The complete Brazilian Grand Prix review

PRACTICE

Practice one

Though rain was forecast for later in the weekend, the Brazilian Grand Prix commenced with clear skies, a dry track and hot temperatures - plus a Red Bull versus McLaren battle.

It was Mark Webber who came out on top for the champion team, his 1m13.811s lap edging out McLaren's Jenson Button by 0.014s.

Lewis Hamilton was next up, with Sebastian Vettel fourth - and neither of them were overwhelmingly happy with their cars. The Ferraris completed the top six, Felipe Massa faster than a frowning Fernando Alonso, who had various issues culminating in an engine failure in the closing minutes of the session.

Behind seventh-placed Michael Schumacher, last year's Interlagos poleman Nico Hulkenberg was an eye-catching eighth on Force India third driver duty.

The German was one of quite a few reserve drivers in action. Romain Grosjean set a time good enough for 12th before a clutch issue halted his (or rather, Vitaly Petrov's) Renault, Jean-Eric Vergne was 18th for Toro Rosso, Luiz Razia 20th for Lotus and Jan Charouz last for HRT but healthily close to Daniel Ricciardo's pace.

Practice two

Hamilton beat the Red Bulls to the top spot in the afternoon, with a margin of 0.167s over Vettel at the end of the battle on soft tyres.

The softer Pirellis proved less to Button's liking, and having looked very competitive on hard tyres earlier on, he slipped to seventh when everyone went into qualifying trim.

A still frustrated Alonso improved to fourth, followed by Schumacher and Massa.

It was another largely incident-free session, with the only prolonged yellow flag waving coming when a gearbox failure caused Sergio Perez to park his Sauber on the hill out of Juncao.

Practice three

Vettel had kept a relatively low profile on Friday, but as ever when it started to really matter, he began unleashing a searing pace - although in the end his margin over a happier Button was just 0.087s.

Webber, Hamilton and Alonso followed on, with the surprise of the session came in the form of Adrian Sutil's sixth place for Force India.

Massa was back in 10th in the second Ferrari, his final laps spoilt by traffic confusion.

The only drama of note came in the Toro Rosso garage, where a hydraulic leak prevented Sebastien Buemi from even completing a flying lap.

QUALIFYING

1st SEBASTIAN VETTEL

"We made the right choices overnight and going into qualifying I was happier. I was already happy with the first lap in Q3, but I knew that there was a bit more to come and put everything into the last lap."

2nd MARK WEBBER

"It was a good qualifying session and very tight at the end of Q3 between us. Seb just had that extra tenth to grab the pole, so it's disappointing for me. It was a good lap for Seb. In the end, I'm happy to be at the front for the start of the race tomorrow."

3rd JENSON BUTTON

"I feel that we did the best with the car. Setup-wise it was as good as we were going to get it for Q3. The lap was pretty ragged for me, but I got everything out of it, so it was an enjoyable lap. I thought I was going to be further up the grid than I am."

4th LEWIS HAMILTON

"It was a little bit disappointing. We're still on the second row, but we would have loved to have been quicker. I was a couple of tenths off Jenson, so clearly the car can be a little bit quicker, but the Red Bulls were massively quick today."

5th FERNANDO ALONSO

"My subscription to fifth place has been extended for one more Saturday! This time, it was a bit more of a struggle. But in Q3 we got much closer to the McLarens than we could have expected. We managed to get a little bit more out of it than our potential would indicate."

6th NICO ROSBERG

"That was a good qualifying session today. We saved a set of option tyres for the race, and we qualified ahead of one of the Ferraris, which has always been my goal during the season. So I'm quite pleased to be starting from sixth place tomorrow."

7th FELIPE MASSA

"I was expecting more from qualifying and cannot be happy with seventh. We were unable to find the right balance throughout the weekend. In some corners, I was locking up in the front, and in the slower ones I suffered with understeer. The car was rather difficult to drive."

8th ADRIAN SUTIL

"It has been a good weekend so far. Every session, the car has felt good straight off. I had a very good car in qualifying but I don't think the result could have been better. I just couldn't go any faster."

9th BRUNO SENNA

"It was not what I was expecting when the weekend started, but it's good news. We knew the car had good potential here, but we just weren't sure of the level. It's a shame we had used tyres going into Q3 because we could have had an even better result."

