GP report: Formula 1's subdued farewell

Sebastian Vettel did his victory donuts on-track after equalling Alberto Ascari's nine-race consecutive world championship grand prix victory record. Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber drove his last ever F1 slow-down lap with his helmet off. Felipe Massa drove in from his own semi-donuts after his last race for Ferrari, still seething at the FIA for his drive-through penalty for repeatedly putting all four wheels inside the white pit-entry lines at the top of the hill.

As the last engine - Massa's - was shut down in the collecting area, Formula 1 bade farewell to the V8 formula.

On that partly poignant and partly rebellious note, the sport signed off for the year and the forklifts got into immediate action in the mad, narrow confines of the Interlagos paddock.

Drivers walked out into the foggy evening, some not knowing if they had a drive next year, some knowing they definitely did not, some wondering if their teams would still be in existence.

With the title having been decided aeons ago, and so none of the normal Interlagos title-decider buzz, there was a strangely subdued vibe about the place as F1 headed into what may be a troubled winter.

By contrast, the opening laps were brilliantly vivid. Vettel was slow off the line - way too much wheelspin - and Nico Rosberg's Mercedes was past him immediately.

Both Ferraris were fast away, but Fernando Alonso's path to the right was blocked by Vettel and, as Fernando tried to switch left, he found that spot already occupied by the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. It was all Alonso could do to stave off Webber, who had the fast-starting Massa just behind him.

Rosberg picked off a slow-starting Vettel, while Alonso lost out to Hamilton away from the line © XPB

Ducking and diving through the Senna Esses, they snaked through the long Curva do Sol - though there wasn't much in the way of 'sol'.

Grey cloud hemmed in the track, the surface of which was a chilly 25 degrees C. Rain was forecast at some stage soon - and that's how it felt, but at Interlagos you never know.

As Vettel tracked Rosberg closely, Alonso got a run on Hamilton and tried to sit it out with him at Ferradura, with Lewis prevailing.

Fernando had another go a couple of corners later into the tight double-backs of the infield section. It was noticeable from Vettel's on-board footage that Rosberg's Mercedes was gripless in these early stages, and Hamilton reported the same phenomenon in his scrap with Alonso.

"The Ferraris are so much faster than us from cold," he said. "More traction, more grip, it even feels like more power."

At Juncao, the bottom of the long torquey drag up the hill, Vettel released the KERS charge he'd been saving up and got hard onto Rosberg's tractionless Merc, his gameplan being to do him in the slipstream onto the straight even before DRS was enabled a lap later.

Up they swarmed at 190mph, and Vettel ducked out early onto that straight, opting for the outside before Rosberg could close him out. He was ahead by two hundredths of a second as they crossed the line and unchallenged into the Senna S.

A few lengths behind, Hamilton felt literally powerless to stave off Alonso. He tried anyway, but the Ferrari was clean around his outside into the Senna S, Lewis then towing Webber along in his wake down to Descida do Lago.

Mark held him in and compromised his exit as they screamed down the hill, then diving for the inside of the left-hand kink, side-by-side through there and grinding ahead up the straight until Ferradura demanded it was time to turn in.

After a long side-by-side fight, Webber picked off Hamilton at Ferradura © LAT

He did so with the Mercedes still partly alongside, presenting Lewis with no option but to concede his fourth place.

It looked like Webber was having a ball at this point, driving free and uninhibited in his final race, and he set off now in chase of Alonso, the Ferrari 1.4s behind Vettel as they crossed the line for the second time.

Vettel was back in familiar territory, stamping his control on the race, judging his pace against the gap once he'd settled into a groove: "It was quite exciting in the first few laps, our first laps in the dry all weekend, finding the braking points and where the limit was."

On lap two there was a big cloud of white smoke on the exit of Juncao, heralding the end of Romain Grosjean's engine.

The Lotus had just been passed for eighth by Nico Hulkenberg, but the Sauber wasn't its recent quick self here, with excessive understeer and a quickly-graining front left. He'd passed the slow-starting Toro Rossos off the grid and pulled gradually away from Daniel Ricciardo, but was soon a long way behind Massa.

The Toro Rossos were not enjoying the same driveable balance as in the wet of qualifying and Ricciardo would soon give best to Jenson Button's McLaren, which conversely was behaving much better than the day before, when it had not been able to generate tyre heat.

Team-mate Sergio Perez was making similar progress further back from his penalised grid position.

On the fourth lap, Alonso swept boldly past Rosberg down to Descida do Lago, and this battle carried some edge given that Mercedes and Ferrari were fighting for second in the constructors' championship.

