The stage was set. It was the final race of the season, for some it was the final race at their respective teams, for Cosworth it was their final race for potentially a long time, for the 2.4 litre V8's it was their last race in the sport's history, and for one man it was the last race of their career.
A thrilling qualifying session had concluded with Vettel on pole, with fellow countryman Nico Rosberg completing the front row. Just behind was Fernando Alonso after an inspired qualifying performance, with Mark Webber lining up fourth for the final time. Fifth was Lewis Hamilton, who seemed a little downbeat after qualifying, with Romain Grosjean just behind. Seventh was the ever-keen Daniel Ricciardo, looking to show he's the right man to be replacing Webber at Red Bull, while in eighth was team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne, the man overlooked for the sought-after seat. Ninth was Felipe Massa, looking to do his country proud in his last race for Ferrari, and rounding out the top ten was Nico Hulkenberg, who didn't seem to be on form this weekend.
Sunday morning came, and the weather had cleared; whilst the skies remained grey, the temperatures were cool but importantly the track was dry, to relief of some but to the upset of others. The most notable potential benefactors were Mclaren and Force India, who had predicted a dry race and opted to sacrifice qualifying pace by running a lower downforce configuration in hope. As the lights went out, the two Red Bulls made fairly mediocre starts, with the two Mercedes cars profiting; into the first corner, Nico Rosberg took the lead with Lewis Hamilton taking advantage of a boxed-in Fernando Alonso, moving up into third. One man with a lightning start was Felipe Massa, moving up from ninth to fifth in the short run before the first turn. The field passed through the Senna 'S' without incident. On the way into turn three, Rosberg found himself under threat from Vettel, while just behind Alonso was looking to challenge Hamilton. With neither finding a way through, the field steamed up the hill into the fast right-hander of the Curva do Laranjinha, Vettel was once again trying to find a way past Rosberg, with Hamilton having to defend hard from Alonso, who had managed to pull up alongside the Englishman on the outside. Through the infield section, Alonso was really pushing to give Hamilton a hard time, braking late to try and find a gap to get alongside Hamilton's Mercedes.
As the first lap drew to a close, Vettel was pulling alongside Rosberg on the right, whose performance was suffering due to the high wing levels they had run to cope with the changing conditions the day before, and for salt in the wound, Alonso was alongside Hamilton as the four cars crossed the line. Vettel had managed to gain the lead around turn one, with Alonso on Hamilton's inside; it a was battle Hamilton wasn't going to win, and after being squeezed a little to the outside, the Englishman slots in behind, delegated back to fourth. The poor line through the corner meant that Webber had managed to significantly close the gap, closing right in on the Mercedes gearbox. The Australian pulled to the left but ran out of steam on the entry to turn three, allowing Hamilton to retain the place, but the poor corner entry line compromised Hamilton's exit speed, allowing the Australian to pull up alongside once more on the inside of turn four before they climbed the hill side by side. In a brave move, Webber hung on around the outside, slowing closing the door and taking fourth.
By lap the end of lap three we'd seen our first casualty; Romain Grosjean's Renault engine decided it didn't want to wait until the end of the race for its farewell and failed on the way up the hill towards the start/finish line. The consequence of this was a thick white cloud of smoke, presenting a real hazard for competitors behind. Sensibly, yellow flags were waved as the rest of the field passed through the cloud, with drivers having to slow dramatically in order to pass through safely. It was said that the failure was due to a ruptured oil line. Moments later, Rosberg was under pressure from Alonso in third on the run down to turn three, with the Spaniard taking to the outside to complete what looked to be an easy pass for second. At this point, Webber behind was looking ever more menacing.
On the seventh lap, Webber had managed to pull alongside Rosberg into the first turn, taking the outside line and sweeping past the Mercedes in another seemingly effortless move. The Mercedes were in trouble; their higher downforce configuration, which had been proven to work well earlier in the year, was really putting pain to them, with Rosberg and Hamilton running fourth and fifth respectively.
Meanwhile further down, Adrian Sutil was passed by Gutierrez into turn three, putting him out wide. With the slow resulting exit speed, Gutierrez' fellow countryman Perez unexpectedly managed to sneak alongside Sutil, taking him somewhat by surprise; the pair touched wheels with Perez gaining the upper hand, almost literally, from Sutil, who decided to gesticulate from his cockpit. Perez's team-mate Button was also putting in an inspired performance, seeming to make light work of Daniel Ricciardo down to turn three, taking eighth in the process.
On lap thirteen, Webber challenged Alonso across the start/finish line, carrying a notable speed advantage, pulling alongside Alonso on the inside; the pass was completed before the first corner, with Webber now up into second place and looking particularly handy at this phase of the race. Meanwhile Sergio Perez was continuing his charge, pulling off a great move against Valtteri Bottas for tenth.
Lap twenty four, and Webber was first to pit out of the Red Bulls, but typical of Webber's luck it was slow; the left rear wheel was slow to go on, costing Webber roughly three seconds which was costly enough to put him back behind Alonso by a second. Six laps later, Alonso's team-mate Massa, in his last race in red, was under investigation for crossing the hatchings on the entry to the pitlane, which in an effort to increase safety, was made a no-go area by Charlie Whiting only that morning. The pit-lane at Interlagos has always been a grey area, with it falling directly on the racing line and the potential for accidents always there, with some incidents already having happened in the practice sessions. Shortly after, in a battle with Gutierrez, Bottas almost repeated the feat, with Gutierrez opting to swap from the outside to the inside for turn one. The two banged wheels, and were lucky that there wasn't an accident, let alone damage. Gutierrez was seen to be at fault, perhaps showing a little too much aggression, squeezing Bottas to the outside.
