For fans of Grand Prix who have no particular loyalty to a team or driver, it has to be said that the 2011 Formula 1 season has delivered plenty of excitement on Sunday afternoons, even if one team has dominated the standings and won both titles. However, a look at the results sheet or the times from qualifying throughout the year would lead anyone not watching the action to assume it had been a dull affair.The Brazilian GP Qualifying sheet is no exception to that rule, with the Red Bull’s monopolising the front row, Vettel taking yet another pole ahead of team-mate Webber. Row 2 features the silver cars of this year’s silver medal team, the McLarens lining up with Button third and Hamilton fourth. And so, tomorrow, it will be pretty much a reflex action for Fernando Alonso to steer his 150º Italia onto the fifth spot of the grid. Mercedes seem to have found some extra speed and so Rosberg lines up next to the Spanish Ferrari driver, leaving Felipe Massa to get the benefit of the clean side of the track, seventh on the grid for his home race, which he has won twice before. Tomorrow, the partisan but knowledgeable Paulista crowd will know that making it a hat trick is unlikely and will simply expect Felipe to do his best: no doubt about that as he brings the curtain down on his first decade in Formula 1 at his one hundredth race for the Prancing Horse.If this year’s racing has been exciting, it is also true that whenever it has rained in 2011, it has added to the spectacle and Interlagos is no stranger to chaotic wet races. The forecast leads us to expect a downpour for tomorrow, but the Ferrari crew will have prepared for every eventuality, as they get ready for the final curtain call of the season.
A tale of a hundred Grands Prix
When it is the moment to celebrate a special event, it is nice to be given presents and to share the moment with one’s nearest and dearest. That’s exactly what happened today for Felipe Massa, who has been part of the Ferrari family in Formula 1 for ten years and for whom tomorrow’s Brazilian Grand Prix will be his one hundredth F1 race at the wheel of a Prancing Horse car.
For this double celebration there was quite a gathering for the obligatory cake cutting ceremony, including his family, his closest friends and the entire team, who presented him with a piece of bodywork off the 150° Italia covered in everyone’s autographs. Alongside Felipe for this unforgettable moment captured by the photographers was team-mate Fernando Alonso and Team Principal Stefano Domenicali, as well as old friends and colleagues including Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, and Peter Sauber the team boss who gave Felipe his first Formula 1 drive.
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