The Brazilian Grand Prix 2012 was the 20th round of the 2012 F1 season, and took place at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in São Paulo, Brazil, on November 25th.
Jenson Button won the race after starting in the 2nd position, followed by Fernando Alonso, and Felipe Massa completing the podium.
Lewis Hamilton started from the pole position, but didn't manage to cross the finish line, as he retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars, and had to retire on lap 54th.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 69 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 8-10: 9 stops
- Laps 13-15: 8 stops
- Laps 17-20: 19 stops
- Laps 50-59: 25 stops
The fastest pit stop was Nico Hülkenberg's, stopping the clock at 14.128 seconds during his pit stop on lap 58, while the slowest one was was Heikki Kovalainen's, who stopped the clock at 38.291 seconds, 24.163 seconds slower than Hülkenberg, during his pit stop on lap 19.
These times include the time the driver spent going through the pit lane, as well as the actual time he stopped for the mechanics to work on his car.
Strategy
The race was not obvious in terms of pit stop strategy, with different teams and different drivers choosing to make anywhere from 2 to 5 stops.
The race winner, Jenson Button, was on a 2 stops strategy.
2 stops
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19Lewis Hamilton
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1Jenson Button
3 stops
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2Kimi Räikkönen
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5Kamui Kobayashi
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1Mark Webber
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5Fernando Alonso
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9Paul di Resta
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10Charles Pic
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8Vitaly Petrov
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2Felipe Massa
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1Nico Hülkenberg
4 stops
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6Michael Schumacher
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6Nico Rosberg
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2Sebastian Vettel
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5Narain Karthikeyan
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5Timo Glock
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7Pedro de la Rosa
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9Jean-Éric Vergne
5 stops
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2Daniel Ricciardo
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6Heikki Kovalainen
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 2 stops strategy lost an average of 1 positions, the ones on a 3 stops strategy gained 3.5 positions on average, the ones on a 4 stops strategy gained 3.43 positions on average, while those on a 5 stops strategy gained 4 positions on average.
Despite of the average possitons gained or lost, and considering a deeper analysis of the performance of each strategy, we consider the 3 stops strategy as the optimal for this race, even if Jenson Button managed to win the race making 2 stops.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
There were some incidents during the race, with 6 drivers who didn't manage to cross the finish line.
These included, Paul di Resta, and Romain Grosjean, both had to retire due to an accident, and Lewis Hamilton, Pastor Maldonado, Bruno Senna, and Sergio Pérez, all of whom retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars.
Accident
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Paul di RestaLap 68
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Romain GrosjeanLap 5
Collision
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Lewis HamiltonLap 54
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Pastor MaldonadoLap 1
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Bruno SennaLap 0
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Sergio PérezLap 0
Qualifying
Lewis Hamilton managed to get the pole position by 0.055 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:12.458. Jenson Button was right behind him, helping McLaren score a one-two and monopolize the first line of the grid.
The second line fo the grid was dominated by Red Bull, with Mark Webber in third position, and Sebastian Vettel in fourth.
Track evolution
As the qualifying session went on, with the track rubbering in, and the drivers testing the limits of the grip of their cars, the times per lap dropped, and all of the drivers that took place in Q2 improved their times in this second session.
The Q3 is the time were all the remaining drivers put all their cards on the table, even those with a superior car who might have been managing their times in Q1 and Q2 push their cars to the limit in Q3. It therefore comes as no surprise that all of the drivers that took place in Q3 managed to improve their times in this last session.