for its excitement, 2009 will involve cost-cutting measures on an unprecedented scale as the sport battles to cope with the global financial crisis. Honda's shock withdrawal from F1 has lent added urgency to the situation, with motorsport's ruling body FIA announcing a raft of new measures in December to help cut the cost of competing in F1 by around 30 per cent per team compared to 2008.