“People Wanted to Shoot me”-Glock on Infamous Lewis Hamilton Pass

Despite not winning the race or standing on the podium on this day, ten years after the most controversial moment of his career, Timo Glock is still trying to shake off his tense association with the Brazilian Grand Prix. A rainy weather had prompted all the teams to opt for  the ‘intermediate’ wet-weather option instead of the dry tyres, but Toyota chose to keep its drivers out on the dry tyres to gain positions. This moved Glock up the order, ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who then dropped behind the then Sebastian Vettel’s Toro Rosso, to the sixth spot with three laps remaining. This meant that the McLaren driver needed to finish fifth or higher to secure the title.

The strategy worked well- until the final three laps of the race. The rain intensified and both Massa and Lewis Hamilton caught up with him. Massa won the race and Hamilton won the title. this sparked a massive conspiracy theory that accused Glock of “helping Lewis Hamilton” to win the title.

In an exclusive interview with ESPN Glock said he was shocked to hear accusations of bribe from the media itself. “There were a couple of journalists who were very aggressive, especially from the Italian side, pointing fingers at me and saying I had done this on purpose and it must have been planned before the race, ‘how much did Mercedes (McLaren’s engine supplier) and Lewis pay you'”, recalled Glock.

“It was a situation I never thought I would be in. I could not believe people actually followed this stupid thought that I had somehow planned this with Lewis before the race. How did we know the weather would turn out like this before the race?”, questioned Glock.

“We even had letters come in to my family, to my dad and mom’s house about how I had done this and how people should shoot me, I shouldn’t be in the sport anymore”, continued Glock. “I could not believe how bad people could be. It was pretty extreme.”

Glock says that a video released by the F1 on youtube, doused the fire somewhat. “Every year, every November I get asked about it! I get less abuse now that someone at F1 put the video up on the internet -you can see how much I struggled on the last lap”, said Glock.

“This calmed down the situation totally as I can just send people that now. I have no idea why it took them so long, but I also have no idea why I never thought to ask them to put the onboard online! But it’s helped people understand there was no tactic behind it and that it was just a battle to keep it on the race track.”