Indyplus update: Brazilian Grand Prix

Nobody, apart from Mark Webber, has really been able to unsettle Sebastian Vettel in the past eight races, but in Interlagos the weather gods gave it their best try as the final session of qualifying was delayed by torrential rain. Vettel, however, remained their favoured one as he took his 45th pole position comfortably.

“I was surprised by how much the water had gone when the session finally started,” Vettel said, “so we quickly switched from full wet tyres to intermediates and the car felt fantastic. It was a good lap.”

Rosberg had hoped to take the fight to Red Bull here and wasn’t disappointed with second place on the grid, but the Mercedes driver admitted: “I’m surprised by the gap to Sebastian. It’s very big…”

Third on the grid was unfamiliar territory for Fernando Alonso and Ferrari this season, and the Spaniard confessed to mixed feelings. “We know that in wet conditions we improve a little bit our performance. I’m happy to be so far up the grid, but I wasn’t totally happy with my lap. I lost a lot of time, not to beat Seb because he’s so far ahead, but second place shouldn’t have been difficult.”

Lewis Hamilton lines up fifth behind Webber, who was nearly a second off Vettel. “I said yesterday that there would be no hope for me if the race is wet,” Hamilton said, “but we did some work on the car and it felt a little better today.”

The world championships might long have been settled in favour of Vettel and his Red Bull team, but there is still much at stake in this historic final race of the 2.4-litre V8 era.

With those eight consecutive victories behind him, Vettel can match the legendary Alberto Ascari’s unique feat of nine wins over the 1952 and ’53 seasons. But in his 215 and final grand prix, Webber desperately wants to sign off with a 10 success. Felipe Massa would like to do that too, before he leaves Ferrari. But with fourth and ninth positions on the grid, both have personal mountains to climb this afternoon.