Hamilton’s fall at the final hurdle ranks among the great tragedies of British sport

Yes, it turns out that the fake turf that crocked John Terry, consigned England to defeat against Russia and forced Sharon Osbourne to storm off the X Factor is also to blame for Lewis' disappointment, as well as the failure of the film Police Academy 7.

Hamilton's fall at the final hurdle ranks among the great tragedies of British sport, although Kimi Raikkonen had probably been the best driver throughout the course of the year.

Under the old points system, which gave weight to wins rather than reliability, Raikkonen would have won the title by five points rather than just one.

Brave Hamilton's Brazilian woe summed up a nightmare English week that started in Russia with the national football team.

Some newspapers are now calling for the head of Steve McClaren, who you may also remember from such debacles as Croatia 2 England 0: Backpasses from Hell and England 0 Macedonia 0: The Non-Existent Force against The Immovable Object.

I find myself suggesting that we wait for our qualification fate before deciding the future of grinning Steve.

After all, what more could he have possibly done in Russia, considering we were playing on the worst pitch in the universe?

There would have been less fuss made if England had been asked to play on hot coals (although some would suggest that is not such a bad idea, at least it would keep them on their toes).

We had what seemed to be a month-long debate about the Moscow pitch, which has been in place for five years, has hosted Champions League games and is frankly no big deal.

Tales of plastic less than fantastic from QPR and Luton - the London-based media probably never even noticed the existence of similar pitches at Oldham and Preston - were trotted out every 10 minutes.

There were also the endless live link-ups to St Whatsitsname Catholic College in Altrincham, who must have had to cancel lessons for the week because all their teachers were too busy doing media interviews.

Lo and behold, John Terry gets injured while training on the Moscow pitch a day before the match. It was all down to the pitch of course, because footballers are renowned for never getting injured while playing on grass - particularly John Terry.

Richard Keys, a broadcaster with the experience to feel indignant in any situation, tutted every time the Russians turned on the sprinklers before kick-off and pointed out that grass will be laid down in Moscow for the Champions League Final.

It's a fair point, but the Champions League Final is played in May when Russian temperatures are a little bit warmer.

If people would have rather we had played on the mud and snow - not a blade of grass in sight - that I have seen on other Russian pitches during winter then that's fine. Maybe we might even have got a result, given that Russia's plastic specialist' Roman Pavlyuchenko - he actually plays quite well on grass too but that was rather overlooked - would have been stuck in neutral like Lewis Hamilton.