2012 Brazilian Grand Prix

Championship standings

Vettel leads the championship on 273 points heading into the final race. Alonso is second on 260 — 13 points behind. Vettel needs to finish fourth or higher to clinch his third consecutive world championship regardless of Alonso’s result. Alonso requires a podium finish combined with Vettel scoring no points to have any chance of the title.

Previous race

Hamilton won in Austin with Vettel second and Alonso third — Hamilton’s fourth win of the season and McLaren’s fifth. The result preserved Vettel’s championship lead at 13 points going into Brazil.

Entrants

This is the final race for Michael Schumacher before his second retirement. Bruno Senna, Vitaly Petrov, Timo Glock, Pedro de la Rosa, and Narain Karthikeyan are also competing in their final Formula One races. HRT will not return next season after withdrawing for financial reasons, having never scored a championship point in three years on the grid.

Massa, on his home circuit, denied pre-race speculation that he would deliberately target Vettel in the race: “I’ve always been an honest person and an honest driver. And that will continue to be the case.”

Tyre choices

Pirelli introduces prototype 2013-specification compounds for evaluation: the silver-banded hard as the prime and white-banded medium as the option — different from last year’s medium and soft compounds. Significant tyre degradation is expected in the high temperatures.

Practice

McLaren dominated both Friday sessions. Hamilton and Button set the pace throughout; Alonso trailed Vettel by 0.465 seconds in FP1 but improved on harder compounds in FP2, where Ferrari’s long-run pace — Massa lapping consistently 0.1 seconds faster than Hamilton — gave reason for optimism. Button was quickest in FP3.

Alonso said before the race: “Wet races are a bit more unpredictable so we need some kind of damp race.”

Weather

Light rain showers are forecast — around 19°C air temperature, 21°C track.