Nico was struggling with the balance of his car and badly lacked traction on this first set of tyres. Like everyone apart from Button and Esteban Gutierrez, Rosberg had started on the softer medium tyre, but the rears were not happy and soon he was easy meat for the charging Webber.

Keen to get on with his chase of Alonso, Mark put a straightforward DRS move down the pit straight into the Senna S on Rosberg going into the seventh lap.

As those around them struggled, the McLarens of Button and Perez flew © XPB

A light drizzle was now falling and team radars were warning of a full shower on its way, but no one knew quite when.

Strategists began thinking in terms of trying to stay out long enough so that their stops could be dovetailed, if necessary, with a change to intermediates, and this pushed the race decisively towards a two rather than three-stop. The two strategies were theoretically quite evenly matched otherwise.

Webber took a couple of tenths out of Alonso on the eighth lap and a chunky half-second next time, to put him right on the second-placed Ferrari's gearbox; Vettel by now was eight seconds up the road.

Alonso was quick in all the awkward places and withstood Webber's attack for the next four laps. On lap 13 Webber saved all his KERS for the run up the hill out of Juncao and was able to sweep ahead around the outside into the Senna S.

Alonso gave tenacious chase for a few corners, really making Webber work for it, but Mark wouldn't have been expecting anything less. It had taken 14 of the 71 laps for the Red Bulls to be running one-two.

About 10 seconds behind, Button finally nailed Hulkenberg for seventh at the second DRS zone, the pair having gone through the Senna S almost side-by-side. A couple of laps later Massa found a way past the struggling Rosberg at the same place, the second Ferrari now up to fifth and not so far adrift of Hamilton.

Rosberg then noted how Massa was putting all four wheels inside the pit-entry lane, making a shorter, faster entry onto the pit straight - and he relayed this information over the radio for FIA race director Charlie Whiting's benefit.

Ferrari was told to inform Massa to desist and he did so - for a while. Others were occasionally doing the same - Vettel, Webber and Button, to name three.

Once Webber got up to second, Vettel just matched his pace back to him, keeping the gap at around 10 seconds.

If this were to be a straightforward race from here, Seb had it won. But this was early in the race to be assuming routine at Interlagos. That rain's threat was constantly delayed, but still there.

Vettel stretched away as the field settled down in his wake © XPB

For a two-stop strategy, you ideally needed to stay out another 10 laps or so. This phase of the race lacked the earlier zizz as the pack had unjumbled itself from the wet pecking order to that of the dry.

Hamilton's stint was going quite nicely now that the Merc had achieved its correct tyre temperatures, way better than Rosberg's.

Between laps 13 and 20 he kept the gap to Alonso constant at around 5s. But after 20 laps Alonso was feeling the rears beginning to fade and Hamilton was beginning now to catch him.

Massa had hit the same phase a couple of laps earlier. Since passing Rosberg he'd managed to pull out around 1s and so Ferrari had brought him in on lap 19 and got him out again on another set of softer option tyres.

Two laps later the team brought Alonso in, and had him fitted with a set of harder primes. Hamilton trailed down the pitlane a few seconds behind and he too received a set of primes.

Alonso rejoined the track in front of Massa, Hamilton behind. Felipe's new-tyred laps while Hamilton had trailed around on his old Pirellis for an extra three laps had leapfrogged Massa ahead of the Mercedes. Which rather spoilt Hamilton's plans of catching Alonso.

When the Red Bulls stopped, there was a delay on the left-front of Webber's car, costing him around 3s. Coupled with Alonso's stop two laps earlier, this allowed the Ferrari to scream past as Mark left the pit exit.

That's all it took for Fernando to snatch an opportunity, but Webber was able to repass almost immediately into the Senna S, with Alonso coming back at him but Mark prevailing and then pulling away.

Hamilton's pursuit of the Ferrari pair got complicated further when a message was relayed from race control that Massa should serve a drive-through penalty for having once more breached the rule regarding placing all four wheels inside the pit-entry lines as he crested the top of the hill.

Massa stayed out for the maximum permitted three laps, during which time he slowed, thereby backing Hamilton further away from Alonso. Even in his final grand prix for a team that's not renewed his contract, Felipe appeared still to be taking one for that team. Or was he?

Massa's pace slowed before his drive-through, to Hamilton's frustration © XPB

Before being informed of the penalty, Massa had been lapping in the high 1m17s. His three laps after being told of it were 1m18.1s, 1m18.4s and 1m18.3s.

