Vettel breaks Mansell's pole record in Brazil

In Brazil, Sebastian Vettel finally took the record that the world had been expecting for much of 2011: the German scored his 15th pole position of the year, breaking the milestone that had been held by Nigel Mansell for 19 years.

Vettel, who also became the first driver to post 18 front-row starts in a season, grabbed the 30th pole of his career.

He admitted that Mansell's achievement was more impressive: the Briton achieved the feat in 16 races in 1992, rather than 19. Vettel's average qualifying position of 1.26, which comes as a result of 15 poles, three seconds and a third, is worse than Mansell's 1.19 from that year, which came from 14 poles, a second and a third. Alain Prost's 13 poles and three seconds from 1993 also returns an average of 1.19.

It didn't end there for Vettel's records. He became the first driver in F1 history to lead 17 races in a season (breaking the record he previously shared with Michael Schumacher's 2004 campaign) and tied his countryman for podium finishes in a single year - also 17.

Vettel scored his 36th podium, to equal Graham Hill's total.

Race notes

• Mark Webber's victory - the seventh of his F1 career - was his first since last year's Hungarian Grand Prix and moves him into joint 30th place on the all-time podiums list with Juan Pablo Montoya. Both have 30 rostrum finishes to their name. Coming into the race, Webber had the unenviable record of having set seven fastest laps during the season without a win.

• Red Bull scored its 27th F1 win in Brazil, tying with Benetton in seventh on the all-time list. It was also the team's 45th podium, equalling Ligier's total in 10th place in the history of the world championship.

• Jenson Button's third place was the 43rd occasion on which the Briton had made it onto the F1 podium, equalling Jackie Stewart's 14th spot in the all-time standings.

Capelli was the last full-time Ferrari driver to not make the podium in a season © LAT

• Felipe Massa finished fifth for the fifth time in 2011, equalling his best result of a podium-less year. The last full-time Ferrari driver to fail to make the top three in any race in a season was Ivan Capelli in 1992. But he was sacked two races before the end of the year, and the last time one of the Italian squad's drivers didn't make the rostrum in a complete season was in 1981, with Didier Pironi.

• Just seven drivers appeared on the podium all season: Vettel, Button, Webber, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov.

• Adrian Sutil equalled his best result of the 2011 season with sixth place in Brazil. He had previously achieved the same result in Germany.

• After no points in its previous three Brazilian Grands Prix, Force India scored double points from Sutil and Paul di Resta at Interlagos. It is the first time the team has managed double points in back-to-back races (following the Abu Dhabi GP).

• Michael Schumacher's winless run was extended to 40 races in Brazil.

• Lewis Hamilton suffered only the fourth mechanically-related retirement from his 90 F1 appearances.

Qualifying notes

• Red Bull locked out the front row for the seventh time this year in Brazil, one down on its 2010 record. The all-time record is shared by McLaren and Williams, who managed 12 lock-outs in 1988 and '93 respectively.

• Interlagos made it 50 races since Button's last pole position.

It's 50 races since Button's last pole, at Monaco in 2009 with Brawn © LAT

• Fifth and seventh places on the Interlagos grid for Alonso and Massa mean that Ferrari is the only team to have both its cars start inside the top 10 at every race this year. Only two races featured drivers from Red Bull and McLaren outside the top 10 on the grid: China (Webber, 18th) and Belgium (Button, 13th).

• Alonso, as usual, qualified fifth. It is the ninth time he has done so this year, breaking Kimi Raikkonen's record of fifth spots on the grid, set in 2002. In total, Ferrari had 19 row-three qualifications this year; McLaren had 20 in 2002.

• For the first time since the Belgian Grand Prix in August, Nico Rosberg failed to outqualify a Ferrari.

• Massa's seventh spot on the grid was his worst starting position since the Spanish Grand Prix in May. Since then he has been between third and sixth in every race.

• Sutil's qualifying form has picked up throughout the year. Having been outqualified 6-1 by Force India team-mate di Resta in the first seven races, he has turned the tables on the Briton, establishing a 9-3 advantage since then. He has also qualified inside the top 10 for the past four races, a feat he had not achieved since the first four races of the 2010 season.

• For the 17th time this year, Heikki Kovalainen was the quickest driver from the 2010-season new teams. The only other man to top this group in 2011 was Jarno Trulli, meaning Lotus has never been defeated on Saturdays.

• For only the second time - and the first occasion since last year's German Grand Prix - Virgin cars occupied the entire back row of the grid.