Webber wins

Mark Webber won his first Formula One race of 2011 at the last grand prix of the season in Brazil on Sunday, beating his Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel. It was the German double world champion who started from pole position and led in the early stages, but Vettel struggled with gearbox problems for much of the race and relinquished the lead shortly before half-distance.

Australia's Mark Webber has now won three consecutive Brazilian Grands Prix.

Britain's Jenson Button came in third for McLaren, securing him second place in the drivers' championship behind the all-conquering youngster from Heppenheim. Mark Webber's victory was enough to salvage third place overall in the season standings, just ahead of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, who finished fourth at the Interlagos circuit in Sao Paolo.

Germany's Adrian Sutil, fighting for a place in the sport next season, finished an impressive sixth for the Sahara Force India team, with his countryman Nico Rosberg rolling in seventh for Mercedes GP.

Although this was the last race of the F1 season, the big winner of 2011 had been clear for many months already. Sebastian Vettel was mathematically guaranteed the world championship after the Japanese Grand Prix, four races ago.

Gearbox gremlins

Vettel, however, was unable to round off a dominant year with his 12th race win. During the race, he received repeated radio messages warning him of a "serious gearbox problem," and was instructed to "short-shift" (when a driver changes to a higher gear earlier, decreasing strain on the engine and transmission but at the cost of speed) in second gear and then third gear as well.

His lap times dropped as a result and on lap 29 of 71 there was nothing Vettel could do to prevent his teammate Webber from taking the lead. He was, however, able to hold onto second place.

"I feel like Senna in '91," Vettel, a keen student of F1 history, told his race engineer 'Rocky' (Guillaume Rocquelin) over the in-car radio in the latter-stages of the race as he battled his rogue transmission.

"Good for you, mate!" Rocky replied.

Vettel was referring to the 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix, where three-time champion Ayrton Senna won his first ever race in front of his adoring home crowd, despite completing the final few laps with only fifth, sixth and seventh gears available to him. Senna was famously exhausted and close to collapse after this physically demanding race, and the scenes were explored at length in the popular biographic film "Senna" that was released in 2010.

Superlative season

Despite the relative disappointment at the last race of the season, Sebastian Vettel has completed one of the most impressive years in Formula One history, comfortably defending his world championship and assaulting the sport's record books.

By qualifying fastest of all drivers in Interlagos on Saturday, Vettel secured his 15th pole position of the 2011 season, a feat no driver in history has ever achieved. Nigel Mansell was the former record holder with 14 pole positions in the 1992 season, but Vettel was magnanimous enough to mention that Mansell secured his record in just a 16-race season, whereas he had 19 races in which to fight for the front grid spot.

As well as securing 15 pole positions, Vettel won 11 races, finished on the podium 17 times, retired only once, and won the title by an imperious margin of 122 points. His only "disappointing" performances came at Abu Dhabi where he retired with a first-lap puncture that caused suspension damage, and at his home race at the Nürburgring, where he qualified third and finished fourth. That German Grand Prix was the only event all season where Vettel failed to secure a spot on the front row of the grid. It was also the only race he finished outside the top three.

Going for the hattrick

Another way to quantify Vettel's domination of the podium positions in 2011 is to note that only seven different drivers have managed to secure a top three finish all season. That ties the lowest number of podium-finishers in F1 history, despite the greater number of total races compared to years' past.

In November 2010, Vettel took the lead of the F1 world championship for the first time in his career at the last race of that season; he has not relinquished the championship lead since.

The 24-year-old is the youngest double world champion of all time, and one of only nine drivers to successfully defend a Formula One world championship.

Vettel is over a year younger today than German seven-time champion Michael Schumacher was when he claimed his first F1 world title with Benetton in 1994.

In 2012, again teamed up with Mark Webber, Vettel will try to win a third consecutive title with Red Bull Racing. Only Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher, the two most successful drivers in Formula One history, have ever done so.

Author: Mark Hallam
Editor: Andreas Illmer