"He's backing off," complained Hamilton, who had been told by his crew not to attack him.

But Massa's subsequent pace after coming in for the penalty on lap 34 - and giving a few hand gestures along the way - was mid-1m18s, with clear space ahead of him.

So perhaps his tyres had simply gone again - but it was rather early for that to have happened, just 10 laps after his first stop.

It all meant that by the time Massa pitted out of his way, and rejoined way back behind Perez, Hamilton's deficit to Alonso had grown to seven seconds.

Hamilton was able to reduce this by a couple of seconds before they each made their second stops 13 laps later. It wasn't enough.

Alonso, meanwhile, had fallen around 6s off the back of Webber, who in turn was almost 13s down on the relentless Vettel. Still the drizzle came on and off, still the arrival of the full rain was postponed, still everyone tried to stay out as long as possible just in case the rain should arrive.

McLaren took advantage of this by bringing in Button from just behind fifth-placed Rosberg, so as to undercut him. Mercedes left Nico out for a further couple of laps, not wanting to risk him running out of rubber at the end, and Jenson duly went by before the Mercedes rejoined.

Perez pitted on the same lap as Rosberg and rejoined just behind.

Going into lap 47 the destiny of this race almost turned. Valtteri Bottas had pitted his Williams three laps earlier, rejoining just behind Hamilton but a lap down.

Bottas's clash with Hamilton nearly turned the race on its head © LAT

On his new option tyres Bottas was immediately lapping almost 1s per lap faster than Hamilton, whose rubber was 20 laps old, and he went to unlap himself from the Mercedes, using DRS down the pit straight and opting for the outside line into the Senna S, but still not fully alongside as they got there.

"I didn't realise he was still there," said Hamilton. "He was a lap down and trying to go around the outside."

Lewis steered right to take up the normal approach to the turn, and his right-rear touched the left-rear of the Williams, instantly ripping off Bottas's tyre and spinning the Williams to a stop.

Hamilton's tyre deflated and delaminated, and he crawled back to the pits.

Was retrieval of the Williams going to involve a safety car? It was a crucial call, and for Red Bull there were only a few seconds to make it as Vettel was just coming up to Juncao at the bottom of the hill before the rise to the pitlane - about 12 seconds away.

"If it had gone under a safety car," said team boss Christian Horner, "then Seb could have got caught behind it at the beginning of the lap while everyone else got to pit for free. It would have cost Seb about 20 seconds."

Which would've dropped him back to third - and put Webber, in his final grand prix, in front!

"They told me to box if I could," said Seb. "I had enough time, but I think it was a bit on the limit for the team to be ready."

The team issued the same instruction to Webber 13s back. In theory there was just enough time to get Vettel in, serviced and under way just as Webber was arriving. But in the confusion one of the tyres intended for Vettel was in fact Webber's, and this took a few seconds to sort.

It cost Vettel around 11s, five of which included Webber stationary behind him. Alonso pitted too and made up all that time on them. Vettel and Webber were now on primes, Alonso on options.

Webber suddenly had Alonso on his tail again © XPB

Vettel's lead had been cut to 7s and Alonso lay right on Webber's tail once more.

As it turned out, there was no safety car... Hamilton limped slowly in for a new set of tyres and was then informed he would have to serve a drive-through for causing the accident.

By the time he'd suffered all those delays he was outside the points.

Vettel set about extending his lead once more, Webber railed against it and set the race's fastest lap as he did so and gradually eased out his advantage over Alonso.

Button had now slotted into the place where Hamilton, Massa and Grosjean would have been but for their misadventures, and so lay fourth, but with enough pace to remain in front of Rosberg, who was having to withstand constant pressure from Perez.

The penalty-delayed Massa was some way distant from that, in seventh, but pulling steadily away from Hulkenberg, while Hamilton caught and passed Ricciardo for ninth. Mercedes retained its second place in the constructors' championship over Ferrari.

Fog lay just beyond the boundaries of the circuit and the drizzle never did ease off. But nor did it properly rain.

Vettel's reign, meanwhile, continued right to the very end of the formula. As the top three waited for the podium ceremonies there was an obvious warmth between Alonso and Webber.

Vettel stood to one side, with Horner. Seb was magnanimous in his words about his retiring team-mate and later added his name to those of the other drivers to a Brazilian flag that was presented to Webber.

Mark looked on unimpressed, said something about a PR stunt - straight, honest and fast right to the very end. But he's been up against a phenomenon these past five years.