10th MICHAEL SCHUMACHER

"The forecast says there is a high probability for rain during the race. With this in mind, we have kept all of our options open for tomorrow and we had a strategic approach to qualifying today. Still we need to find out why we weren't able to match our times from this morning."

11th PAUL DI RESTA

"We're had a delta on the top speed that we can't get to the bottom of. We're down on the straights and losing time - that's where the time is to Adrian. Taking everything else into account, the time is there."

12th RUBENS BARRICHELLO

"I'm so glad that I put in a good lap because I have lots of family here this weekend. Also for the team and for the fans, it really felt like they were pushing me on which was an amazing feeling."

13th JAIME ALGUERSUARI

"Qualifying was more or less the maximum we could get. I was not expecting Rubens Barrichello to be that quick today, but I'm still hoping the best for the race. Qualifying doesn't really matter because anything can happen in the race."

14th SEBASTIEN BUEMI

"I'm a bit disappointed because I had the speed to do at least a couple of tenths better. When you miss P1 and P3, you arrive in qualifying without so much running, but that's not an excuse. We could have done a bit better. But we have good race pace."

15th VITALY PETROV

"It was strange. Session to session this weekend we improved the car quite a lot but we expected it to be hotter in qualifying. Then the temperatures dropped quite a lot, so we need to understand if it was the setup that cost so much time or something else."

16th KAMUI KOBAYASHI

"We worked on improving the car's balance in every practice session and it got better, but it wasn't a big enough step to find the proper grip to be able to attack. I was really fighting on every lap."

17th SERGIO PEREZ

"It was a disappointing qualifying with the outcome that the Toro Rossos, our direct competitors, are in front of us. The main problem was that the car was so inconsistent. Every lap was different and I couldn't get temperature into the tyres."

18th PASTOR MALDONADO

"We're a bit on the back foot with P18. We didn't find the best balance on the option tyre and so didn't get a clean lap in. I will need to make up lots of ground in the race, but after doing that in Abu Dhabi, I'm optimistic that I can do it again here."

19th HEIKKI KOVALAINEN

"Jarno has been strong here all weekend and I was just behind him after the first runs so I had to really pull out everything to beat him. We made a couple of adjustments to the tyres and it paid off with that final lap with seconds left on the clock."

20th JARNO TRULLI

"I'm reasonably happy with how qualifying went. The second set of tyres weren't as good as the first and even though I improved my time, I still couldn't really push. I've had a pretty good weekend, but still haven't found a balance that I'm really happy with."

21st VITANTONIO LIUZZI

"The car was a lot better than yesterday, especially the balance. That was a good way to finish the season, qualifying ahead of the Virgins. It's a great feeling to be back in business with a car that is working a hundred per cent."

22nd DANIEL RICCIARDO

"Qualifying had the potential to be better. It was good, but could have been better. Good, because we have outqualified the Virgins, but not positive because we didn't find time on our second set of tyres. There was too much understeer so you couldn't carry the speed into corners."

23rd JEROME D'AMBROSIO

"It wasn't a bad qualifying session but it wasn't the best one either. I lost performance between this morning and qualifying. We need to have a look and see what is happening. I lost a bit of time in sector two on my best lap."

24th TIMO GLOCK

"It was not an easy qualifying session. We had a lot of trouble this morning in free practice where the rear of the car was very unstable. We made some changes to make it more drivable and that helped. On the second run I had a good first three corners but one of the Toro Rossos came out of the pits in front of me and stayed there."

THE GRID

Pos  Driver                Team
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault
 2.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault
 3.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes
 4.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes
 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari
 6.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes
 7.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari
 8.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes
 9.  Bruno Senna           Renault
10.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes
11.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes
12.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth
13.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari
14.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari
15.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault
16.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari
17.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari 
18.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault
20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault
21.  Vitantonio Liuzzi     HRT-Cosworth
22.  Daniel Ricciardo      HRT-Cosworth
23.  Jerome d'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth
24.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth

RACE

After qualifying in Brazil, probably three quarters of the field were counting on race day turning into rain-soaked chaos in order to give them a chance. Most of the spectators and viewing public were also hoping for much the same.

It didn't happen. And in the totally dry and rather hot race that ensued, no-one could get anywhere near Red Bull's pace.

