Five themes to watch for in Brazil

Webber's win-less wonder season

Given that his Red Bull team-mate has won 11 races this year, Mark Webber is determined to make his last chance to get off the mark in the 2011 count. He's always been fast at Interlagos (he put a Jaguar third on the grid here back in 2003) and won the 2009 race, so the circuit is clearly Webber territory.

His long-run pace looked good on Friday and the Australian lines up second on the grid. So what does he need to do to get that elusive win? Well, seeing as neither he nor Vettel would be especially keen on a victory gift, he needs to make the better start.

It's a big ask, but the first corner at Interlagos is one of the better corners for passing on the calendar.

Hamilton's grand finale

Can Hamilton win in Brazil from fourth? © sutton-images.com

Lewis Hamilton's victory at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix two weeks ago played a big part in ensuring that his season will finish on a relative high after some tough times, but a victory at Interlagos, where he has yet to finish higher than third, would send him into the winter in the best possible shape for a title push next year.

Fourth on the grid isn't the ideal launch pad for a win, but he's hoping that the 80 per cent chance of rain that various forecasts have been predicting, delivers a wet race.

If it is wet, look out for a Hamilton special. And even if it's dry, a good start could get him into the hunt.

Massa's last hope

Massa faces a podium-less season starting from seventh © sutton-images.com

The last Ferrari driver to complete close to a full season without a podium finish was Ivan Capello, driving the awful FA92, in 1992.

As Capelli was dropped for the last two races, you have to rewind all the way back to 1981 to find a season during which a Ferrari driver failed to take a podium in a complete campaign, when Didier Pironi didn't reach the top three all year long.

The bottom line is that in 18 races so far, Massa has not finished better than fifth while his team-mate Fernando Alonso has made the podium 10 times and won the British Grand Prix.

It won't make Massa's season anything other than very poor, but the two-time Brazilian Grand Prix winner (and it would have been three but for handing victory to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007) could at least salvage a little pride with a rostrum visit here. Qualifying a very mediocre seventh is hardly a promising start, though.

Something to prove

There are a decent number of drivers who start Sunday's race knowing that when next season's Australian Grand Prix comes around, they might not be on the grid.

Barrichello says this is not a farewell © sutton-images.com

Bruno Senna, Rubens Barrichello, Adrian Sutil, Sebastien Buemi, Jaime Alguersuari, Daniel Ricciardo, Vitantonio Liuzzi and Jerome d'Ambrosio all have varying degrees of uncertainty about where their futures lie and certainly not all of them will return in 2011.

A good performance at Interlagos on Sunday isn't likely to transform their fortunes, but it certainly won't do any of them any harm when it comes to teams making their final decisions for next year.

The battle for 10th spot

Lotus is favourite to retain 10th place © sutton-images.com

All eyes will be on the scrap for victory (unless you happen to have an eye on the battle for seventh in the constructors' championhip between Sauber and Toro Rosso), but there's a big money fight at the back too.

If Lotus achieves a top 10 finish for the second year in a row, it will unlock not only championship prize money, but also the history money - which in total should be worth in the region of £16 million.

Currently, Lotus holds 10th ahead of HRT courtesy of a trio of 13th places (two for Jarno Trulli and one for Heikki Kovalainen).

HRT's has a sole 13th place, but that means that if it, or Virgin, can nab even a 12th place in Brazil, they will take 10th and deny Lotus a huge cash injection. The stakes are high in F1, even at the back.