Brazilian GP 2013: Vettel's ninth win in a row, Webber's farewell

At the season finale at the Interlagos circuit, Sebastian Vettel won from pole position in the Red Bull. It was his ninth win in a row. His team-mate Mark Webber finished second in his final Formula 1 race, with Fernando Alonso third for Ferrari. Vettel lost the lead at the start but took it back before the first lap was over. From then on he led the race all the way to the flag. You can find all the results and data on our Brazilian GP 2013 race page.

After two rain-hit days of practice, the race was held on a dry track. Qualifying had also taken place entirely in the wet. According to Pirelli, it was 20 degrees air temperature and 26 degrees track temperature at the start, with a 50 per cent chance of rain. Because it had rained on Friday and Saturday, no team had run the medium and hard dry tyres beforehand.

Vettel had a lot of wheelspin at the start. Nico Rosberg went straight past him in the Mercedes from grid position 2. With the help of KERS, Vettel retook the lead on the start/finish straight at the end of the first lap. After that he pulled away. On lap 4 Alonso overtook Rosberg to move up to second.

Webber had dropped from 4th to 5th at the start but then fought his way forward. By lap 13 he had passed Lewis Hamilton, Rosberg and Alonso one after another. From then on the two Red Bulls were out in front. Light drizzle came and went throughout, but it was never heavy enough for wet tyres.

Almost all the front-runners stopped twice. According to Pirelli, Vettel ran two stints on the medium tyre and the last one on the hard. During the first round of stops Alonso briefly slipped past Webber, because a wheel gun jammed and Webber's stop was slower. Our data show Webber spending 25.0 seconds in the pit lane on lap 23. Alonso needed just 22.8 seconds on lap 21. Two laps later Webber was back in second.

On lap 46 Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas collided. Red Bull expected a Safety Car and called Vettel in immediately. But the mechanics had already laid out Webber's tyres for his planned stop and had to reshuffle. Vettel spent 32.9 seconds in the pit lane and still stayed in front. Webber had to wait behind him. It never became dangerous, as Webber was the only real rival and was pitting himself at that very moment.

Jenson Button took a different approach in the McLaren. He was the only driver in the leading group to start on hard tyres and didn't switch to mediums until lap 20.

• Romain Grosjean (Lotus F1) was the first to retire: his engine failed after just two laps.
• Valtteri Bottas (Williams) retired after the collision with Hamilton. He completed 45 laps and his car was wrecked. The stewards blamed Hamilton. He was running 4th at the time, picked up a right-rear puncture in the collision and was also handed a drive-through penalty. That dropped him to 11th. In the end he fought his way back to 9th.
• Felipe Massa was running behind Alonso when he crossed the white line at the pit entry. He too received a drive-through penalty, which according to our data he served on lap 34. Massa finished seventh and afterwards called the penalty very unfair. It was his last race for Ferrari.
• Charles Pic (Caterham) parked his car after 58 laps with a technical problem.

Winners: Sergio Pérez made up the most places. A gearbox change earned him a five-place grid penalty, so he started from 19th. He finished sixth, 13 places further up. Towards the end he had to save fuel and so couldn't attack Rosberg as hard as he wanted. Button went from 14th on the grid to 4th, McLaren's best result of the season. Nico Hülkenberg scored points for Sauber in eighth. The final point went to Daniel Ricciardo in tenth for Toro Rosso. It was his last race for the team.

Losers: Grosjean's engine failure ended his race from 6th on the grid. His team-mate Heikki Kovalainen could only manage 14th. Rosberg started from the front row but then struggled with his rear tyres and finished fifth. After the collision and the penalty, Hamilton ended his race in 9th. Jean-Éric Vergne lost seven places and finished 15th.

Vettel had already been crowned world champion before the race. He ended the season on 397 points, with Alonso runner-up on 242 points. His second place lifted Webber to 3rd in the drivers' championship on 199 points. Hamilton (189) dropped back to 4th. Kimi Räikkönen did not race in Brazil and slipped to 5th on 183 points.

Red Bull won the constructors' championship with 596 points. The fight for 2nd was a close one: Mercedes narrowly held on with 360 points, ahead of Ferrari on 354. You can find the full final standings in the 2013 standings.

With his ninth win in a row, Vettel equalled Alberto Ascari's record, although Ascari's run in the 1950s was spread across two seasons. With 13 wins in a season, Vettel also matched Michael Schumacher's tally from 2004. Vettel himself did not want to compare the records directly: in Ascari's day, he said, cars broke down more often and teams were less consistent.

On the slowing-down lap Webber took off his helmet and waved to the fans. After this season he moved to Porsche to race sports cars. It was also the last race for the 2.4-litre naturally aspirated V8 engines. In hindsight, the win was also Vettel's last for some time: his next one only came at the Malaysian GP 2015.