But there was one upset to keep things interesting. It wasn't the championship-dominating #1 car of Sebastian Vettel notching up a 12th triumph of the year. Instead it was Mark Webber who mounted the top step of the podium, in a repeat of his 2009 Interlagos win. This time, nothing went wrong for Webber. His start was good (or good enough at least, as he got away slower than Vettel but fended off Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso into the Senna S), his KERS and every other bit of his car kept working, and the Pirelli wear dramas that he had been particularly susceptible to all year stayed away.

The tribulations were on Vettel's side of the garage this time. Within five laps he was three seconds ahead of Webber and six seconds ahead of everyone else. But by that time there were already ominous traces on the gearbox data.

"We could see gearbox oil levels starting to drop," explained team boss Christian Horner. "The early predictions were that it might get to half distance, so we monitored it for a couple of laps and then we could see a consistent pattern. We informed Sebastian and he then started to try to manage the problem by adjusting his driving style."

That was enough to keep him in front for a while, but the radio calls became ever more stern as the problem worsened, and Webber started to close in.

"I thought he was either in tyre trouble way earlier than he should be or had no KERS or something was going on, because one thing Seb doesn't do is forget how to drive from one lap to the other," said Webber. "When I started to take a pretty big chunk out of him per lap, I thought something might have been going down and then [engineer] Ciaron [Pilbeam] informed me that he had a gearbox problem and I think I could smell it a little bit when I got close, and there was also a little bit of fluid."

Vettel made it clear that he wouldn't fight his team-mate, and allowed Webber to breeze past into the lead on lap 30. He then edged away and picked up a much needed morale-boosting win, while Vettel made it home in second - still quick enough to stay comfortably clear of the rest of the field.

Winning moved Webber up to third in the championship, and gave him the potential to take second had Jenson Button hit trouble. With the result so useful for the points situation and as Vettel still managed to finish despite his engineer emphasising repeatedly how "serious" the gearbox issue was, there were inevitably suggestions that the whole thing was a contrived mirage designed to ensure Webber got the win. Not so, Horner insisted.

"Categorically anyone that listened to the conversation between the race engineers, or looked at the back of the garage at the amount of activity that was going on over that gearbox, would see it was genuine," said Horner.

Of course there will always be people who have theories, but categorically there was an issue and that gearbox, how on earth it got to the end of the race is beyond me."

There was a suggestion that Webber's podium demeanour was insufficiently euphoric for a winner and that this was a further sign of a scripted result, but Horner was similarly dismissive.

"If Mark's slightly muted, I guess it's because he would've loved to have beaten Sebastian in a fair straight fight," he said. "If anybody thinks that was concocted in any way, I can absolutely hand on heart guarantee you that based on the blood pressure on the pitwall, you can rest assured it was a genuine, genuine issue."

Vettel also insisted he wouldn't have backed off for any reason other than a legitimate mechanical problem.

"You can believe me, if I had the choice, I would have gone for the racing option," he promised.

Webber also preferred not to get caught up in conspiracy theories.

"Well, I didn't drive Seb's car," he said. "All I can do is what I can do."

Vettel compared his drive with Ayrton Senna's 1991 Interlagos victory in a gearbox-troubled car, and though it wasn't that heroic a drive, the current champion still did well to stay comfortably clear of all those behind.

Button had initially held third, but was passed by Fernando Alonso on lap 11 in a spectacular round-the-outside move into the tricky Ferradura. However Button reckoned the pass was not all it had seemed.

"I picked the wrong line, because that lap is when Michael had his puncture and there was rubber all down the inside and I didn't know what it was, whether it was part of a car, so I couldn't risk just driving straight through it, and I couldn't pull to the left because Fernando was there, so I had to back off early and pull in behind. I would say he was gifted the position quite easily," said Button.

After another 51 laps, it was quite easily returned. Whereas Button had - unlike the rest of the field - struggled for speed on the softer tyres but been quite quick on harder rubber, for Ferrari and Alonso harder Pirellis proved as incompatible with the car as ever. The Spaniard became a straightforward target for a recovering Button in the final stages, putting up a determined, if brief, fight before losing the position in the DRS zone on lap 62. That also meant Alonso dropped behind Webber to fourth in the final drivers' standings.

There was another Ferrari/McLaren battle for fifth place, but this one was won by the red team. Felipe Massa was forced into a two-stop strategy when a puncture was discovered on a soft tyre on Saturday night, yet made the best of it to lead for a spell and put himself in line for fifth place ahead of Lewis Hamilton even before the McLaren driver's gearbox failed.

