Sao Paulo (dpa) - No one will ever forget the roller coaster of emotions that took place Sunday in the last lap of the Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prix: for a few seconds the two teams seeking the world title got to jump for joy and consider themselves the winners.

At the Ferrari box, executive director Jean Todt and other members of the team launched euphoric celebrations as soon as Brazilian driver Felipe Massa won the race.

They were convinced that the British driver Lewis Hamilton, of McLaren-Mercedes, could not manage to get back the fifth place he had lost just seconds earlier, when he was overtaken by the German Sebastian Vettel of Toro Rosso.

At the same time, however, the McLaren-Mercedes box also screamed in joy, and rightly so. They already knew that, just 500 metres before the finish line, Hamilton had overtaken another German, Timo Glock, to get the fifth place that allowed him to become the youngest-ever Formula 1 World Championship, one point ahead of Massa.

The news reached Todt soon enough, and the atmosphere rapidly went from euphoria to disappointment. The same phenomenon took over the stands at the Interlagos circuit in Sao Paulo, where Hamilton's last- minute fifth place took spectators absolutely by surprise.

Massa's father, Luiz Antonio, who had waved the chequered flag as his son crossed the finish line, was the personification of despair.

"I am lost for words, lost for words," he just managed to say.

Massa himself could hardly believe his bad luck.

"Today we did things perfectly, unfortunately it wasn't enough," he said.

When Massa stopped his car at the box, he spent many long minutes wiping away his tears.

Then, still weeping, he climbed up to the top of the podium to listen to the Brazilian national anthem and get the consolation prize: the longed-for win at home and the beautiful trophy designed by the prestigious Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Hamilton, in turn, jumped to celebrate his feat of becoming world champion at the age of 23, which also left his McLaren team speechless.

He paid no attention to the booing from Brazilian fans, and he spent the prizegiving ceremony greeting friends, admirers and teammates, as well as girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger.

Brazilians will not forget Sunday. For a few seconds, the country thought it had overcome the "curse" behind a drought in F1 titles that dates back to 1991, when the late Ayrton Senna last won the championship.

It was not to be, but the close to 100,000 spectators at Interlagos soon recovered from their disappointment and started cheering enthusiastically for Massa.

The reaction from the stands made it clear that, although he did not win the championship, Massa was definitively crowned Senna's "heir" - a title that none of his compatriots in the top category of motorsport have proved worthy of in the past 15 years. dpa