The 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix (officially the Formula 1 Grande Prêmio Petrobras do Brasil 2010) was a Formula One motor race held at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in the city of São Paulo on 7 November 2010 before 157,582 spectators. It was the 18th round of the 2010 Formula One World Championship and the 38th Brazilian Grand Prix to be held as part of the series. Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel won the 71-lap race starting from second. His teammate Mark Webber finished second and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso third.
Entering the event, there were five drivers in contention to win the World Drivers' Championship while Red Bull led McLaren by 27 championship points in the World Constructors' Championship. Nico Hülkenberg for the Williams team took the first pole position of his career by recording the fastest lap time in the qualifying session. Vettel and Webber overtook Hülkenberg for the first two positions at the start of the race. Vettel was able to maintain the lead until his first pit stop to switch tyres and Webber led for two laps until he made his own pit stop. Vettel thereafter was able to maintain first position through negotiation of slower traffic for the rest of the race to take his fourth victory of the season and the ninth of his career. Webber was 4.2 seconds behind in second as Alonso drew closer to him in the final ten laps, albeit not close enough to pass and finished third.
The race result reduced Alonso's lead in the World Drivers' Championship to eight championship points over Webber. Vettel's victory moved him from fourth to third, past Hamilton. Button, the 2009 World Champion, was mathematically eliminated from retaining the championship after finishing fifth. This left Vettel, Alonso, Webber and Hamilton in contention of winning the World Drivers' Championship at the season-ending , marking the first time ever in Formula One's history that four drivers went to the season finale with the opportunity to win the title. With their drivers finishing first and second, Red Bull won its first World Constructors' Championship since it purchased Jaguar before since McLaren could not overtake its championship points total with one race remaining in the season.
Background
The round was the 18th of the 19 races in the 2010 Formula One World Championship, and the 38th Brazilian Grand Prix held as part of the series. It was held at the 15-turn anti-clockwise Autódromo José Carlos Pace in São Paulo on 7 November. Tyre supplier Bridgestone provided the super soft green-banded and medium dry compounds and the intermediate and full-wet green-line central groove banded wet-weather compounds tyres to the race.
For the 2010 race, the organisers installed a long moveable steel and foam barrier to the outside of the Subida dos Boxes corner to absorb car impacts and drag it along as opposed to deflecting it back onto the track. -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. The white lines denoting the boundaries of the track were coated with an anti-skid paint to improve adhesion in wet-weather.
Before the race, Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso led the World Drivers' Championship with 231 championship points, ahead of Red Bull's Mark Webber in second with 220 championship points and Lewis Hamilton of McLaren in third with 210 championship points. Webber's teammate Sebastian Vettel was fourth with 206 championship points and McLaren's Jenson Button was fifth with 189 championship points; 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. Red Bull had to score 16 championship points more than McLaren to win the Constructors' Championship in Brazil.
At the previous race in Korea Alonso won ahead of Hamilton and Alonso's team-mate Massa. Of his championship rivals, Webber retired after he spun and hit Rosberg, Vettel's engine failed with ten laps to go and Button scored no championship points in 12th 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. Both drivers acknowledged the championship duel would be a difficult one.
Some Formula One pundits suggested the Red Bull team would adopt a strategy in which Vettel would help Webber's title bid. 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. The day before the first practice session, Hispania Racing for unexplained reasons announced Christian Klien would drive in lieu of Sakon Yamamoto whom Klien had also deputised for at the two months prior. 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. The team also installed a new engine in Rubens Barrichello's car.
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. Alonso's high-mileage engine failed two laps earlier than anticipated and Ferrari changed engines.
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. The first two sessions and the first minutes of the final session were run on a damp circuit, and as such, drivers used intermediate compound tyres. After lap times were 108 per cent slower than in dry weather, every driver changed to dry weather tyres with five minutes to go when a dry line emerged and increased grip because the track was drying fast enough to make it feasible.
Williams driver Nico Hülkenberg ran more front wing angle than Barrichello, and used super soft tyres earlier than the fastest teams after his teammate Barrichello told the Williams team that the track was dry. His final lap of 1:14.470 earned him the first pole position of his career and the Williams team's first since the . He was joined on the grid's front row by Vettel and Webber took third after traffic slowed both drivers. Hamilton qualified fourth because he could not extract temperature in his tyres and another vehicle slightly delayed him at Arquibancas corner. Alonso was fastest in the first session; he fell to fifth in the final session from losing time going onto a damp area and losing tyre temperature. Barrichello, sixth, lost 17 seconds on his first lap out of the pit lane with Hamilton ahead of him and going wide. Going wide at Junçao corner on dry tyres, and a car with a low downforce setup put Kubica seventh. 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. Petrov, tenth, made the final session for the first time since the three months prior and was the highest-placed rookie driver.