2008 Formula One Season

The 2008 Formula One season was the 59th FIA Formula One World Championship season. It began on 16 March and ended on 2 November with eighteen Grand Prix races.

Lewis Hamilton won the driver's title by a point – by overtaking Toyota's Timo Glock on the final corner 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 (a record since supplanted by Sebastian Vettel's winning of the 2010 driver's title) 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 2001. 2008 also introduced two new street circuits. The Valencia Street Circuit and Marina Bay Street Circuit hosted the European GP and the new Singapore GP respectively. The Singapore GP was also the first Formula One event held at night.

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 2009 using the Mercedes-Benz engines. This was also the last Formula One season to race with grooved tyres, used since 1998, before slick tyres returned to Formula One in 2009.

It was the first time in the history of Formula One that all teams have used the same two drivers throughout the season and it was the first time that all the race cars were driving without traction control since the beginning of 2001.