A key day in the 2008 championship

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This day in 2008 saw McLaren's Lewis Hamilton clinch victory in the German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring.

It was only Hamilton's second season in Formula 1, but this was already his eighth career victory. Just two weeks earlier he'd won his home race at Silverstone for the first time. He'd also won earlier in the year at Monaco, as well as the season opener in Australia.

On this occasion, Hamilton started the race from pole position and went on to win by over five seconds from Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr. After a poor qualifying, Piquet had benefitted from the timing of a safety car for a big crash involving Toyota's Timo Glock. Finishing the race in third place was Ferrari's Felipe Massa. It meant this was the first time two Brazilian drivers had been on the podium together since the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix.

The race proved to be a pivotal moment in the 2008 Formula 1 world championship. Coming into Hockenheim, three drivers - Hamilton, Massa and Kimi Raikkonen - had been tied for the lead on 48 points. Following the result, Hamilton had a four point advantage over Massa. When the season climaxed in Brazil in November, Hamilton clinched his first title by just a single point from Massa.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.