Steve Cooper: On the Limit

Interlagos is a mighty racetrack - a circuit built for the people, one that shares with Monza a sort of careless nonchalance for its illustrious history. It oozes a brooding grandeur and magnificence that other venues can only dream of attaining.

Maybe it's because this place feels like the 1970s - a time when Formula 1 and its combatants were rich, edgy and glamorous. Sao Paulo oozes a sexy, laidback 1970s vibe - from the moment you touch down at Guarulhos airport on the fringes of this great city, you can feel it. There's no modern glass and brushed metal here - just ageing wooden decor and unpainted slabs of concrete that hurl you backwards a few decades.

You can easily imagine Emerson Fittipaldi striding across these carpeted floors, decked out in Elvis shades and jewellery and carrying a leather coat over his shoulder. And that dense, smoggy freeway will have been driven by guys like Pace, Piquet and Senna, jetlag piled heavily on their shoulders, but still bouncing and bucking down the road towards the crumbling Interlagos paddock.

Indeed, little seems to have changed in the 35-odd years since the track, hollowed out of the deep red clay back in the 1930s, was first used for grand prix racing. Nothing has been done to stem the tide of decay that has swept in around the circuit's fading walls. Wheezing up the hill in a tired Volkswagen taxi, we pass ramshackle favelas and crumbling gas stations before catching sight of a group of fans decked out in the bright blue caps and T-shirts that came to symbolise Fernando Alonso's reign at Renault.

The merchandise is obviously only a year old, bought to celebrate the crowning of the 2006 champion, but it already looks out of date and anachronistic. It's a stark reminder that, even if not much has outwardly changed at Interlagos since that first grand prix in 1973, very little stands still in Formula 1.

It's a lesson of which Renault's Pat Symonds is painfully aware. For the architect of those two back-to-back titles, 2007 has been a season of troubled fortunes for the once-dominant team. 'It's hard coming down from where we were to where we are,' he admits over a coffee in the hot Interlagos paddock. 'We thought we'd at least win a couple of races; when we realised that wasn't going to happen it was bloody disappointing.'

A keen philosopher and observer of Formula 1, talking to Symonds is always a useful reality check. Perceptive and clever, he cuts to the quick of any topic with exactly the same rapier-like intelligence that helped secure edgy victories for Renault at times when other, less-intuitive teams would have slipped up.

Get Symonds talking about Lewis Hamilton and he is similarly acute. 'As the season wore on, I just grew more and more amazed by what Lewis was doing,' he says. 'We arrived at the last race with the championship wide open and we know who the quickest guy out there is; we think the world of Fernando at Renault, so that's quite something.'

After the race, Symonds waded emotionlessly through the paddock's post-race celebrations, lost in his own bitter disappointment. Renault's world championship reign had ended in the worst possible way: when both cars ignominiously crashed out, Symonds felt the year had largely left a sour taste in his mouth.

'I don't think it's been a great year,' he admits. 'There have been far too many negative things going on to make this a classic season. Politics have totally overshadowed Formula 1 and, while they have to co-exist with all sports, things can still be handled with dignity, transparency and fairness. And I think we are just light years away from that in Formula 1 at the moment.'

For everyone in the Interlagos paddock on Sunday evening, it was a relief to finally reach the finish line.