Brazilian GP : Red Bull the newly crowned champions

What an “amazing” weekend for Red Bulls at Sao Paulo!! The penultimate race sealed the constructor’s title after a 1-2 finish for the Red Bulls. Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber dominated the race with some drama of course with Vettel finally clinching the Brazilian GP ahead of his team mate Mark Webber!! The drivers still have to fight it out at the final race of the season at Abu Dhabi this weekend. Vettel’s victory now means that it is an open race between four drivers – Ferrari‘s Fernando Alonso (246 points), Red Bull’s Mark Webber (238 points), Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel (231 points) and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton (222 points).

Before the race started there were many opinions about how the race would shape up and most of them being on who would be leading after Lap 1 after the incredible “HULK” shocked everyone by claiming the pole position. Everyone expected the Red Bulls and Fernando Alonso to steal positions from Nico Hulkenberg and it went that way only. Vettel overtook Nico at Turn One while Webber completed the move at Turn Four. The duo then moved away from the pack and were indulged in a mini battle of their own till the end of the race only for the last few laps Alonso threatened Webber for the second place.

Coming back to the start, Alonso also did not take much time to overtake Hamilton who was in front of him. Hamilton made a mistake in the 2nd lap and ran wide and thus Alonso seized the opportunity and got past him. But Hulkenberg proved to be a much tougher resistance to overcome for Alonso who finally managed to overtake him on Lap 8. By that time the Red Bull duo had already pulled away from the pack. The resistance offered by Hulk did prove costly for him and during the safety car period also all the back runners ahead of him meant that he had very little chance to come close to Webber.

Massa had troubles with his front right wheel which appeared after his first stop only and this led to a second stop very soon. After two stops in quick succession he was left in the bottom pack. Things still were not going his way when he made contact with Buemi and thus dropping more places. He tried to take advantage of the safety car but the faster cars which came to lap him were at his disadvantage. Thus he had to be content with fifteenth position in his home Grand Prix.

Hamilton also did not have a convincing start to the race similar to his teammate Jenson Button. He was always complaining about the lack of speed in straight lines and also lack of grip on the radio. He was very much upset and struggled to get past Hulkenberg in the initial stages of the race. This lost him lots of time and was left far behind the front runners. But then he clocked the fastest lap of the race with Jenson the third fastest lap. Button had a relatively slower start to the race and that saw him drop positions also. But after an early pit stop and moving on to the primes he started picking up speed gradually. He drove well and worked hard to move up to fifth position with some great moves. The McLaren also tried out some desperate measures when they called in both their drivers into the pits when the safety car came on expecting that the newer primes give them an advantage over the older primes of the top three which did not work out.

Michael Schumacher had a very sensible race today and displayed good team work. He had a good start and moved up two places but an early pit stop and also a run into the grass meant only a gain of one position. Nico drove brilliantly and the strategy also worked out very well. Schumi showed his team spirit when he let Nico go ahead of him as Nico was on fresher tyres than him so that he can have a better go at Button who was in front of them.

Force India also did not have much of a favorable outing with Adrian Sutil who started from P22 managed a P12 finish and Liuzzi who was driving well crashed out. Sutil struggled initially with his hard medium tyres. It took some time for his car to get going and after a third of the race was over he started finding his rhythm. He also pitted late and was in around the eighth position for most of the time till he pitted on Lap 50. Liuzzi was driving very well until he got crashed out unfortunately. He was struggling with the breaks through out the race and finally crashed out in Lap 16.

Nico Hulkenberg who surprised everyone with a pole at Brazilian GP did his best to keep the likes of Alonso and Hamilton at bay for as much time as possible. He did well and was rock solid with his defense. He lacked in the straight line speed over the others and initially made some mistakes at the corners like over-speeding. Later on he corrected those errors and drove well to finish in eighth position. The early pit stop also caused him some positions.

Overall it was an exciting race at Brazil and we await the final race of the season at Abu Dhabi to find out which driver will take away the prized title of the best driver that is who will win the Driver’s Championship?? Keep Guessing!!

The Race Results are as follows - (courtesy : www.formula1.com)