Brazilian GP 2011: Webber wins, Vettel nurses his gearbox

At the final race of the 2011 season, Mark Webber finally won a race too. The Australian took victory in the Brazilian Grand Prix ahead of his Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel. Jenson Button finished third for McLaren. The race was decided not on track but in the gearbox: Vettel was leading and had to slow down because of a fault. On lap 30 he let Webber through.

Vettel had already made history before the race. At the Autódromo José Carlos Pace he took his 15th pole position of the season with a 1:11.918. That beat Nigel Mansell's record of 14 poles from 1992, which he had already equalled at the Abu Dhabi GP. Webber lined up alongside him on the front row, with Button and Lewis Hamilton behind.

Vettel stayed ahead after the start and pulled away. Behind him, Hamilton lost a place to Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari at the very first corner. A few laps later the Spaniard got past Button as well. Button had to lift at Ferradura because there was debris on the track. He didn't know what it was and didn't want to risk simply driving through it. As a result, the move had been “handed to Alonso quite easily”, Button said afterwards (source 6).

After around 14 laps, Red Bull radioed Vettel: the data showed a gearbox fault. He was told to upshift earlier in second gear. Later the problem got worse, and Vettel had to short-shift in every gear (source 3).

The pit stops initially shook things up at the front. Vettel pitted on lap 17, Webber a lap later. Felipe Massa stayed out longer and therefore led on laps 19 and 20. He was the only driver outside Red Bull to lead that day. From lap 21, Vettel was back in front.

Lap 30 proved decisive. Vettel had backed off, and Webber went past without resistance. The world champion then set several fastest laps and kept up with ease, but never attacked his team-mate again (source 3).

From then on, Webber was only briefly out of the lead twice, both times because of pit stops. He stopped on laps 38 and 58, Vettel a lap later each time. On lap 60 Webber took the lead for good and also set the fastest lap of the race on his way to the flag. It was his first win since the previous year's Hungarian GP, his seventh Grand Prix victory and his second in Brazil after 2009 (source 3). It remained his only win of the 2011 season.

Behind the Red Bulls, the fight was on for the final podium place. Button struggled badly on the soft tyres and spoke of “massive degradation on every set” (source 5). McLaren therefore changed tack: in the last two stints Button ran two sets of the harder compound. He ended up making three stops (laps 15, 31 and 52) and was quicker than Alonso in the final stint. On lap 60 he was only half a second behind the Spaniard. Shortly afterwards he passed him on the exit of Turn 3. Button said he would rather have overtaken him at Turn 1 and without DRS (source 6).

Alonso finished fourth, with Massa fifth in the second Ferrari. Massa made only two stops and gained two places on his grid position. Adrian Sutil was sixth for Force India. Behind him came Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes and Sutil's team-mate Paul di Resta in eighth. The final points went to Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber and Vitaly Petrov in the Renault.

On lap 10, Michael Schumacher passed Bruno Senna on the start/finish straight to move up to ninth. Senna braked late into Turn 1, and his front wing sliced open Schumacher's right-rear tyre. Schumacher had to complete a full lap with the puncture and dropped to the back of the field. Senna was given a drive-through penalty for the collision (source 4). Schumacher took it calmly, putting the incident down to “perhaps a bit of a lack of experience” (source 4). He finished 15th, a lap down, while Senna, with gearbox problems and a damaged front wing, was only 17th.

The retirements at a glance:

• Lewis Hamilton (McLaren), after 46 laps, gearbox: first and second gear gave him trouble at first. Then the oil pressure dropped and he lost seventh gear. Eventually the gearbox gave up completely. Before that he had been closing in on Massa (sources 5, 6).
• Vitantonio Liuzzi (HRT), after 61 laps: according to source 2, the alternator failed.
• Pastor Maldonado (Williams), after 26 laps: according to source 2, he spun off the track.
• Timo Glock (Virgin), after 21 laps: according to source 2, he had a wheel problem.

Kamui Kobayashi made up the most places: he started 16th and finished ninth, seven places further up. Vitaly Petrov went from grid position 15 to tenth, gaining five places. For Force India it was a strong day with sixth and eighth place. Webber not only celebrated victory but also claimed the fastest lap.

Hamilton was the biggest loser. He had started fourth on the grid and retired with a gearbox failure. Bruno Senna dropped from ninth on the grid to 17th. Schumacher also went five places backwards after the collision.

Sebastian Vettel had already been crowned world champion. He ended the season on 392 points. Button secured second place with 270 points. The fight for third went down to the wire: the win took Webber to 258 points, moving him past Alonso (257) by exactly one point. Hamilton stayed fifth on 227 points, while Massa finished sixth with 118. Thanks to sixth place, Sutil climbed to ninth in the drivers' standings.

In the constructors' standings, Red Bull were clear at the top with 650 points, followed by McLaren on 497 and Ferrari on 375. The one-two in Brazil was merely the final flourish on a season Red Bull had dominated. Force India did score 12 points, but Renault held on to fifth place by 73 points to 69. You can find all the results in the 2011 standings.