2012 Brazilian Grand Prix

Report

Background

The 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix marked Michael Schumacher's final race before his second retirement and was also the last race for Bruno Senna, Vitaly Petrov, Timo Glock, Pedro de la Rosa, Narain Karthikeyan, and the HRT Formula 1 Team. HRT in their history did not score a point, and withdrew because of financial issues.

Tyre supplier Pirelli provided teams with early prototypes of their compounds for the 2013 Formula One season during Friday practice for testing and review. Pirelli brought its silver-banded hard compound tyre as the harder "prime" tyre and the white-banded medium compound tyre as the softer option tyre, as opposed to 2011 Brazilian Grand Prix when they brought the medium and soft compound dry tyres.

Championship permutations

In order to become world champion for the third time, Sebastian Vettel needed to defend a 13-point advantage over Fernando Alonso, meaning the latter needed at least third place even if the former failed to score. Conversely, a fourth place was sufficient for Vettel even if Alonso won, and thus he was the odds-on favourite.

Free practice

During free practice on Friday and Saturday, it was Lewis Hamilton and McLaren who set the pace, closely followed by championship contender Vettel and his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber. While Hamilton topped the time sheets in both Friday sessions, Jenson Button was quickest during the third session on Saturday morning.

Fernando Alonso had a difficult first free practice, trailing Vettel by 0.465 seconds, twice as much as in previous races. He was able to lap faster than the German on the harder compound tyres in the second session. Ferrari looked stronger during the long run trials with Felipe Massa putting in the most consistently fast lap times, 0.1 seconds ahead of Hamilton. With high temperatures, tyre degradation was a concern for the teams in the paddock; Hamilton commented that "it felt almost as though I was sliding around the track with the tyres melting".

Qualifying

After the very warm practice sessions, qualifying on Saturday was run under difficult weather conditions. Qualifying one (Q1) started on a damp track and therefore on intermediate tyres, while by Q2 the track was almost dry and slick tyres were used. In Q1, Romain Grosjean collided with the slower running HRT of Pedro de la Rosa and lost his front wing. While he succeeded in nursing the car back into the pit lane, he was unable to change his tyres and was therefore left in a disappointing 18th position on the grid. Michael Schumacher's last ever qualifying did not go well either. He took 14th position, almost half a second down on his teammate, admitting he had perhaps compromised his setup too much for an expected wet race.

The McLarens were fastest all weekend and easily took the front row, with Lewis Hamilton securing his last pole position with the team. Title contenders Vettel and Alonso both struggled, taking 4th and 8th position on the grid respectively. Pastor Maldonado was handed a 10-place grid penalty for missing the weighbridge in the second part of qualifying. He dropped from sixth to 16th, moving Alonso one place up to seventh.

Race

Title contender Alonso and Ferrari were hoping for damp conditions during the race, stating: "Wet races are a bit more unpredictable so we need some kind of damp race with many things happening, because we know that in normal conditions, fighting for the championship will be very difficult." Felipe Massa discounted rumours he might try to help Alonso win the title by forcing Vettel into retirement, stating: "I've always been an honest person and an honest driver. And that will continue to be the case. My limit is the limit of the regulations, and I will stay true to this limit."

With only light rain just 10 minutes before the start, all teams opted to start on slick tyres. Vettel got away poorly, dropping to seventh position, while his rival Alonso moved up into fifth. Vettel and Bruno Senna collided at turn 4 in a racing incident, which saw Vettel spin while Senna ended up hitting the rear of Pérez. Vettel suffered damage to his left sidepod but was able to carry on, albeit in 22nd position. The reigning world champion began to move up the order, as there was close racing for position at the front of the field as well. Massa helped his teammate overtake Mark Webber on lap two going into the Senna-S, giving the Spaniard the crucial third position he would need to win the title. Alonso lost the position again to the fast running Force India of Nico Hülkenberg after running wide on lap four. Maldonado crashed out on lap two, when he lost control of his car on the kerb through the inside of turn 3, and crashed into the tyre barrier on the exit of the corner.

Rain began to fall during the next few laps and the first cars made pit stops for intermediate tyres, including the two title contenders, while Button and Hülkenberg stayed out. This proved to be the right decision since the rain decreased shortly afterwards and cars on intermediates were forced to pit for slick tyres once again. Hülkenberg continued his strong performance by overtaking Button for the lead at the end of lap 18 (their official time differential at the finish line at the end of that lap was 0.000).

With the two cars in front leading the field by almost a minute, debris on the track brought out the safety car on lap 23. At this point, Alonso and Vettel were running in fourth and fifth place. At the restart on lap 29, Kamui Kobayashi took fifth position from Vettel. The damage on the Red Bull car slowed Vettel down considerably more in dry conditions, and Massa helped his teammate by overtaking the German shortly after. Meanwhile, at the front, Hamilton took second from his teammate and was able to pass Hülkenberg when the German half-spun. Hülkenberg pursued the McLaren but slid into him on lap 54, leaving Hamilton out of the race with damage to the left front suspension and himself with a drive-through penalty, handing Button the lead.

Post-race

The race received widespread acclaim, with The Guardian calling it a "rollercoaster". Three-time world champions Niki Lauda and Nelson Piquet stated that they had never seen a race like it. German magazine Der Spiegel deemed the race "spectacular" and "historic" due to the record-breaking 147 successful overtaking manoeuvres carried out during the race. Reuters said that "the Brazilian weather produced a thriller to stand the test of time against some of the sport's great races". Sebastian Vettel himself called it his "toughest race ever". This race has been retrospectively noted for its dramatic nature.

At age 25, Vettel became the youngest triple world champion of the sport, six years younger than Ayrton Senna had been in the 1991 Formula One season. On drawing level with Senna, Vettel commented: "To win that third title here, where one of my greatest idols, Ayrton Senna, was from, it is very difficult to imagine I join him and other great names by winning three successive titles". Red Bull's team principal Christian Horner praised his driver, saying: "Sebastian has driven better than ever this season and has fought his way back into this championship, he's never given up and you saw that in today's race."

The Daily Mirror lauded Red Bull designer Adrian Newey for making the decision to change the engine mapping on Vettel's car after reviewing photos of the damage sustained in the first lap accident. Newey was quoted saying: "So we photographed it going past, saw huge crease in exhaust, which usually means it will soon crack and the bodywork catch fire. ... So we changed the engine mapping to keep the exhaust as cool as we could, even though it meant lost performance."

Championship runner-up Fernando Alonso expressed pride for his team, going so far as to call the 2012 Formula One season "the best season of my career". During the podium interview with Nelson Piquet, he asserted: "Obviously we lost the championship now, but I don't think, as you said, that we lost here in Brazil, we lost in some races where we were a little bit unlucky. But this is a sport, but when you do something with your heart, when you do something with 100 per cent, you have to be proud of your team, happy for them, and we will try next year." The press later pointed out Alonso's "grace after the race", contrasting him to Vettel who had criticized the competition's "dirty tricks" during his post-race press conference.

Speaking about his victory, Jenson Button congratulated his team, saying: "This is the perfect way to end the season. We have had ups and downs and to end on a high bodes well for 2013." His victory in this race would turn out to be his last in Formula One. It would also be McLaren's last victory until the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, which was won by Daniel Ricciardo.

Classification

Qualifying

Notes

^1 – Pastor Maldonado received a ten-place grid penalty after receiving his 3rd reprimand of the season, for missing a call in to the weighbridge from the FIA.

^2 – Pedro de la Rosa received a five-place grid penalty for replacing his gearbox.

Final Championship standings

Bold text and an asterisk indicates the World Champions.