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| The main straight of Interlagos |
This is obviously the last GP preview I will write in 2013 because this weekend we will witness the last Grand Prix of the year.
The drivers and constructors championships have already been won by Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull.
All the other positions are still undecided so we are probably going to see a lot of fighting and pushing.
Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus are fighting for second place in the constructors championship. At the moment Mercedes has the spot and leads with 15 points over Ferrari and then Lotus with 33 points behind 2nd place. Everything is still possible but Lotus doesn't believe that they have a chance for second position so they are aiming for third place.
That's why they got Heikki Kovalainen to fill in for Kimi Räikkönen. The only problem is that if the car is as bad as it was in Austin, he has no chance of getting points for them. I hope they this time get the pit stops to work a bit faster as well, because Heikki's first pit stop was 2 seconds slower that Romain's. They both just changed their tires and nothing else. Later Heikki had to come back to change his front wing for some reason.
Bottas who became my new hero got his first points and he's hungry for more. Let's just hope that Maldonado has a bit better luck this time as well.
Let's talk a bit about the track!
Interlagos is in Sao Paulo, Brazil and the first F1 GP was held there in 1973. The first race was won by Brazil's own hero Emerson Fittipaldi who was the youngest world champion ever at the time. He drove for Lotus.
Interlagos has had a GP in the series from 1973-1977, 1979-1980 and returned in 1990 and has hosted a GP every year ever since.
F1 had also an unofficial race at Interlagos in 1972 which was won by Carlos Reutemann, but because it wasn't an official race it doesn't count.
The track record is in Juan-Pablo Montoya's name and it is 1.11,473. It was made in 2004 when the cars were a bit faster than they are nowadays.
The track is 4,309 meters long with 15 turns and the race is driven anti-clockwise around the track.
Who has won in Interlagos the most? The answer is Michael Schumacher 4 times, then comes Emerson Fittipaldi, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen and Juan-Pablo Montoya 2 times.
From today's F1 drivers Mark Webber has also won at Interlagos twice, Sebastian Vettel, Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen once, but the Finn is not racing this weekend because of his back surgery last week.
For those of you who don't know, the Australian Mark Webber is ending his career in F1 after this race. I would absolutely love it if Mark Webber would go out in style and win his last race in Formula One.
He's first race was in Australia back in 2002 and he drove for Minardi which was the worst team back then.
Even though he drove an awful car he managed to be 5th in his first race. So a super start like that should have a super ending as well to make a perfect story.
My thumbs are up for Mark Webber and actually I believe that he might just be faster than Vettel this weekend. Let's see! By the way, they have predicted rain for the weekend so everything is possible if that happens.
My guesses:
Pole position: Mark Webber, Red Bull
Race:
- Mark Webber, Red Bull
- Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull
- Nico Hulkenberg, Sauber
In the beginning of next week I will write a review and see how well I guessed the results.
Enjoy the last race of the year and let's hope it will be a nice one!
