Claim: British is the nationality of Lewis Hamilton.

The 2008 Formula One season was the 62nd season of Formula One motor racing , recognised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile -LRB- FIA -RRB- -- the governing body of motorsport -- as the highest class of competition for open-wheel racing cars . It featured the 2008 Formula One World Championship . The season was contested over eighteen rounds , which started in Australia on 16 March and ended in Brazil on 2 November . The 2008 season saw the debut of the Singapore Grand Prix , which was held at the Marina Bay Street Circuit , in Marina Bay , Singapore and was the first Formula One race held at night . The European Grand Prix moved to a new venue at the Valencia Street Circuit , in Valencia , Spain   Lewis Hamilton won the Drivers ' title by a point -- by overtaking Toyota 's Timo Glock on the final corner of the final lap of the final grand prix of the season to claim the required 5th-place finish -- from Brazilian Felipe Massa while Massa 's teammate , the 2007 world champion , Kimi Räikkönen was ranked third , with two wins . Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro won the Constructors ' title . In winning the title , Hamilton became the youngest driver ever to win the title -LRB- a record since supplanted by Sebastian Vettel 's winning of the 2010 Drivers ' title -RRB- and the first black driver to do so . He was also the first British champion since Damon Hill in 1996 .   Eleven teams competed in the championship , although Super Aguri withdrew on 6 May from the 2008 Formula One season due to financial troubles , completing four races . New technical rules for 2008 included the banning of traction control after it was re-introduced in . Fernando Alonso won the first race held in Singapore ; however , only after teammate Piquet deliberately crashed to cause a Safety Car period which helped Alonso 's strategy . When Piquet admitted this to the press in Renault team-principal Briatore resigned . Some journalists dubbed this `` Crashgate '' .   This was the last season for the Honda team before they pulled out of F1 later in December due to the global economic crisis . Then , Ross Brawn bought the team and renamed it to Brawn GP in February using the Mercedes-Benz engines . This was also the last Formula One season to race with grooved tyres , used since , before slick tyres returned to Formula One in .   It was the first time in the history of Formula One that all teams used the same two drivers throughout the season and it was the first time that all the race cars drove without traction control since the beginning of .