Stat attack: Brazil (post-race)

World championship facts and figures

• Jenson Button became the 31st Formula 1 world champion in the Brazilian Grand Prix and also helped his Brawn GP team to the constructors' crown. Here are some facts about their triumphs:

• Button won the title in his 10th full season, only one driver in the past needed more seasons to reach it: Nigel Mansell in 1992, in his 12th season. Mansell is also the driver who needed the highest number of race starts to achieve the crown: 176 compared to Button's 169.

• It's the second straight year that car #22 has won the title. It had never previously happened since fixed numbers for the season were introduced.

• Button clinched the title on the same track and with the same finishing position as Lewis Hamilton last year.

• It's the fifth straight year the title was clinched in Brazil.

• The last time two drivers from the United Kingdom won the title in back-to-back years, before Hamilton and Button, was exactly 40 years ago, with Graham Hill in 1968 and Jackie Stewart in 1969.

• Button led the championship for the whole season, the last driver to do so was Michael Schumacher in 2004 (Fernando Alonso's 2006 season could be counted as well, but after China he was level with Schumacher on points, but Schumacher had one more win, so technically Alonso was not the leader).

• It's the 31st time in history that the winner of the first race has won the title and the 16th in the last 20 years.

• For the first time in history a rookie team has won the constructors' championship.

• After 11 years a British-based team won the title again (McLaren was the last in 1998).

Brazil qualifying notes

• Fourteenth pole for Rubens Barrichello, who had not started from the top spot since the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix. Brawn GP was back in pole after a wait of nine races (Monaco, Button).

• For the first time after seven seasons in Formula 1, Mark Webber was able to score two front row starts in the same year, the other being his maiden pole position in Germany.

• For the third time in history, and for the first time in successive races, the first eight drivers on the grid belonged to eight different teams. The other occurrence was the 1986 Monaco Grand Prix.

• Despite always being quick in qualifying (he has beaten his team-mates 147-70 in his career), Jarno Trulli enjoyed his first back-to-back start on the first two rows of the grid after a wait of three years, when in the same two races, the 2006 Japanese and Brazilian Grand Prix, he qualified fourth and third.

• Best career result for Sebastien Buemi, sixth. His team-mate Jaime Alguersuari equalled his best performance, a 12th he gained two weeks ago in Japan.

• Third straight start inside the top 10 for Robert Kubica - it hadn't happened since the Pole set a four-race string last year from the German to the Belgian Grand Prix.

• For the first time this season Sebastian Vettel didn't make it into the third qualifying segment. This was the worst grid spot for the German since the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix, when he started 19th.

• After Vettel's failure to make it to Q3, the chart for the most consistent qualifiers of 2009 is slightly altered as now Vettel and Barrichello count 15 appearances in the third qualifying stint, followed by Kimi Raikkonen and Webber at 14. Button reached Q3 13 times, but only twice in the last five races.

• Before Tonio Liuzzi's penalty, this Brazilian Grand Prix was the worst qualifying result for McLaren since the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix, when Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya occupied the same ninth row grid spots as Heikki Kovalainen and Hamilton. Raikkonen at the time went on to win the race.

Interlagos © LAT

Brazil race notes

• Second career win for Mark Webber, who hadn't enjoyed a single lap in the lead since his maiden win, the German Grand Prix three months ago.

• Webber was the first driver to post back-to-back fastest laps since Raikkonen produced a sequence of three last year from the Belgian to the Singapore Grand Prix.

• Hamilton equalled the founder of his team, Bruce McLaren, on 27 race podiums. Hamilton had not enjoyed three straight podiums since the interval which separated the Spanish to the Monaco Grand Prix last year.

• Kubica was back on the podium for the first time since the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix.

• Buemi equalled his best career result, a seventh place he obtained in his maiden race, the Australian Grand Prix.

• For the first time in 21 races Fernando Alonso retired due to an accident. The last occurrence was the 2008 European Grand Prix after a first lap collision with Kazuki Nakajima.

• First retirement for a mechanical failure for Nick Heidfeld after 42 races (2007 US Grand Prix, hydraulics). He was also victim of a misfire in the closing stages of the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix, but he was eventually classified.

• For the first time in 27 races Nico Rosberg retired. It hadn't happened since the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix, where he spun off.

• The 13th place is the best result obtained by Romain Grosjean in his six-race career.

• First double retirement for Williams since the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix, when Rosberg retired with an electrical problem and Alexander Wurz crashed out of the race.