Best of the rest was Adrian Sutil, who drove a fine race for Force India to take sixth place. That required charging from behind to overtake Nico Rosberg, who was two-stopping, but lacked the pace to fend off his flying countryman. Paul di Resta racked up yet more points for Force India with eighth, despite some gearbox worries.

Bruno Senna and Michael Schumacher were running ahead of di Resta until a lap-11 clash that saw them make contact twice as Schumacher completed a pass of the Renault into the Senna S. Schumacher was left with a puncture, and had to claw his way back from last to 15th, while Senna was awarded a penalty and later ran into gearbox trouble, finishing 17th. Schumacher and team boss Ross Brawn put the clash down to Senna's "inexperience..."

The other Renault of Vitaly Petrov salvaged a point, finishing 10th behind Kamui Kobayashi, whose ninth place guaranteed that Sauber beat Toro Rosso to seventh in the constructors' championship. STR's Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi could only manage 11th and 12th, ahead of Sergio Perez in the second Sauber.

Alongside the battle for seventh, the lucrative 10th spot in the constructors' standings was up for grabs via the non-scoring backmarker tie-break.

Lotus had been clearly quicker than HRT and Virgin all year, and had three 13th places as its best results. But it was anxious about the possibility of someone pulling off a freak higher-than-13th finish if Interlagos had turned wet. As it was, in a dry race Lotus had nothing to worry about, finishing 16th and 18th with Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli, while Virgin delivered 19th (Jerome D'Ambrosio) and a lost wheel (Timo Glock) and HRT produced 20th (Daniel Ricciardo) and an alternator failure (Tonio Liuzzi). While inevitably delighted that a handy championship result had been confirmed, Lotus chief Tony Fernandes was also keen to underline that Kovalainen had finished ahead of Senna in the final race of the Team Lotus-Renault/Lotus Renault GP confusion.

"The icing on the cake was beating a Renault - that meant a lot to me as I have always said the good guys do win," said Fernandes.

Pastor Maldonado was the race's other retirement, crashing his Williams at Ferradura. His team-mate Rubens Barrichello could have been saying farewell to Formula 1 this weekend, but chose to remain upbeat about his chances of finding a 2012 seat somewhere instead. A poor start ended his dream of points at home though, as he immediately dropped from 12th on the grid to 21st, and had to settle for making it back up to 14th. Not how the longest career in F1 history should have ended, if indeed it really was the end...

Lap-by-lap as it happened on AUTOSPORT Live

RACE RESULTS
The Brazilian Grand Prix
Interlagos, Sao Paulo, Brazil;
71 laps; 305.909km;
Weather: Cloudy.

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                       Time
 1.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           1h32:17.434
 2.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           +    16.983
 3.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +    27.638
 4.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +    35.048
 5.  Massa         Ferrari                    +  1:06.733
 6.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +     1 lap
 7.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +     1 lap
 8.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +     1 lap
 9.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap
10.  Petrov        Renault                    +     1 lap
11.  Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap
12.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap
13.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap
14.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +     1 lap
15.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +     1 lap
16.  Kovalainen    Lotus-Renault              +    2 laps
17.  Senna         Renault                    +    2 laps
18.  Trulli        Lotus-Renault              +    2 laps
19.  D'Ambrosio    Virgin-Cosworth            +    3 laps
20.  Ricciardo     HRT-Cosworth               +    3 laps

Fastest lap: Webber, 1:15.324


Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                         On lap
Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth                 62
Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes             37
Maldonado     Williams-Cosworth            27
Glock         Virgin-Cosworth              22


World Championship standings, round 19:                

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
 1.  Vettel       392        1.  Red Bull-Renault          650
 2.  Button       270        2.  McLaren-Mercedes          497
 3.  Webber       258        3.  Ferrari                   375
 4.  Alonso       257        4.  Mercedes                  165
 5.  Hamilton     227        5.  Renault                    73
 6.  Massa        118        6.  Force India-Mercedes       69
 7.  Rosberg       89        7.  Sauber-Ferrari             44
 8.  Schumacher    76        8.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari         41
 9.  Sutil         42        9.  Williams-Cosworth           5
10.  Petrov        37       
11.  Heidfeld      34       
12.  Kobayashi     30       
13.  Di Resta      27       
14.  Alguersuari   26       
15.  Buemi         15       
16.  Perez         14       
17.  Barrichello    4       
18.  Senna          2       
19.  Maldonado      1       

TEAM-BY-TEAM

Red Bull

Webber was quickest on Friday morning, while Vettel took a while to get things to his liking before setting the pace in third practice and blasting to a record 15th pole of the year. Webber joined him on the front row.

