2010 Brazilian Grand Prix

(pictured in 2018), where the race was held The round was the 18th of the 19 races in the 2010 Formula One World Championship, It was held at the 15-turn anti-clockwise Autódromo José Carlos Pace in São Paulo on 7 November. -wide of artificial turf replaced the grass at Descida do Lago corner, at the exit to the Curva do Laranjinha corner and turn eight. New kerbs on the exit to Curva do Laranjinha, the Mergulho and Junção corners were fitted. all five drivers were mathematically in contention to win the World Drivers' Championship. A total of 50 championship points were available for the final two races, which meant Alonso could claim the title in Brazil if he won the race and Webber finished fifth or lower. Red Bull led the World Constructors' Championship with 426 championship points; McLaren and Ferrari were second and third with a respective 399 and 374 championship points. Mercedes on 188 championship points and Renault with 143 championship points battled for fourth place. Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said the team would be circumspect for the season's final two events due to what happened that year. Alonso, the pre-race favourite, for his part said he would not alter his approach in Brazil and anticipated Red Bull would be strong there. His teammate Felipe Massa said he expected to win the race and confirmed he would help Alonso's World Drivers' Championship chances. Hamilton said he would be satisfied if his teammate Button assisted his title ambitions, an act which McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh affirmed would not occur. Webber courted controversy when he suggested Red Bull would support his teammate Vettel over him: "It's obvious isn't it? Of course when young, new chargers come onto the block, that's where the emotion is. That's the way it is." His team principal Christian Horner believed Webber's words were taken out of context and that the driver was supported by the team and its owner Dietrich Mateschitz in the championship battle. Vettel remarked: "If Mark needs help then he should take the medical car", and said he received no preferential treatment at Red Bull due to a car that was capable of winning races. The Grand Prix was entered by 12 teams (each represented by a constructor) and 24 drivers participated, with one pre-race driver change. Force India cancelled a first practice session outing for third driver Paul di Resta because the team wanted to provide Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi with additional track acclimatisation in the battle for sixth place in the World Constructors' Championship with Williams. Some teams made changes to their cars for the race. Ferrari and Williams modified their brake ducts as teams aimed to optimise aerodynamic efficiency in the season's final races. Ferrari's alterations added a small fin to the front brake ducts to extract additional downforce. Williams' design was designed to recover as much downforce as possible with the installation of fins on the rear brake ducts and to receive air extracted from the FW32's exhausts. ==Practice==

Per the regulations for the 2010 season, three practice sessions were held, two 90-minute sessions on Friday morning and afternoon and another 60-minute session on Saturday morning. In the first practice session, Vettel was fastest with a lap of 1:12.328, followed by his teammate Webber, the McLaren pair of Hamilton and Button, who tested aerodynamic adjustments to their MP4-25 cars, Renault's Robert Kubica, Mercedes' Nico Rosberg, Barrichello, Michael Schumacher for Mercedes, Sutil and Nick Heidfeld of Sauber. During the session Vitaly Petrov lost control of his Renault cresting a hill to the Ferradura turn and damaged its front-right corner in a collision with the outside tyre wall. Not long after Kamui Kobayashi spun at the same corner and loosened his Sauber's right-rear tyre from its rim against a barrier. Vettel duplicated his first practice result in the second session with the day's fastest lap, a 1:11.938. His teammate Webber was 0.104 seconds slower in second. The Ferrari duo of Alonso and Massa were third and fifth; Hamilton separated the two. Kubica, Button, Heidfeld and the Mercedes pair of Rosberg and Schumacher followed in the top ten. Massa's session ended after one hour with a disengaged clutch caused by an electrical fault from running wide and mounting a kerb at the Senna S chicane. He stopped at the side of the circuit on the Reta Oposta straight between the Senna S chicane and the Descica do Lago corner. Schumacher attempted to pass Jaime Alguersuari's Toro Rosso car on the inside into the Senna S chicane and the two made contact at its apex. Schumacher appeared to suddenly brake test Alguersuari. Soon after Kobayashi avoided contact with the pit lane wall after veering out of the slipstream of Heikki Kovalainen's slower Lotus braking for the Senna S chicane. Rain briefly fell in São Paulo on the night of 5 November and returned the next morning. Weather forecasts suggested more rain would fall, albeit not to the same intensity than in qualifying in Japan and Korea. This created a damp track, prompting drivers to use wet-weather tyres. Several drivers tested their cars to see how they would behave in qualifying with five minutes to go. Kubica used the intermediate tyres to lap fastest at 1:19.191, three-tenths of a second faster than Vettel in second. Hamilton, Massa, Alonso, Petrov, Toro Rosso driver Sébastien Buemi, Rosberg, Button and Barrichello made up positions three to ten. During the session Button lacked front-end grip and his teammate Hamilton made two errors. ==Qualifying==

