New Delhi: Two days after the extraordinary climax to the Formula One season, McLaren-Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton has described realising his lifetime ambition of becoming a world champion as "just amazing".
"It's the coolest thing to be able to say you're world champion but I continuously always think about the people that got me here, the sacrifices my family made which then gets me all emotional. I think about my family back home, I think about my fans who have supported me all this time. I think about all the controversy and all the pressure that people here have put me under and how intense the battle went - right down to the wire and also my team, not only the guys here but the guys back at the factory. They all did a phenomenal job, we had the most reliable car all year," Hamilton said.
"You know I was thinking 'oh my God, I'm one position away from winning the world championship' - so my heart was in my mouth but I never gave up. I just kept on pushing and pushing. I was close to him, had a couple of corners left and it would have been very, very hard to have got past him but, fortunately, it began raining and some other people took some risks we ended up passing them," he said.
Hamilton became F1's youngest champion on Sunday when he snatched the title in last lap drama at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The 23-year-old, needing only a fifth place finish in the season-ending race to become Britain's first champion since Damon Hill in 1996, was seconds from failure for the second year in a row as Ferrari rival Felipe Massa swept to victory.
Hamilton, who missed out by a single point to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen in Brazil last season, ended the 18-race season one point clear of Ferrari's Felipe Massa.
At 23 years and 301 days old, Hamilton broke the age record set by former McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso, the Spaniard who won the first of his two titles with Renault in Brazil at the age of 24, one month and 27 days.
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