Brazilian Grand Prix

Strategy under maximum pressure

Red Bull's pit wall deserves enormous credit for Interlagos 2012. Vettel was 22nd after the lap 1 contact with Bruno Senna. The car had sidepod damage. Rain was coming and going. Every strategic call had championship consequences, and they got every single one right. When to pit, which tires, when to push, when to conserve. Vettel did the driving, but the team kept him calm and made the right calls under the most intense pressure imaginable. Championship won by 3 points.

Better than any movie

Vettel SPUN on LAP 1. He was basically last. Alonso must have been thinking the title was his. Then over the next 70 laps, Vettel charged back through the entire field in a car with actual damage, in rain that kept changing intensity. Hulkenberg was leading and then binned it. Hamilton got taken out. Button won. And Vettel finished sixth, which was enough to become a three-time world champion at age 25. If you wrote this as a screenplay people would say it was unrealistic.

Schumacher's last dance, Vettel's coronation

People forget this was Michael Schumacher's last ever F1 race. He finished seventh, quietly competent to the end. Meanwhile the championship battle was absolute pandemonium. Vettel spinning on lap 1, the rain creating chaos, Hulkenberg's crash after leading brilliantly, and Vettel somehow dragging a damaged car back to sixth. The 2012 season had been the most competitive in years and it got the finale it deserved. Button won the race itself with a fine drive.

I aged ten years in two hours

As an Alonso fan, this race was torture. Vettel spinning on the first lap gave me genuine hope. Fernando was driving well, moving through the field – for a while, the championship was coming to him. Then Vettel started recovering. Position by position, the dream slipped away. In the rain, with a damaged car, he somehow got back to sixth. Three points. That's all that separated them at the end of the season. I don't think I breathed for the last ten laps.

Alonso deserved that title

Vettel's recovery drive was remarkable, I won't deny that. But Alonso had dragged a clearly inferior Ferrari to a championship fight that went to the final race. The 2012 Ferrari was at best the fourth fastest car and Fernando nearly won the title with it. Interlagos gave us hope when Vettel spun, then took it away as he recovered. Button won the race, Hulkenberg threw away a potential maiden win by crashing in the rain, and Schumacher had a quiet final race. A great spectacle, but a bittersweet one for Ferrari fans.

The season that had everything

The 2012 season had already delivered some of the most unpredictable racing in decades – seven different winners in the first seven races. But Brazil saved the most chaotic chapter for last. Vettel needed to finish fourth or better regardless of what Alonso did. On lap 1, he was hit by Bruno Senna and dropped to last. At that moment, with Alonso running comfortably in second behind Button, the championship was slipping away from Red Bull. Vettel began a recovery drive through the field that took the entire race, climbing from 22nd to 6th by the time rain started falling. The rain reshuffled everything. Hulkenberg, leading for Force India, collided with Hamilton while battling him for the lead. Button took the lead. Alonso moved to second, which would give him the title if Vettel stayed in sixth. Then Vettel found another gear. He passed di Resta, then Kobayashi, clawing back through the field to an improbable sixth. Button won the race. Alonso finished second. Vettel crossed the line in sixth – exactly what he needed. Final gap: three points. 281 to 278. The youngest triple world champion. Schumacher, who retired that day, was one of the first to congratulate him. Twenty races, six champions' worth of drama, settled in the last ten laps at Interlagos.