Saturday afternoon's qualifying session was split into three parts. The first session ran for 20 minutes, eliminating cars that finished 18th or lower. The second session lasted 15 minutes, eliminating cars that finished 11th to 17th. The final session ran for ten minutes and determined pole position to tenth. Cars in the final session were not allowed to change tyres, using the tyres with which they set their quickest lap times. After lap times were 108 per cent slower than in dry weather, His final lap of 1:14.470 earned him the first pole position of his career and the Williams team's first since the . Schumacher in eighth ran onto a damp patch towards the end of the third session to allow the Red Bull cars past and lost tyre temperature. A lack of grip left Massa ninth. ==Race==

The 71-lap race took place in the afternoon over a distance of from 14:00 Brasilia Time (UTC−02:00) in front of a crowd of 157,582 spectators. and no rain was forecast. When the race commenced, Hülkenberg spun his tyres, allowing Vettel to pass him on the inside for the lead into the Senna S chicane. Webber held off Hamilton on the outside for third place. An oversteer stopped Hülkenberg from accelerating early and his braking early let Webber into second place on the outside. Hamilton, in an unbalanced car, was able to fend off Alonso on the inside at the exit of Descica do Lago turn for fifth and continued to do so for the rest of the lap. (pictured at the ) finished third and remained in the lead of the World Drivers' Championship. Behind the first four drivers, Schumacher fell to tenth due to a driver error putting him onto the grass. At the start of lap four, Alonso steered right to attempt to overtake Hülkenberg; the latter blocked Alonso into the Senna S chicane; Hülkenberg ran with his rear wing at a high angle, making him vulnerable to a pass and it required him to steer left and brake later than Alonso. and he sought to conserve his tyres since he did not want to overheat them in the aerodynamic turbulence created by the airflow over the rear of Hülkenberg's car. His car was deemed to be in a dangerous position and a recovery tractor moved it. The win, along with Webber's second-place finish won Red Bull the 2010 World Constructors' Championship since no other team could pass its championship points total with one race of the season left for the team's first since its Formula One debut in . Alonso took third with the McLaren pair of Hamilton and Button fourth and fifth, almost one second separating the two drivers. Schumacher allowed Rosberg past after the safety car was withdrawn as his teammate had a new set of tyres and was better able to challenge Button; the two ended the race in sixth and seventh. Hülkenberg, Kubica who could not extract more speed from his car on the straight due to rev limiter problems keeping him behind Hülkenberg and Kobayashi rounded out the top ten. Alguersuari, Sutil, Buemi, Barrichello, Massa, Petrov, Heidfeld, Kovalainen and Trulli made up positions 11 to 19. Glock finished 20th, one second ahead of Senna in 21st, with Klien registering his first finish since the and was the final classified finisher. ==Post-race==

The top three drivers appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and spoke to the media in a later press conference. Webber agreed the start was the most important aspect of the race and said of the importance: "Most of the races are decided as we know pretty much on the Saturday or the first lap. You can follow each other around but eventually... in the old days you could play with the strategy a little bit, change the fuel loads and have a look at going long or a bit shorter." Christian Horner commented on how Red Bull was regarded as "a party team" after they purchased Jaguar in 2005: "In six years, this team has come from a team that no-one took seriously – that everyone thought was a party team – to the 2010 F1 constructors' champions. We have finished ahead of teams with far more experience and heritage than ourselves – we took them on and we won, thanks to the tremendous dedication of every single team member, the incredible support from Red Bull and the vision and unfaltering commitment from Mr. Mateschitz." Adrian Newey, the team's technical director, thanked aerodynamicist Peter Prodromou and designer Rob Marshall for their work to the RB6 in Milton Keynes. Vettel stated Red Bull's Constructors' Championship win was special to him because he had visited the team's factory in Milton Keynes in 2005 and was intrigued by the experience: "Looking up to Formula One and now to be part of the team and part of the driver line-up to give them their first championship is incredible". Hülkenberg said he was happy to finish the race in eighth position and promoted Williams to sixth in the Constructors' Championship. After he finished fifth, Button was mathematically prevented from retaining the World Drivers' Championship. He said he would enter the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi with no concerns and that he would use his experience from the season to improve for . His teammate Hamilton commented on his prospects of title success in the season-finale: "In Abu Dhabi I'll be doing everything I can to pull off the win I need, and hoping the other guys hit problems. As always, we won't give up and we'll keep on pushing." The race result meant Webber lowered Alonso's lead in the World Drivers' Championship to eight championship points. Vettel's victory elevated him ahead of Hamilton to third place as Button maintained fifth place. In the World Constructors' Championship, Red Bull finished first with 469 championship points. McLaren were second with 421 championship points and Ferrari were another 32 championship points behind in third position. Mercedes secured fourth place from Renault with one race left in the season. Race classification Drivers who scored championship points are denoted in bold. ==Championship standings after the race==

;Drivers' Championship standings ;Constructors' Championship standings • Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. • Bold text indicates the 2010 World Constructors' Champions. • Bold text and an asterisk indicates competitors who still had a theoretical chance of becoming World Champion. ==Footnotes==