Brazilian Grand Prix : Results

Eight Months of scintillating racing comes to an end for the 2011 season at Interlagos, Sao Paulo, Brazil. The nineteen race season saw many new records being created while some being equaled.

Mark Webber won the last race of the season with a gear box problem of Vettel making him drop speed thus allowing Webber his first victory this season. Superb end to the season for Red Bull with a one – two in the last race with Button who had an amazing season too finished three.

The build up was also exciting to the last race of the 2011 season. The fight for the second place finish for the driver’s championships, Massa’s 100th race and will it be Massa’s last race as a Ferrari driver and moreover will this be an end to the longest career in formula one spanning 322 races? Of course I am talkign about the Brazilian Rubens Gonçalves “Rubinho” Barrichello. The race also saw six different drivers sporting new helmets with Hamilton, Barrichello and Senna sporting their new helmets in the memoirs of their Idol Ayrton Senna; while Massa will be sporting a new helmet for his 100th career race (10 years in F1); Vettel has his funky new helmet to pay tribute to his team engineers who worked hard to earn him his second consecutive driver’s championship title and at last Liuzzi who is sporting his self customized Helmet and this one no one knows why!!

The race started with Vettel, Webber and Button in their respective positions while Alonso overtook Hamilton, Mercedes‘s Rosberg being overtaken by Massa who nearly missed out on a double position improvement as he nearly missed out overtaking Hamilton and Michael Schumacher for the first time losing a position at start in this season when he was overtaken by Di Resta which he regained at the end of the lap. But Barrichello who was supposedly driving his last race had a miserable start who fell to fourteenth position from twelfth but regained two places by lap 5. By lap 5 Vettel had opened up the gap to 2.5 seconds.

The battle for ninth between Schumacher and Bruno Senna reminded us all about the battle between Schumacher and Ayrton Senna when Schumacher won his first race of a series of eight races when he won his first championship. But this sadly ended when an overambitious overtaking manuever by Schumacher lead to his downfall. At the first corner after lap 10 Schumacher tried overtaking Senna clumsily where he could have waited till turn three and used his DRS and could have overtaken Senna. As he just overtook he tried to close off Senna but in order doing so got his left tyre punctured by Senna’s front wing not a move a 7 time champ. Schumacher came out last after his pit stop and Senna came out 17th but was also awarded a drive through penalty and lost three more places. Alonso overtook button on lap 11 superbly and started opening up since then.

Vettel started having gearbox problems from lap 14 as he received orders on radio for a slower shifting between gear two and three. Massa had something to cheer for four laps when he lead his 100th race for four laps from lap fifteen to lap nineteen as he delayed his pit stop.

Barrichello also tried to recover after the freak start and moved up to fifteen by lap 24 while Rosberg was also driving well as he moved from thirteenth position to eight within ten laps of his pit stop. Lap twenty four saw a tyre pop out of Timo Glock thus resulting his immediate retirement. As he was coming out of the pit lane his back left wheel got loose and hit the pit wall but was removed quickly before causing harm to any.

Lap twenty six saw Vettel being warned once again about a serious gearbox problem. There was a brilliant battle between Senna and Maldonado for sixteenth position and Maldonado overtook him on Lap twenty six for sixteenth position. Senna soon got back his position after Maldonado spun out two laps later. But was again overtaken by Kovalainen a lap later and by Schumacher after another lap as a result of his third pit stop.

As the battle for sixteen was going on Vettel was overtaken by Webber after his gearbox failure with Webber eyeing his first victory of the season. Vettel dropped half a second a lap after being overtaken.

Jenson Button pit on lap 32 to come out on harder tyres to come out sixth playing a two stop strategy as opposed to the three stop strategy of the others.

Lap 36 saw Red Bull engineers warning Vettel about a possibility of rainfall. Schumacher also pit on lap thirty five to come out on nineteenth position. Meanwhile both the Force India cars were going on fine with Sutil on 9th after two stops and Di Resta on 8th after on stop at lap 36.

Lap 38 saw gearbox problem with Hamilton and him being warned that there was nothing he could do. The impact of the track on the car machinery was seen evident as there were two gear box failures of the top runners. Button moved back to P4 on Lap 39, the same Lap where Webber pit; the next lap saw Vettel pit and come back second behind Webber.

On Lap 41, Kobayashi was being seen urged by his team not to try overtaking maneuver on Di Resta for ninth position and loose a position so as to save a championship point as one point loss to Torro Rosso would mean losing a position in the championship. A lap later Hamilton did a smooth overtaking move on Massa to go into P5 but then Massa immediately regained position from him. Hamilton pit on Lap 45 and came back on P7. Hamilton did have a chance to go ahead of Massa when Massa was coming out of the pits but a brilliantly timed stop, very rare in case of Massa saved his position.

Lap 45 was Vettel’s as he had the fastest Lap going hard on his car and was warned a lap later to save his gearbox and his main objective was to stay ahead of Alonso. Hamilton ended his gearbox problems on Lap 48 after his gear box stopped functioning and Hamilton had to retire.

Lap 50 saw a builing up a batlle for sixth between Rosberg and Sutil with Hamilton retiring. The end of the lap saw Sutil overtake Rosberg brilliantly for P6 and then immediately started to pull off. Button made a surprising third stop and came out fourth ending all hopes of a podium. Meanwhile Barrichello was having a disappointing race with Perez overtaking him for P13 on lap 55.

There was a light moment as Vettel was joking that he felt like Ayrton Senna when in 1991 he was stuck in gear 2 and finished the race on P1 against all odds.

The battle between Button and Alonso also started to heat up as Button was moving on Alonso’s tail on Lap 60. A superb move at the start of Lap 62 saw an overtaking move by Button blocked by Massa while Button completed the move with DRS on turn three of the lap. Vettel’s gearbox problem showed up again as he went wide on lap 62 and immediately the next lap Button was notified about this problem of Vettel and was asked to take advantage.

Vettel shrug off his gearbox problem to the end and went all out in the last three laps clocking the fastest lap on third last lap only to be beaten by Webber in the next lap and Webber again beat his fastest lap with a superb last lap of the season.

Finally Webber clinched the race and got a standing ovation from the stewards which was also given to Barrichello who finished fourteenth making people ponder i fit would be his last race!

Massa did a double 360 after the end of the race for the home crowd even though it was against the FIA rules.

The final standings courtesy BBC -