Analysis: Brazil offers some uncertainty

Shabby and decaying, with ramshackle grandstands and a cramped paddock, the bowl-like Sao Paulo circuit provides an incongruous backdrop to what local billboards advertise as 'O Duelo Final' - the final showdown in the most expensive and glamorous of sports.

The traffic-clogged approach road from South America's largest city passes an open sewer of a river and shacks built of planks and sheeting.

There is no greater contrast in Formula One between the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace and the marbled splendour of Malaysia, Bahrain and China.

There is nowhere as unpredictable, as now-retired Frenchman Jean Alesi will testify after a trackside hoarding collapsed and fell in the path of his Prost during practice in 2000.

Schumacher needs to win his last race on Sunday, with Renault's Alonso failing to score a point, if he is to retire with an eighth championship after what would be one of the closest-fought title battles in the sport's history.

Alonso, within touching distance of a second successive championship, needs just a single point.

Even if it sounds like a foregone conclusion, with the Spaniard able to play safe, Interlagos is one place where anything can happen and a driver can never rest easy.

Tough Call

In 2003, the race started in torrential rain and finished with a pile-up.

It took five days for Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, now Alonso's team mate at Renault, to be declared the winner for Jordan after McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen had enjoyed the podium accolades on the day.

Schumacher went off at a third corner that resembled nothing more than a multi-million dollar scrapyard as car after car failed to negotiate the raging torrent running across the track.

Alonso ended the afternoon in hospital, unable to take his third place on the podium after ploughing into the wreckage of Jaguar's Australian Mark Webber's earlier crash. The race was halted prematurely.

"Deciding to race here at Interlagos in 2003 was a pretty tough call," Webber said this week. "The weather was terrible, and we didn't have full wet tyres available.

"That's about as extreme as conditions can get before somebody takes the decision to cancel a session, postpone for a couple of hours or decide to race on a Monday."

In 2001, Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya was heading for a sensational victory in only his third race and after overtaking Schumacher when he was shunted out in a collision with backmarker Jos Verstappen.

Alonso cannot rest easy, even if Schumacher has said repeatedly now that his title hopes have disappeared.

"There aren't any more chances left," he said after an engine failure in Japan left him 10 points adrift of Alonso.

"To assume that someone will not finish or to plan on winning (the championship) on something like that isn't a basis that I want to build upon."

Maybe not, but nothing will be certain on Sunday until the final chequered flag.