Vettel won the 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix and kept four drivers in the title fight

Sebastian Vettel won the 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos from second on the grid. Mark Webber finished second for Red Bull and Fernando Alonso third for Ferrari, which left four drivers able to win the title at Abu Dhabi. It was the first time that four drivers had gone into a season finale with a chance of the championship.

How did the title fight stand before Brazil?

Alonso led the drivers' championship with 231 points, ahead of Webber on 220 and Hamilton on 210. Vettel was fourth on 206 points and Button fifth on 189, so five drivers were still mathematically in contention before the race.

A total of 50 points remained from the last two races. Alonso could claim the title in Brazil if he won and Webber finished fifth or lower, which made the race a direct test of nerve for the leading group.

Red Bull led the constructors with 426 points, while McLaren and Ferrari were second and third on 399 and 374. Mercedes on 188 and Renault on 143 battled for fourth, and Red Bull had to score 16 points more than McLaren to take the constructors' title in Brazil.

At the previous race in Korea, Alonso had won ahead of Hamilton and Massa. Webber spun into Rosberg and retired, Vettel's engine failed with ten laps to go, and Button scored no points, finishing 12th.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said the team would be careful in the final two events, given what had happened earlier that season. Alonso said he would not change his approach in Brazil and expected Red Bull to be strong there.

Four drivers went into the final round with the title still possible, a first in Formula One history.

Who could still win the title at Interlagos?

Alonso could take the title by winning the race with Webber finishing fifth or lower. Webber, Vettel and Hamilton all stayed in contention, and the points table was too close to call.

Massa said he expected to win the race and confirmed that he would help Alonso's championship chances. Hamilton said he would be satisfied if his team-mate Button assisted his title ambitions, but McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh made clear that this would not happen.

Some pundits suggested that Red Bull might use Vettel to help Webber's title bid. Webber suggested that Red Bull would support Vettel over him, and team principal Christian Horner said the remark had been taken out of context. The team and its owner Dietrich Mateschitz were, Horner said, behind Webber in the battle.

Vettel said that if Webber needed help he should take the medical car, and he insisted that he received no special treatment at Red Bull because the car was capable of winning races.

Which teams and drivers were in the field?

The Grand Prix was entered by twelve teams, each represented by a constructor, and 24 drivers took part with one pre-race change. Hispania announced the day before the first practice session that Christian Klien would drive in place of Sakon Yamamoto, whom Klien had also replaced at the Singapore Grand Prix two months earlier.

Force India cancelled a first practice outing for their third driver, Paul di Resta, so that Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi could get more track time. The two were fighting Williams for sixth place in the constructors' championship.

Ferrari and Williams both modified their brake ducts as teams sought aerodynamic efficiency in the final races. Ferrari added a small fin to the front brake ducts to extract extra downforce, while Williams fitted fins to the rear brake ducts to recover as much downforce as possible from the exhaust air.

The team also fitted a new engine to Rubens Barrichello's car.

What changed at Interlagos for 2010?

Interlagos is a 15-turn anticlockwise circuit of 4.309 km (2.677 mi). For 2010 the organisers installed a moveable steel and foam barrier 225 m (738 ft) long outside the Subida dos Boxes corner, so that impacts would be absorbed and the car dragged along rather than deflected back onto the track.

Artificial turf replaced the grass across a strip 2 m (6.6 ft) wide at the Descida do Lago corner, and at the exit of Curva do Laranjinha and turn eight. New kerbs went on the exits of Curva do Laranjinha, Mergulho and Juncao, and the white track lines were coated with an anti-skid paint for wet weather.

Bridgestone supplied super-soft green-banded and medium dry compounds, together with intermediate and full-wet wet-weather tyres.

Practice in dry and damp conditions

Three practice sessions came before the race, two of 90 minutes on Friday and one of 60 minutes on Saturday morning. In the first session Vettel was fastest with 1:12.328, followed by Webber and the McLaren pair of Hamilton and Button, who tested aerodynamic adjustments on the MP4-25.

Vitaly Petrov lost control of his Renault while cresting the hill to the Ferradura turn and damaged the front-right corner of the car against the outside tyre wall. Kamui Kobayashi spun at the same corner shortly afterwards and loosened his Sauber's right-rear tyre against a barrier. Alonso's high-mileage engine failed two laps early, and Ferrari changed it.

In the second session Vettel repeated his first-session result with the day's fastest lap of 1:11.938. Webber was 0.104 seconds slower in second, while the Ferrari pair of Alonso and Massa were third and fifth, with Hamilton between them.

Massa's session ended after an hour when a disengaged clutch, caused by an electrical fault after he ran wide and mounted a kerb at the Senna S chicane, stopped him at the side of the circuit. Schumacher tried to pass Alguersuari on the inside into the Senna S, and the two made contact at its apex.