On lap thirty one, Rob Smedley, Massa's race engineer got on the radio to the Brazilian to warn him about the pit entry, while Bottas continued to go backwards, this time at the hands of Maldonado, passing in much the same way that Gutierrez had a lap before, thankfully minus the contact. It wasn't looking to be quite the same weekend for Bottas that it was a week ago. Two laps later, Massa had learned his fate and had received a drive-through penalty for his crime, to which he showed his displeasure towards the FIA on the radio back to Smedley. Massa chose to ignore Smedley's request to serve the penalty at the end of lap thirty three, instead opting to serve it a lap later.
Twelve laps later, something strange happened; Vettel slowed notably, and began to allow drivers to unlap themselves; first was Adrian Sutil into turn one. No one could understand quite what was happening, but the team showed no concern. The gap back to Webber was largely unaffected, standing at about twelve seconds.
Four laps later and disaster for Lewis Hamilton; The Williams of Valtteri Bottas inexplicably chose to draw alongside Hamilton's Mercedes on the outside on entry to turn three. With Bottas clearly unsighted, Hamilton proceeded to move across the circuit to assume the racing line. The two cars collided, putting pain to Hamilton's race, causing a puncture and unscheduled pit-stop. The pain was far worse for Bottas; the collision caused major damage to the left-rear wheel, completely separating the rubber from the wheel, and as the car spun out of control, it caused notable damage to the floor, with possible damage to the left-rear suspension. The car came to rest post-incident and brought out the yellow flags, as it was in a precarious position on the run-off area. To make matters worse for Hamilton, he was given a drive-through penalty for his part in the collision.
This lead to an interesting consequence; Webber had been called in to pit, but in the wake of the accident, Vettel was called in as a matter of urgency as Red Bull predicted that the safety car would be called out whilst Bottas' Williams was recovered. The crew simply weren't ready and took a bit of time to get Vettel's tyres out and removed from their blankets. Webber, who was initially called in as part of his strategy, was only twelve seconds behind, and upon arrival in the pits, Vettel was still there, holding the Australian up. After Vettel was released, Webber made his stop and came out with only half the time separating him from Vettel that was there before.
Lap sixty one, and the threat of rain loomed large; no one could be sure whether it would hold off before race-end. Charles Pic had a right-rear suspension failure, leading to a scary moment coming out of turns three and four. He attempted to get his Caterham up the hill, but ran out of momentum before coming to rest a short distance off the circuit on the left hand side. This was a little precarious, and of course prompted yellow flags. His car was cleared fairly promptly and racing resumed. Four laps later and Maldonado had had a coming-together with the Torro-Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne; the Frenchman made a move to pass into turn one and was occupying the inside line alongside the Venezuelan, but Maldonado proceeded to turn into Vergne and the two made contact, with Maldonado coming off the worse. In his efforts to rejoin, he nearly collected now fourth-placed Jenson Button, who was having a fantastic season finale in a year he'd rather forget.
As the race drew to a close, it looked as though the weather was going to hold off, and Vettel was still leading from Webber and Alonso, with the Australian making his round of the circuit for the last time. All the while, Webber was attempting to disconnect his HANS device. Vettel crossed the line as victor, with team-mate Webber around seven seconds adrift - Alonso rounded out the top three. During an emotional in-lap for Webber, he did something we rarely see in F1; he removed his helmet whilst touring round, waving to the adoring crowd as he went. The podium was indeed an emotional affair, and a great way for Webber to finish his career; he may not have won that day, but he took home a trophy and snatched fastest lap from Vettel. As the podium celebrations began, Webber managed to trip over the bottom step of the podium, which perhaps served to prove: If Webber didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all.
Final Classification
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time/Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Sebastian Vettel | RBR Renault | 1hr 32min 36.300 |
| 2. | Mark Webber | RBR Renault | +10.452 |
| 3. | Fernando Alonso | Scuderia Ferrari | +18.913 |
| 4. | Jenson Button | Mclaren Mercedes | +37.360 |
| 5. | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | +39.048 |
| 6. | Sergio Perez | Mclaren Mercedes | +44.051 |
| 7. | Felipe Massa | Scuderia Ferrari | +44.110 |
| 8. | Nico Hulkenberg | Sauber Ferrari | +64.252 |
| 9. | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | +72.903 |
| 10. | Daniel Ricciardo | STR Ferrari | +1 Lap |
| 11. | Paul di Resta | Force India Mercedes | +1 Lap |
| 12. | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber Ferrari | +1 Lap |
| 13. | Adrian Sutil | Force India Mercedes | +1 Lap |
| 14. | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus Renault | +1 Lap |
| 15. | Jean-Eric Vergne | STR Ferrari | +1 Lap |
| 16. | Pastor Maldonado | Williams Renault | +1 Lap |
| 17. | Jules Bianchi | Marussia Cosworth | +2 Laps |
| 18. | Giedo van der Garde | Caterham Renault | +2 Laps |
| 19. | Max Chilton | Marussia Cosworth | +2 Laps |
| 20. | Charles Pic | Caterham Renault | Suspension |
| 21. | Valtteri Bottas | Williams Renault | Accident |
| 22. | Romain Grosjean | Lotus Renault | Engine |
With the season now over, and the new technical regulations coming in, the V8's had sung for the last time, and in what was an almost ceremonial affair, the teams revved them up until they exploded, consigning them to the history books in the process. The teams can look ahead to 2014; the challenges ahead are daunting, with many teams of course already having turned their attentions to them. New technical regulations are of course leading to mass speculation as to what 2014's cars may look like, as well as the newly-located exhaust outlets, putting an end to the 'coanda war' of the last four years. We will no doubt see new flashes of inspiration and ingenuity, as well as the flash of exploding V6 turbos, but one thing's for certain; we're in for one hell of a year.
Article by Chris Kinsman
MyF1World Journalist.
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