Background Heading into the final race of the season,
Ferrari driver
Fernando Alonso was leading the
Drivers' Championship with 246
points;
Red Bull drivers
Mark Webber and
Sebastian Vettel were second and third on 238 points and 231 points respectively.
McLaren's
Lewis Hamilton was also in mathematical contention on 222 points, 24 behind Alonso with a maximum of 25 points available for the final race. In the
Constructors' Championship,
Red Bull Racing had already secured their first championship title with a total of 469 points, 48 clear of second-placed
McLaren with a maximum of 43 points available. McLaren were themselves not confirmed in second place in the championship, with a 32-point advantage over
Ferrari. Much of the media coverage occurring before the event was centred upon Red Bull, and the possibility of team orders being used to influence the result of the championship – if the team was in the position to do so – as had been used by Ferrari at the . During that race, Ferrari had used radio transmissions to organize for Fernando Alonso to overtake teammate
Felipe Massa for the race victory and gain seven extra points towards the Drivers' Championship. Team owner
Dietrich Mateschitz and team principal
Christian Horner both stated that Red Bull would not impose any team orders in order to benefit one of its drivers in a bid to stop Alonso from winning the championship. Sebastian Vettel himself had stated that he would help his teammate win the championship if required, having trailed Mark Webber by seven points heading into the weekend. After 242 races since their full-time return in , tyre supplier
Bridgestone bowed out of Formula One, having been the sport's single tyre supplier since
Michelin pulled out after the season.
Pirelli took over the tyre contract in , returning to Formula One for the first time since .
Championship permutations With Alonso being outscored by Vettel and Webber in the preceding
Brazilian Grand Prix, the Drivers' Championship was decided in this race, marking the first time the final round of the season hosted the championship decider since , and it was also the first time that four drivers were in contention for the Drivers' Championship at the season finale. Webber and Vettel both had an opportunity to win their first title at this event, and
Red Bull's first ever Drivers' Championship since it purchased the former
Jaguar F1 Team in 2005, while Hamilton and Alonso had the opportunity to win their second and third Drivers' title, respectively. If Alonso won the title, he would have been the youngest three-time World Champion aged 29 years and 108 days; if Hamilton won the title, he would have won his second title in three years and it would be the third consecutive title for a British driver after he himself and
Jenson Button had won the championship in the previous two years. Furthermore, Webber and Vettel would have been the first World Drivers' Champions for their respective countries since
Alan Jones and
Michael Schumacher, while Vettel also had the chance of being the youngest ever World Champion, aged 23 years and 134 days. Reigning World Drivers' Champion
Jenson Button was mathematically eliminated from championship contention as he was unable to overcome a 47-points-deficit heading into the final round of the season. The championship would have been won by either of the top four drivers in the following manners:
Practice and qualifying only required a top-two placing to win the title without having to rely on other results. He placed in the top six in each of the three free practice sessions, and qualified third for the race. Three practice sessions were held before the race; the first on Friday afternoon and the second on Friday evening. Both sessions lasted 90 minutes. The third session was held on Saturday afternoon and lasted an hour. All three sessions were held in dry conditions, although the first session was held on a damp but drying track after a pre-session downpour which had not been anticipated. Vettel was quickest with a time of 1:42.760 in the first session, just over six-tenths of a second faster than Hamilton. Button was another four-tenths off Hamilton's pace, followed by Webber,
Robert Kubica, and Alonso.
Michael Schumacher was seventh, the only other driver to be within 1.5 seconds of Vettel's time. compared with and track temperatures for the Friday sessions. Vettel was again quickest, posting a time of 1:40.696, narrowly faster than teammate Webber. Hamilton, Alonso, Button and
Vitaly Petrov rounded out the top six positions. The qualifying session held on Saturday evening was split into three parts. The first part ran for 20 minutes and eliminated the cars from qualifying that finished the session 18th or lower. The second part of qualifying lasted 15 minutes and eliminated cars that finished in positions 11 to 17. The final part of qualifying determined the positions from first to tenth, and decided
pole position. Cars which competed in the final session of qualifying were not allowed to change tyres before the race, and as such started the race on the tyres that they set their quickest lap on. and took his team's 15th pole of the season, equalling
McLaren's tally from the season. Alonso qualified third, though he was happy with his grid position having outqualified Webber. track temperature at ; and no rain expected. The race's formation lap commenced at 17:00
local time (
UTC+4), with all 24 drivers getting away cleanly. Vettel retained his pole position lead into the first corner, followed by Hamilton, with Button moving into third after Alonso made a slow start. At turn six, Schumacher tried to pass teammate Rosberg around the outside while battling for eighth. The seven-time world champion spun his Mercedes, which meant he faced the rest of the oncoming field on track and was collected by Liuzzi, causing both drivers to retire on the spot and the
safety car to be deployed. In order to aid any losses that a pit stop may have cost under normal racing conditions, six drivers – Rosberg, Petrov,
Jaime Alguersuari,
Bruno Senna,
Lucas di Grassi and
Christian Klien and rejoined the circuit between 17th and 22nd. Racing resumed at the end of lap five when the safety car pulled into the pit-lane. The top five remained static until the end of lap eleven. and
Fernando Alonso did not help their championship chances, as progress up the order was slower than expected. Webber – who brushed the armco with the right-hand side of his car three laps previously – pitted after struggling for grip on the super-soft, option tyres. Button rejoined in fourth place behind Kubica and Hamilton, with Kubica ever increasing his margin over Petrov and Alonso, who were running inside the points again in seventh and eighth respectively. No further passing attempts were made on track, and thus, Vettel led the race to the end, to take his fifth win of the season. His championship-winning margin was four points over Alonso; whom he would go ahead and replace in future at Ferrari, The top three finishers appeared on the
podium and in the subsequent
press conference. Vettel's victory had left him "speechless", and expressed his delight at winning the Championship. He also stated: Hamilton praised his team for all their work during the season, stating that "we pushed very hard throughout the year, so a big thank to all the guys back home at the factory for not giving up. Next year will be a better year." Button echoed Hamilton's comments about the work of his McLaren team, and summed up his first season with the team: "I would like to say a big thank you to the team. This is my first year with the team and I have had a great season. I really feel at home and I think the experiences we have gained this year, Lewis and myself, with working closely with the engineers and everyone in the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team means we can really build on this season for next year." ==Classification==