F1 - Brazil, dry

Sunday, 27 November 2011 18:00

There have been some fabulous, imaginative, unexpected races at Interlagos, over the years. But today's race wasn't one of them.

I found myself praying for rain, not just because it suits Jenson Button's racing style and it seemed as if the McLaren had been set up for changeable weather, but because I wanted the race to come to life. There was, at least, some variation in tyre strategy to give us something to think about other than whether Sebastian Vettel's gear box problem was going to affect his race any more than it did when he let Mark Webber past on lap 29.

As Sebastian was able to nurse his car home to second place, the answer proved to be, 'No'.

And would Lewis Hamilton pass Massa without tangling? It was looking promising when Lewis locked a wheel behind Massa but, perhaps because he, too, was suffering gearbox woes, he didn't seem to get to grips with the realities of overtaking, except for an abortive attempt on lap 42. All this squabbling was losing him time to teammate Jenson Button and he pitted on lap 45, having lost 7.5 seconds to Button.

Infuriatingly, Massa pitted next time around and got ahead of Lewis back on track. And then Lewis's gearbox gave up and the chase was over. Race over, season over, for Lewis Hamilton, who had looked full of fight until that point.

Of interest is why Adrian Sutil's Force India should be faster than the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and allow some great dicing over sixth position. Both run the same engine, of course, from Mercedes Benz HP, but we're used to seeing the Mercedes being much faster. Had Force India found a sweet spot, set up wise? Was Sutil trying to retain his seat for next year? (And, if so, why hadn't he tried like that all year?) A fine drive to sixth place, whatever the reason.

Jenson Button, when told by his engineer that he needed 'qualifying laps' for the last part of the grand prix, did his best, chasing down Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari with ten laps to go and sweeping past on lap 62 between turns 3 and 4 to retake the position that he lost to Alonso on lap 1, and consolidate his second place in the championship. But he could do nothing against Sebastian Vettel's ailing Red Bull, and Sebastian took second in the race.

After passing his teammate's stricken car at lap 29, Mark Webber drove well at the front to a comfortable win in a forest of waving Red Bull fists and third place in the championship. A popular winner and a well-deserved win.

Essentially, this was an interesting race, not full of thrills and spills but with a satisfying number of overtaking manouvres and a mix of strategies. I'm already on record asking Pirelli to make their tyres as degradable as they were at the beginning of the season, and nothing I saw today made me change my mind. By Sue Moorcroft

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