Paul Gilham / Getty Images

Kimi Raikkonen celebrates after winning the Brazilian Grand Prix race and the F1 world championship Sunday.

Hamilton, who started in the front row beside pole-sitter Massa, was passed by Raikkonen and Alonso on the first turn. Hamilton then made a mistake trying to recover the position from Alonso three turns later.

“I locked up behind Fernando to avoid hitting him and I went a bit wide,” Hamilton said.

“When I saw Hamilton going off, I knew that maybe we had some chances,” Raikkonen said. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure, I was really just waiting. It took a long time to hear that we had finally won it.”

The Englishman moved back to sixth place after six laps, but his car slowed dramatically with a gearbox problem two laps later and he seemed on the verge of retiring from the race. His car suddenly picked up pace again, but he had already dropped to 18th.

“Lewis has enjoyed phenomenal reliability from his car this year,” McLaren team chief Ron Dennis told British television. “It was just a default in the gearbox which selected neutral for a period of time, but then sorted itself out.”

Hamilton’s car was without problems for the rest of the race as he moved past the slower cars with ease. By lap 18 of 71, Hamilton was 11th, but he couldn’t manage to move up past seventh.

He had needed a top-two finish to guarantee the title Sunday without depending on other drivers.

“It has been an incredible season,” Hamilton said. “Under extremely difficult conditions, I beat the two-time world champion, which was my objective from the very beginning.”

Massa and Raikkonen stayed 1-2 from the start. Raikkonen took the lead after a final pit stop, coming ahead of Massa as the Brazilian apparently slowed his pace.

“Felipe worked hard ... he’s been a big help,” Raikkonen said.

Massa, who had won four times in the previous five races he started from the pole, had an emotional victory in Interlagos last year as he became the first Brazilian to win at home since the late Ayrton Senna in 1993.

Alonso was trying to become only the third driver to win three consecutive titles in the history of F1, along with Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher.

“I knew it was going to be a difficult situation for me,” Alonso said. “It was impossible to keep the pace from Ferrari. I was just waiting for something.”

It was the third year in a row the F1 season was decided at the Brazilian GP. Alonso won both of his titles at the Interlagos track in 2005 and ’06.