The pair dominated the race, with Vettel leading until a worsening gearbox problem led to him giving way to Webber just before half-distance. The Australian duly notched up an overdue first win of 2011, with Vettel hanging on for second.

McLaren

Button struggled to make the revised soft Pirellis work to his satisfaction all weekend, but did squeeze a time good enough for third on the grid out of them. A lack of pace on that compound in the first stint of the race meant he was passed by Alonso, but once on harder tyres Button was right back on the pace and able to reclaim third near the end.

Hamilton set the pace on Friday afternoon but was never truly up to speed. He ran fourth for a long while in the race, looked like he might lose out to two-stopper Massa, and then retired with gearbox problems before it was clear who would've won that fight.

Ferrari

Not a great weekend for Ferrari. Alonso was his 'standard' fifth on the grid and made his habitual good start to pass Hamilton. He overtook Button on-track with a superb outside-line move in the first stint, but was pushed back by fourth by Button when struggling on harder tyres later.

Massa was frustrated with seventh on the grid even before a puncture in one of his tyres was discovered, leaving him short of softs for the race. He ran a two-stop plan, and managed to turn it into fifth place.

Mercedes

Promising practice pace didn't translate into much success in the race. Rosberg was satisfied with sixth on the grid, while Schumacher opted to "keep strategic options open" and didn't set a Q3 time, leaving him 10th.

Tyre-wear troubles hampered two-stopper Rosberg all race and he was beaten to sixth by Sutil. Schumacher was given a puncture in an early dice with Senna, but fought back well from 24th to 15th.

Renault

Senna was thrilled with ninth on the grid, six places ahead of a frustrated Petrov. But a very strong start from the Russian put him in a position to eventually move up to finish 10th. A clash with Schumacher earned Senna a penalty, and with wing damage and a developing gearbox fault, he could not finish above 17th.

Williams

A miserably unsuccessful season came to a close with another lacklustre race. Barrichello's 12th place on the grid was an extremely good effort, while Maldonado was slightly confused to be only 18th.

Barrichello made a poor start and instantly dropped to 21st, before clawing back up to 14th. Maldonado crashed out during a dice with the delayed Senna.

Force India

Force India's late-season charge continued to the very end, with Sutil looking in great form throughout the Interlagos event. He qualified eighth, then charged hard on a three-stop strategy to beat Rosberg to sixth. Di Resta was struck by a relative lack of top speed from his car as he qualified 11th, but he finished eighth in the race.

When Kobayashi and Perez qualified only 16th and 17th for no reason other than their cars' lack of performance, it looked like Sauber might miss out on seventh in the constructors' championship after all. But a great start from Kobayashi and a fine drive thereafter took him to ninth in the flag, securing Force India's championship position in the process. Perez's day was less fruitful, as he had a solo spin on the way to 13th.

STR was not quite on the pace all weekend, with Alguersuari and Buemi only 13th and 14th on the grid. The latter was sure that a lack of mileage was a factor, as he had given test driver Jean-Eric Vergne his car for Friday morning and then missed Saturday moring due to a hydraulic leak. They made little progress in the race, finishing 11th and 12th, Alguersuari ahead.

The new rear wing didn't turn things around, but did edge Lotus a little closer to the teams ahead - though it still qualified in its habitual 19th and 20th, Kovalainen in front.

A rapid start got Kovalainen up to 15th for a while, and though he could not stay there long, he beat Senna's Renault to 16th. Trulli finished 18th.

Liuzzi and Ricciardo were pleased to outqualify the Virgins, but race day was less successful. An alternator failure halted Liuzzi, and Ricciardo was only 20th after wearing out tyres too quickly.

Beaten by HRT in qualifying, d'Ambrosio and Glock shared the back row. While Glock was an early retirement when his car left the pits with a wheel not properly attached, d'Ambrosio at least got back in front of HRT on the way to 19th.

RACE DATA

The Race in Action

Full race lap times (H)

Full race lap times (V)

Lap chart (positions)

Lap chart (gaps)