Red Bull Racing sealed the constructors’ championship with a dominant 1-2 finish in the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos as Sebastian Vettel took his fourth win of the year. Nico Hulkenberg also drove a fine race to score four points for the Cosworth-powered AT&T Williams team, elevating the team above Force India into sixth place in the championship.

Red Bull clinches Constructors championship, Hulkenberg eighth

Vettel went inside pole man Hulkenberg into the first corner, while Webber fended off the advances of Lewis Hamilton. The Aussie then passed Hulkenberg on the exit of Turn 4. The gap between the Red Bulls was never a significant one but Vettel claimed he had everything under control, striving to keep the margin at around 2.5s.

Behind them, Hamilton went a bit too deep into Turn 4 and was passed by Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari. The Spaniard then set about Hulkenberg but the young German calmly defended the inside at T1 for the first seven laps before Alonso took advantage when he ran slightly wide at T4, to take third place. By that stage the Ferrari was around 12s behind Vettel’s lead and any realistic chance of challenging for the win was gone.

Jenson Button, after a difficult qualifying session which had seen him start 11th, was up to ninth on lap 1 but then dropped a place to Schumacher’s Mercedes. He was the first to pit for prime tyres, on lap 12 of the 71, with Felipe Massa, who’d been running just ahead of him, covering him next lap. But, as soon as he left the pits, Massa felt something awry with the right front wheel. A cross-threaded nut forced him to stop again a lap later, dropping him from contention.

Hulkenberg was still in fourth place, keeping Hamilton at bay, with Kubica right behind, when he made his stop on lap 14. The Renault followed him in and they rejoined in the same order.

“This was not our finest race of the season,” admitted Renault’s chief race engineer Alan Permane. “In terms of strategy, we were left between a rock and a hard place on the call to stop Robert: Button and Massa had stopped for fresh tyres before us, and were making up time, so we pitted to cover them and try to get out in front. Unfortunately, Hülkenberg also chose to stop on the same lap and we simply followed him in and out of the pits.” The pair of them then lost time running behind Vitaly Petrov in the second Renault for several laps.

At the front, Webber had a water pressure problem and his engine was starting to run hot. It cooled down again behind the Safety Car deployed in response to Tonio Liuzzi’s Force India crashing at Turn 2 with a suspension issue after 49 laps. It was perhaps fortunate for Webber that there were seven backmarkers between him and Alonso when the Safety Car pulled in, the second place Red Bull 5s to the good by the time Alonso was through the traffic. The Spaniard attacked hard and closed the gap but Webber was in control and followed Vettel across the line, 4s in arrears.

The five championship contenders took the top five places, with Alonso heading Hamilton and Button, then came the Mercedes pair, with Nico Rosberg sixth and Michael Schumacher seventh. Hulkenberg ultimately got home in eighth place after an excellent drive that kept Kubica behind him all afternoon. He scored a crucial four points as Williams co-owner Patrick Head estimated that the difference in financial reward between sixth and seventh place in the championship was probably in the order of $3-4m dollars! Team mate Rubens Barrichello was delayed by a damaged left front wheel after contact with Jaime Alguersuari and finished 14th.

In the new teams battle, Heikki Kovalainen got his Lotus across the line less than a second ahead of team mate Jarno Trulli to finish 18th, with Timo Glock just 6s behind for Virgin Racing.

Four drivers now go into the season finale in Abu Dhabi next weekend with the possibility of taking the title. Lewis Hamilton has a straightforward task – he must win with Alonso, Webber and Vettel all failing to score. If that happens he is champion by a point. If Vettel wins, Alonso must be lower than fourth for the German to take the title. If Webber wins, Alonso must be second.