Brazilian GP: Stats

Lap distance: 4.309 km (2.677 miles). Race to be held over 71 laps, total distance 305.909 km (190.067 miles).

Start time: 14:00 local time (16:00 GMT)

Fastest race lap: Juan Pablo Montoya (Colombia) Williams, 2004. One minute 11.473 seconds (217.038 kph/134.861 mph)

2009 pole position: Rubens Barrichello (Brazil) Brawn 1:19.576

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Webber's second career victory was completely overshadowed by Button and his Brawn GP team winning both titles with a race to spare. Button finished fifth after starting 14th while team mate Barrichello, who had been on pole, suffered a late puncture and ended up eighth. Massa, injured in Hungary, was on hand to wave the chequered flag.

Massa won and had the title in his grasp until Lewis Hamilton seized the fifth place he needed at the last corner of the final lap in one of the most thrilling finales ever to a championship. Hamilton, at 23, became F1's youngest champion.

Raikkonen seized the title despite starting the day seven points adrift of Hamilton. Massa started on pole position but handed Raikkonen the lead at the second pitstop. Hamilton started on the front row but finished seventh after plunging to 18th place with what McLaren said was a gearbox problem.

Massa became the first Brazilian to win his home race since Ayrton Senna in 1993, in a grand prix that marked Michael Schumacher's farewell before retirement, and handed Fernando Alonso his second title.

Alonso finished third to become the then-youngest champion at the age of 24. Montoya won the race for the second year in a row, with Kimi Raikkonen anchoring McLaren's first one-two finish in more than five years.

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With Turkey, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and South Korea, Interlagos is one of five anti-clockwise tracks on the calendar and is an undulating, low-grip circuit with a long, high-speed straight.

It has fast corners and an often bumpy surface around a bowl-like amphitheatre. The weather is frequently hot and humid and downpours are a risk.

Interlagos hosted grands prix from 1973 to 1978 when the Brazilian round moved to Jacarepagua near Rio de Janeiro. The race returned to Interlagos in 1980 but then continued at Rio until moving back to a modernised circuit in 1990.

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Ferrari's Fernando Alonso can win his third world championship this weekend.

If he does, he will become only the ninth driver to achieve the feat.

Alonso won his two titles with Renault (2005, 2006) in Brazil. The last five championships have been decided at Interlagos.

Five drivers are still mathematically in the title chase with two races to go: Alonso, Red Bull's Mark Webber, team mate Sebastian Vettel and McLaren duo Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

Alonso will take the title if he wins at Interlagos and Webber (11 points behind) finishes no higher than fifth in the new 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 scoring system).

If Webber retires, Alonso need only score four more points than Hamilton (currently -21) and finish ahead of Vettel (-25) and Button (-42).

Vettel must finish in the points and ahead of Alonso to stay in the hunt.

Button must finish at least second, with Alonso not scoring and Webber out of the top four and Hamilton no higher than third, to have any chance of being in contention at the final round in Abu Dhabi.

Alonso is sixth in the all-time race winners list with 26 victories after winning in South Korea.

One more win would lift him level with three times champion Jackie Stewart. Those ahead of him are Nigel Mansell (31), Ayrton Senna (41), Alain Prost (51) and Michael Schumacher (91).

South Korea was Alonso's fifth win of the season. The last time a driver won five or more races and failed to win the title was in 2008, when Brazilian Felipe Massa won six to Hamilton's five.

Vettel took his ninth pole of the season and 14th of his career in South Korea, but again failed to win -- having taken only two of his three victories this year from pole.

Only seven of the 17 races have been from pole this year.

Red Bull have taken 14 poles this year and can equal the record of 15 held by McLaren (1988 and 1989) and Williams (1992 and 1993).

Williams hold the record for successive poles, with 24 in a row in 1992/93.

Red Bull have locked out the front row eight times this year.

Championship leaders' Red Bull's failure to score points in Korea ended a run of 22 races in the points. It was their first double retirement since 2008. McLaren are now the only team to have scored points in every race this year.

Hamilton's second place in Yeongam was McLaren's 450th podium finish.