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Meanwhile, in the championship, Vettel only needs to score 15 more points than Alonso in the USA to win the title before Brazil. If he does score exactly 15 points more than Alonso, they will be 25 points apart with one race to go, but then even if Alonso wins in Brazil with Vettel nowhere, Vettel takes it on wins (six versus four).

So in order to keep it going to Brazil, here's how it might work out in the USA:

Vettel wins - Alonso has to finish no lower than fourth
Vettel second - Alonso has to finish no lower than eighth
Vettel third - Alonso has to finish no lower than tenth
Vettel fourth - Alonso can score no points and still be able to win the championship in Brazil (the gap would be 22 points)

Alonso really has to finish ahead of Vettel in the USA to give him a realistic chance of success in Brazil.

The US Grand Prix starts tomorrow.

Just a word on the Red Bulls.

After Italy (off the top of my head) they've been running 2011-spec alternators due to unreliability. However, with such high mileage, they've had to revert back to 2012 spec.

Go Vettel.

That is all!

I'm torn on who to support in the championship battle. I like Vettel as a person more than Alonso, but I don't really want anyone winning the title three seasons in a row. I'm still scarred by the Schumacher era. I'm glad this season has been close, but if the same guy wins at the end of it, it feels a bit dispiriting. 2003 was like that.

Anyway, an alternator failure tomorrow would be nice because it would allow the championship to go down to the wire, in Brazil. After Alonso's lousy qualifying performance I think he'll need a hefty slice of luck to get the fourth place he would need if Vettel wins.

hopeful traveller wrote:Just a word on the Red Bulls.

After Italy (off the top of my head) they've been running 2011-spec alternators due to unreliability. However, with such high mileage, they've had to revert back to 2012 spec.

SPOILER ALERT

Am I psychic or something? Webber's has failed. One down, one to go.

No. You are not.

Another exciting race. Vettel couldn't hold on for the win after being fastest in every other session of the weekend. He did get the fastest lap though. Red Bull are the constructors' champions, as everybody predicted from, well, before the start of the season. Alonso did enough to keep the championship alive - though Ferrari giving Massa a deliberate penalty left a very bad taste in the mouth - so it'll all come down to Brazil. I love it when that happens. That's next week.

GV27 (not on this forum) picked up another win in the predictions game, his third of the season. It was a good race to have entered new picks for; the players who had been using the same picks for the whole season filled most of the lowest spaces. Three of them still lead the way overall, though, and it seems very unlikely that their positions will change before the end of the season.

Reminder: the Brazilian GP starts tomorrow.

A couple of interesting facts ahead of this weekend's race.

The current Interlagos circuit is a shortened version of the original, which was first used for a championship F1 race a couple of months before I was born, in 1973:

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The image linked below shows the old circuit, with the current layour superimposed. Fortunately, Herman Tilke wasn't around in the late '80s, so he wasn't able to butcher this track too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interlagosoverlay.jpg

As you can see, from the "Ferradura" to what is now the "Senna S", the cars used to run in the opposite direction to now, hence why the old name of "Subida do Lago" (Lake Rise), was "Descida do Lago" (Lake Fall). The drivers would fall into that section, rather than rise out of it as they do now. A few of the original curves were remodelled too, and a further link between "Ferradura" and "Laranja" completed the shortened track. The long back section and the loop known as "Estacionamento" were permanently lost from the layout.

Hopefully that wasn't too boring for y'all. Enjoy the race!

Further to my riveting post above, this video shows footage of the first championship Brazilian GP at Interlagos, in 1973.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZfG4vCtgkc

The footage between 52 and 57 seconds shows what is now the section between the "Senna S" (it would be left of shot, in the foreground) and "Descida do Lago". If you watch the on-car footage from this weekend, as the cars start to turn left into the "Senna S", you can see the old track continuing to bend gently left ahead of them.

And also a film of the non-championship F1 race the year before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FSEAYdk ... re=related

The film follows the cars round the first lap, and at 3:36 you can hear the commentator say "Subida do Lago" as they approach that corner. At 3:45 the lead car is travelling along what is now the "back straight", and passes the site of the "Senna S" at about 3:55.

OK, that's enough Brazilian Grand Prix circuit remodelling news. Back to regular viewing, although I have just realised that I was conceived in Brazil between these two races taking place (my dad was working in the Rio shipyards in the early '70s). Carry on.

We've only had two wet races all year - Malaysia and Monaco. The rain wasn't really stimulating enough in Monaco but it counts as a wet race as Jean-Eric Vergne used the intermediates. Nonetheless, when the rain came down, the Ferraris came into their own. Massa, in Monaco, caught up by two seconds per lap to the five cars in front. Massa's drive in Malaysia was awful though. On the other hand, Alonso excelled in the very wet part of Malaysia by easily outrunning Hamilton, and, before Alonso's tyres went off, Pérez. In Monaco, once the rain came, Rosberg, Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton, and Massa hit a rolling roadblock in the form of Mark Webber. If that was somewhere which wasn't a one-laned Scalextric track then I think Rosberg would have won in Monaco. In Malaysia, Webber had a quiet race to fourth and Vettel spent all afternoon winging at Karthikeyan.

I haven't heard one interview on the BBC this weekend not using the word "rain".

I don't think this one mentions it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20481789

Mind you, remember Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2010 with Alonso struggling to get past drivers, costing him the championship.

And Brazil is harder to pass on that Abu Dhabi, so this might get interesting if the rain comes along.