The final round of the 2008 Formula One Championship will take place this weekend at Interlagos, Brazil, a circuit located just down the road from the grave of the late, great Ayrton Senna in Sao Paulo with his fellow countryman Felipe Massa and Britain’s Lewis Hamilton a self proclaimed Senna fan battling it out for the driver’s title.

Lewis merely needs a top five finish in the race to take the title in circumstances similar to that of twelve months earlier, where an unfortunate mistake and a gearbox selection problem robbed him of the chance to take the title in his debut season. In 2008 he heads into the race aiming to become the youngest Formula One Champion in history, a record which if successful he will take from former team mate Fernando Alonso.

The two drivers haven’t exactly seen eye to eye since the bitter 2007 Championship and Fernando has been quoted in the press saying he will do whatever he can to help Felipe win the World title. Formula One has never been short of controversy especially over the last two seasons, with races and championships being decided in courtrooms as opposed to on the track. However, the fans, drivers and teams will all be hoping for a clean race between the two title contenders on Sunday.

Twelve months on from his defeat in the final round, Lewis has grown to become even stronger and deftly focused. His brilliant lights to flag victory in China was a perfect example of how he can respond to the pressure exercised on him by his fellow competitors and sections of the media.

Felipe Massa will head into his home Grand Prix with the knowledge that anything less than a top two finish will not be good enough, realistically Felipe will need to win the race and hope that Lewis suffers some misfortune in the form of technical gremlins in his McLaren, however, on the podium at Shanghai Felipe was already starting to look like a defeated man.

While everyone else’s eyes are on the championship battle, the rest of the field will be fighting to finish the season off in style.

Toyota have had a trying season, after a slow start the team got things rolling with some solid top ten finishes culminating with a second place podium for Timo Glock in Hungary. Jarno Trulli has managed to turn in some fantastic performances, but both team mates will be hoping that the team can find that extra half a second in testing that will allow them to compete at the head of the field in 2009. Formula One is such a precise industry that small car modifications make the difference between being in the top four and being stuck in the middle of the pack. Toyota now heading into their seventh season in the premier class of four wheel racing will be hoping to gain a significant advantage over the winter which will allow them to get in the mix with Ferrari and McLaren.

Honda on the other hand, hasn’t had the same fortunes as their Japanese partners. The F1 Honda team has struggled for results all year, with the only high point coming in damp conditions at Silverstone when Rubens Barrichello was able to climb on the podium in third place. Technical Director Ross Brawn will have a lot to contemplate over the off season with the Directors at Honda as to how they can push the team further towards the front in 2009. Honda has a wealth of technical knowledge and sporting pedigree going back to an era where their engines powered Nelson Piquet, Aryton Senna and Alain Prost to five consecutive driver’s titles between the years of 1987 and 1991. The engineers will be hoping that the 2009 specification Honda will provide an upturn in fortunes for a new generation of Honda prowess.

A team that will be hoping to score their first points in the final race of 2008 will be Force India, the team have been struggling to make the final push into the top eight points positions through reliability and sometimes a lack of pace with a car in its inaugural campaign. Positive news for Force India though was the announcement that they may join forces in partnership with McLaren with engine and chassis assistance. If the deal is approved then their driver’s Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella could find themselves in a much more competitive position come the first race of 2009. The final race at Interlagos will get underway on Sunday at 6pm (CET)