Rain fell briefly in Sao Paulo on the night of 5 November and returned the next morning. The damp track led the drivers to use wet-weather tyres, and Kubica used intermediates to set the fastest time at 1:19.191, three tenths quicker than Vettel in second.

Several drivers used the closing minutes of the session to check their set-ups for qualifying. Button lacked front-end grip, and his team-mate Hamilton made two errors in the same session.

How did damp qualifying shape the front row?

Nico Hulkenberg took the first pole of his career in qualifying, with a final lap of 1:14.470. Vettel was second, and Webber took third after traffic slowed both Red Bulls, while the Williams team earned their first pole since the 2005 European Grand Prix.

Damp conditions ruled the first two parts, and drivers stayed on intermediates until the last part had begun. After lap times came in 108 per cent slower than in the dry, the track was drying fast enough to make slicks feasible, and every driver switched to dry tyres with five minutes to go.

Hamilton qualified fourth because he could not get heat into his tyres, and another car delayed him at the Arquibancas corner. Alonso had been fastest in the first session but dropped to fifth after losing time on a damp patch and losing tyre temperature.

Barrichello, sixth on the grid, dropped 17 seconds on his first lap out of the pits after Hamilton ran wide ahead of him. Kubica took seventh after going wide at Juncao on dry tyres with a low-downforce set-up, and Schumacher was eighth after running onto a damp patch late in the session.

Massa took ninth after a lack of grip, and Petrov was tenth, the highest-placed rookie. Petrov had reached the final session for the first time since the Hungarian Grand Prix three months earlier.

Button was the fastest driver to miss the final session, when Massa demoted him to 11th in the closing seconds of the second session. Button had damaged intermediate tyres, and his brake and tyre temperatures had slowed him.

Who were the rest of the grid and the penalties?

Kobayashi was 12th after tyre wear left him short of grip. Rosberg set the 13th-fastest lap and was slower than his team-mate Schumacher for the fourth time in 2010, blaming Buemi for slowing his fastest lap. He reported Buemi to the stewards for impeding him in the second session, but they rejected the complaint after scrutiny.

Alguersuari was the quicker Toro Rosso in 14th, ahead of Buemi in 15th, which was the fourth race in a row that the pair had qualified in that order. Heidfeld was 16th, feeling he had changed tyres too early, and Liuzzi 17th after spinning into the path of Sutil and Kobayashi.

Sutil went no further than the first part, and grip deserted him on his final timed lap, leaving him 18th. Glock was 19th after switching to a second set of intermediates, and Kovalainen and Trulli were 20th and 21st after traffic prevented them from improving.

Lucas di Grassi was 22nd, seven tenths slower than Glock, and the Hispania cars of Klien and Bruno Senna took the final row. After qualifying, Buemi and Sutil each took a five-place grid penalty for collisions with Glock and Kobayashi at the Korean Grand Prix. Heidfeld moved up to 15th and Liuzzi to 16th, while Glock fell to 17th. Trulli was 18th, with Kovalainen 20th and di Grassi 21st.

What happened when the lights went out?

Webber held off Hamilton on the outside for third. Hulkenberg spun his tyres, which let Vettel pass him on the inside for the lead into the Senna S chicane.

Klien stopped his car at the exit of the pit lane with fluctuating fuel pressure and failed to start. Trackside equipment moved the car into the pit lane, where the Hispania mechanics repaired it.

Webber lined up a pass on Hulkenberg along the Reta Oposta straight. Hulkenberg was held up by an oversteer that stopped him accelerating early, and his braking let Webber into second on the outside.

Hamilton, in an unbalanced car, held off Alonso on the inside at the exit of Descida do Lago for fifth and kept him behind for the rest of the lap. Schumacher fell to tenth after a driver error put him on the grass, and Kubica moved from seventh to sixth.

Button advanced from 11th to ninth. Petrov made a slow start, mounted a kerb at the exit of the Senna S chicane to avoid Alguersuari, and dropped to 22nd.

How did the race end, and what did it change?

Vettel won the 71-lap race from second on the grid, his fourth win of the season and the ninth of his career. Webber finished second, 4.2 seconds behind, and Alonso closed on him in the final ten laps but did not get close enough to pass.

Button was mathematically eliminated from the title after finishing fifth. Vettel moved from fourth to third, past Hamilton, and Alonso's lead over Webber was cut to eight championship points.

Four drivers went to Abu Dhabi with the title still possible, the arrangement that had never happened before. Red Bull secured the constructors' title because McLaren could not overtake its points total with a race still to run.

The result also meant that the Abu Dhabi finale would decide the title, with Vettel, Alonso, Webber and Hamilton all able to win it.