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Australian Mark Webber left it late, but ensured that he did not end the season without a race win, taking over the lead of the Brazilian Grand Prix on lap 30, and riding his car into the sunset at Interlagos. World champion Sebastian Vettel nursed a damaged gearbox home to take second place on the podium with a charging Jenson Button in the sole finishing McLaren taking third place. Button's 3rd place finish was enough to give him 2nd spot in the Drivers' World Championship. Fernando Alonso in the lead Ferrari had to settle for fourth, despite having made an excellent start. Alonso's teammate Felipe Massa, easily the best Brazilian on track, finished fifth. The Brazilian celebrated by doing a donut on the start-finish straight, and was joined in the celebrations by compatriot Rubens Barrichello, perhaps for the last time in a Formula 1 car.

All the 24 cars made a clean getaway at the start of the race with Fernando Alonso making his intentions clear right at the start of this 71 lap race by passing former teammate Lewis Hamilton for 4th place on the opening lap. It took the Spaniard another 10 laps to manage a move on the other McLaren of Jenson Button, and the Ferrari was already in the podium places very early on in this race. At the head of the field the two Red Bull drivers got perfect starts with Vettel keeping a steady gap over Webber.

On lap 10 Michael Schumacher became public enemy no.1 in Brazil by getting into an altercation with Bruno Senna, who was hanging on to his 9th place. The pair touched twice with Schumacher sustaining a puncture which forced him into the pits. That pushed the 7-time world champion down to 24th and last place. Senna stayed out on track despite some damage to his front end, but much to the disdain of the fans was handed a drive-through penalty.

Back at the front, Sebastian Vettel complained of a gear-box issue on lap 14 and though he wasn't appearing to lose much time to Mark Webber immediately, there was concern of a second consecutive DNF for the world champion. The gear-box problem continued to exist though and it was only a matter of time before Webber took advantage. The Australian, who hadn't won a race all year took the lead from his teammate on lap 30, and it was very much his race to lose from here out.

While the rest of the field were on a three stop strategy, Felipe Massa took a gamble on a two-stopper. The Brazilian was unable to keep a charging Jenson Button at bay, but did manage to hang on to 5th place ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who was forced into the pits rather early for his third and final stop. Massa followed Hamilton into the pits for his second stop on the following lap, and came out just ahead of his arch rival.

Vettel's gearbox was the subject of a third conversation on the team to pit radio, with the car clearly in survival mode from here on out. A lap later Hamilton was forced to retire from the race with his gearbox giving way too. That allowed Nico Rosberg and Adrian Sutil to move a place ahead in the battle for 6th place. Sutil took that place from Rosberg on the following lap, and with Paul di Resta also in the points, the Force Indias were having a good end to the season.

Vettel had an 11 second lead over Alonso with 19 laps to go and both cars still had to come in for some hard tyres before the end of the race. By lap 57 that lead had doubled, and all Vettel had to do from here on was not push his car too hard. Button meanwhile had closed the gap to Alonso down to under 4 seconds and was threatening to make a play for a podium finish. Button caught up with Alonso on lap 62, and passed him using the DRS. On the same lap, Vettel ran his car very very wide losing time as the gap between the two drivers was just 11 seconds at the end of the lap. Button was lapping 0.7 seconds quicker than Vettel, not enough to take the lead with 7 laps to go, but enough to pressure the young German into perhaps making another error.

There was no late drama though as the chequered flag came down on another season of Formula 1 racing with Red Bull taking their fourth 1-2 of the year, reaffirming their supremacy.

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