INSTEAD of celebrating success with one of the best car and driver packages in recent motor racing history, Ron Dennis and his McLaren team will look back on the 2007 Formula One season as one of the biggest failures in the company's history.
Even now, the McLaren boss must be asking how it all went so wrong.
The start of the 2007 season seems so long ago.
McLaren's two drivers joked and played the fool during their first press conference, photographing one another with mobile phones that had been given to them by their sponsors.
At that time, Fernando Alonso seemed genuinely delighted to have joined the McLaren "family".
The previous winter, do not forget, the two-time champion had been complaining that the Renault team had not been supporting him enough.
McLaren felt that they had the measure of Ferrari, even when Kimi Raikkonen stormed to victory in Melbourne in his first race for the Italian team.
Little did we know at the time that McLaren's complaint to the International Automobile Federation (FIA) about the dubious legality of some flexing bodywork which gave the Ferraris added speed was based on information that was itself obtained illegally.
By the next race, the FIA had amended its rules on the components.
McLaren stepped ahead with victory in Sepang for Alonso, while Ferrari went onto the back foot - but not for long.
Massa won in Bahrain and Spain, before Alonso won for McLaren in Monaco.
Then the rookie Hamilton made history with wins in Canada and the United States. I cannot remember a championship which was so finely balanced.
The Hamilton story has to be the most amazing ever.
His four victories in his debut season matched the total of his teammate and the 22-year-old had the world title in his grasp, only to have it snatched away through no fault of his own.
The fact is that McLaren blew it. Not just in one area, but in several.
Frankly, their Ferrari opposition were fast but fragile, not necessarily the material of world champions.
It was the Ferrari camp's first season without the mantle of superiority given by Michael Schumacher and the technical ace, Ross Brawn.
Even though Jean Todt remained on the pit wall, a significant part of the Ferrari season was marred by mechanical failures and, on occasion, management blunders.
Remember when they forgot to refuel Felipe Massa in qualifying in Hungary, or sent him out of the pitlane through a red light in Canada, leading to his disqualification?
Those errors cost Massa the championship.
However Ferrari stuck together as a team, as McLaren imploded.
With Alonso becoming more and more publicly ill-at-ease in the team and the distractions of the "Stepneygate" spying saga, the normally impeccable McLaren organisation began to commit blunders.
With both Ferrari and McLaren neck and neck in the last two races of the season, it was a mistake on the McLaren pit wall in China that saw Hamilton spin into the gravel on worn-out tyres.
Then a strategic error compounded the electrical gremlin on his car in the final race in Brazil that gave the title to Raikkonen.
Much of that has to be down to the saga over the information passed to the McLaren team by former Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney.
It dominated Formula One racing through the summer, taking on a life of its own, like a TV soap opera with its own cast of characters and more twists and turns than the Singapore Grand Prix circuit.
The statement last week from McLaren that "the Ferrari information was more widely disseminated within McLaren than was previously communicated" vindicated FIA boss Max Mosley who had been criticised by many, including I must admit me, for over-zealous investigation.
He and the FIA have now declared the matter closed. So will I.
Which leaves us to look ahead to the 2008 season.
Ferrari, Raikkonen and Massa will be back as world champions.
Alonso will want to prove his point back at Renault.
McLaren have high hopes that Hamilton and his new teammate, Heikki Kovalainen, will restore their team spirit.
BMW, I am sure, will build on their 2007 success as a truly front-running team, while Toyota, Honda, RedBull and Williams are working flat out to improve their performance.
Add in the SingTel Singapore Grand Prix in September - perhaps the most exciting new race ever to be added to the F1 calendar - and I'm already looking forward to a season to remember.
Steve Slater is one half of the popular F1 commentary duo on ESPN STARSports
