Bridgestone motorsport wrap for 22nd October 2007

One point was all that separated the Ferrari driver from the McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso at the end of an incident-filled race.

Raikkonen now joins Michael Schumacher (Ferrari, champion in 2000-04) and Mika Hakkinen (McLaren Mercedes, champion in 1998-99) as a driver who has won the World Championship on Bridgestone Potenza tyres.

Hamilton went into the weekend on 107 points, just four ahead of Alonso and seven clear of Raikkonen. Qualifying went well for the British rookie, with Hamilton putting his McLaren alongside the Ferrari of Felipe Massa on the front row of the grid. However, he lost a number of positions on the first lap and then suffered a brief gearbox problem before struggling home in seventh place.

Raikkonen led home a Ferrari one-two with Alonso almost a minute behind in third place. In the post-race press conference, a typically understated Raikkonen revealed he could have gone faster.

"I got a very good start actually, side-by-side with Felipe, but we didn't really want to race against each other too hard and the main thing was to get past Hamilton and then I saw him in the mirrors in the corner and I think he went off and I thought that maybe we had some chance now," Raikkonen said.

"We had very good speed in both cars. We were just taking it easy, saving the tyres and the cars. We could have gone much faster if we wanted to. It was perfect teamwork from the team and it paid off very well."

While Raikkonen began celebrating his maiden world championship, Hamilton was understandably downbeat.

"Obviously I am pretty disappointed with the result today, having lead for so much of the season and then not to win the Championship. However, I have to put the result into perspective, this is only my first year in Formula One and overall it has just been phenomenal. I am still very young and have plenty more years in me to achieve my dream of becoming World Champion," he said.

Hamilton's only consolation was second place in the championship. Although he and teammate Alonso finished level on 109 points - one behind Raikkonen - Hamilton edged out his arch-rival on a count-back.

And in other motorsport...

Another world champion was crowned on Bridgestone tyres on the weekend with Sebastien Bourdais winning the Champ Car World Series race at Surfers' Paradise to clinch his fourth consecutive drivers' title. Next season will see him in Formula One with the Torro Rosso team.