Vettel out to clinch runner-up spot

The Red Bull driver currently holds second, two points ahead of Rubens Barrichello, meaning that he is likely to hang on to the runner-up spot by finishing within one place of the Brazilian.

Despite Vettel's obvious disappointment in Brazil at failing to take the title fight down to the final round, he is happy with his season.

"Generally I'm not here to finish second or third," the German said. "This hasn't changed, but for now third is worse than second, so I want to be second in the championship.

"Of course it's normal to be disappointed [as he was in Brazil], but when you look at the positives, this has been a very good season for us. A lot of things happened and we learned a lot of lessons.

"All in all, there are a lot of things we can do better next year, but for now the focus has to be on securing second place in the drivers' championship and having a very good race on Sunday."

Vettel said that strategic errors from Red Bull, plus his own on-track mistakes, had robbed him of vital points across the season.

"Sometimes you may find yourself in a situation where you're not strong enough to win, but still it matters to bring the car home third or fourth or fifth and collect points," he added.

"I think that at every race this year we were strong enough to finish in the top five, unlike anyone else, except maybe for Monza.

"Sometimes you may call it bad luck, but at other times we made mistakes with the strategy. Other times it was a mistake from myself.

"All in all, we had five races where we didn't finish or didn't score points. What's important is we learn from this and don't make the same mistakes next year."