Title race goes to the wire

The 22-year-old beached his car in the gravel after sliding off the pit lane entry road as he came in to change heavily-worn tyres as an incredible season took another dramatic twist.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen won the 56-lap race by 9.8 seconds from second-placed McLaren driver Fernando Alonso as the pair set up a thrilling three-car showdown for the drivers' title in the final race at Brazil. Felipe Massa finished third.

It had initially looked like Hamilton was set for an historic afternoon after he got away cleanly from pole and soon set about opening up an advantage over Raikkonen as all the field safely made it through the first corner.

The intermittent rain did not seem to bother Hamilton and he held a commanding lead by the time he made his first stop on lap 15, a 6.8 second effort, before Massa and Alonso followed soon after.

But as the track continued to dry, Hamilton's wet weather tyres started to wear to such an extent that he was struggling to keep his McLaren on the circuit.

The Briton struggled along and came in on lap 31 but as he tried to make the final turn towards the pit entry, he could not keep his car on the track and ended up in the gravel. He tried to restart his McLaren but to no avail.

Raikkonen then assumed control and cruised to the chequered flag over the final laps to claim his fifth victory of the season and set up a three-car showdown in the final race of the season at Interlagos.

Alonso brought his McLaren home in second place, 9.8 seconds behind the Finn, to bag eight points and cut his deficit to Hamilton to just four. Massa finished where he started the 56-lap race, in third a further three seconds back, while Sebastian Vettel claimed an incredible fourth in his Toro Rosso.

Jenson Button grabbed four valuable points for Honda in fifth place, Vitantonio Liuzzi made it a special day for Red Bull's junior team by finishing sixth, while BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld and Red Bull's David Coulthard claimed seventh and eight respectively.