Brazilian GP starting grid

1.  BARRICHELLO     Brawn
2.  WEBBER          Red Bull
3.  SUTIL           Force India
4.  TRULLI          Toyota
5.  RAIKKONEN       Ferrari
6.  BUEMI           Toro Rosso
7.  ROSBERG         Williams
8.  KUBICA          BMW
9.  NAKAJIMA        Williams
10. ALONSO          Renault
11. KOBAYASHI       Toyota
12. ALGUERSUARI     Toro Rosso
13. GROSJEAN        Renault
14. BUTTON          Brawn
15. VETTEL          Red Bull
16. KOVALAINEN      McLaren
17. HAMILTON        McLaren
18. HEIDFELD        BMW
19. FISICHELLA      Ferrari
20. LIUZZI          Force India*

Felipe Massa has tested in a Formula 1 car for the first time since suffering a fractured skull, but Ferrari say he will not return to competition in 2009.

Massa is making good progress since his crash in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix in July and the 28-year-old tested in an F2007 in Italy on Monday.

But Ferrari say they "want to proceed gradually" and do not intend to rush the Brazilian before he is ready.

"Talk of a proper return to F1 can wait until the start of 2010," they added.

Massa underwent neurological tests in Paris on Friday.

According to Ferrari, the outcome was "rather positive", prompting the decision to allow him to get behind the wheel of a privately-owned F2007 on Monday.

In-season testing is banned in F1, but the sport's governing body the FIA gave Massa permission to test using GP2 tyres at Ferrari's test track at Fiorano, as part of his rehabilitation.

"It went very well," Massa said after his rain-hit session behind the wheel. "It seems that what happened in July hasn't changed anything.

"I didn't manage to do many laps because of the rain but everything we've done up to now has been normal like before. It's positive for me and for the team to see I'm the same as before."

Ferrari insist there is no chance of Massa making a comeback in 2009, with only two races of the campaign remaining.

Felipe Massa has been given the honour of waving the chequered flag at his home Brazilian Grand Prix next week.

The recovering Ferrari driver had already confirmed that he would be attending the Interlagos race to mark his first appearance in a Formula 1 paddock since sustaining serious head injuries during qualifying in Hungary just over two months ago.

And while his home event has come too soon for him to be ready to return to racing, organisers announced the local hero will be involved in the weekend in some capacity and will wave the flag at the end of the race.

Organisers confirmed on Thursday that Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo had accepted the initiation on Massa’s behalf, with the two-time Interlagos winner to follow in the footsteps of football legend Pele and model Gisele Bundchen.

Massa returned to Italy this week to step up the preparations for his F1 return, completing two days of running in Ferrari’s race simulator as well as further fitness work.

On Friday the 28-year-old will fly to Paris to complete an FIA medical check which will pave the way for his return to an F1 car, with Ferrari saying his scheduled test in an F2007 fitted with GP2-spec tyres could take place as early as Monday.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa says he could return to action at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi on 1 November.

Massa suffered a fractured skull in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix in July but has ruled out a return at the next race in his native Brazil.

"It would be too close to the limit," he told newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport.

"We'll see for Abu Dhabi, we'll need the FIA's authorisation. I remember how to drive, my worry's not to get a good lap time, just to run again."

At the weekend, Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali had said it was "very, very unlikely" that Massa would be fit for the race in Abu Dhabi, but the driver himself seems more optimistic.

Massa has been out since the crash on 25 July, when he suffered serious injuries after debris from compatriot Rubens Barrichello's Brawn car hit his helmet just above the left eye.

The 28-year-old was travelling at slightly more than 160mph when the spring hit him, and he crashed into the barriers at 62mph.

At the time, there were major fears that he could have suffered loss of vision, and he said that looking back at the incident, he had had a lucky escape.

"The damage could have been very serious and, considering the way I feel now, I have no doubt: I was very lucky," he added.

"I've often seen again the crash on TV and also myself with the injured eye immediately after. It's shocking, but I was asleep and couldn't feel anything."

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher was on course to make a comeback to fill in for the injured Massa until a neck injury scuppered his chances.

Luca Badoer had two disappointing races as Massa's stand-in before being replaced for the rest of the season by Giancarlo Fisichella, who will drop down to reserve driver next season following the signing of Fernando Alonso from Renault.

Massa has begun working on technical performance and on rebuilding his strength at Ferrari's Maranello factory as he continues his comeback.

Although mid-season testing is not permitted, he has been working on a simulator, which will allow the team to compare his reactions and co-ordination to how they were before the accident, and he will then drive a two-year-old F2007 car with GP2 tyres later in the month.

"We worked very well, without any problems," he said after his first session in the simulator.

"It uses an A1GP single-seater, so it's not exactly like F1, but pretty close. I drove on the (simulation of the) track in Barcelona.

"Today's work was more than anything else a way to get back in contact with a car. Obviously I can't wait to get back behind the wheel of a real single-seater."

Ferrari has appointed 48-year-old Italian Luca Marmorini as head of its engine and electronics department, replacing Gilles Simon.

Marmorini worked for the Maranello team throughout the 1990s, before moving to Toyota and heading up the Japanese squad’s engine department until his departure in January this year.

Ferrari said Marmorini would take over from Simon with immediate effect, and thanked the Frenchman for his service over the past 15 years.

“Ferrari wishes to thank Gilles Simon for the important contribution he made during his time with the Gestione Sportiva, first from 1994 to 2006 as head of engine design and then as head of the whole engine department,” said a team statement.

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali was full of praise for Kimi Raikkonen's charging fourth place in the Japanese Grand Prix.

On the weekend that Ferrari confirmed Raikkonen will make way for Fernando Alonso next year, Domenicali said the Finn had extracted the absolute maximum from the team's wilting 2009 package, which is no longer being developed as Maranello's focus shifts to 2010.

The result also kept Ferrari two points ahead of McLaren in their tight battle for third in the championship.

"All things considered, this is a positive result," said Domenicali.
"I don't think we could have done any more than this fourth place.
"We got the most out of the F60 as it stands today and, thanks to yet another great drive from Kimi, we also managed to stay third in the constructors' classification."

Raikkonen ran fifth early on, fending off Rubens Barrichello, then charged away on soft tyres in the middle stint and put himself in a position to grab fourth from Nick Heidfeld at the final stops.

Domenicali was also pleased with Giancarlo Fisichella, feeling the Italian was improving his pace even though he only finished 12th.
"Giancarlo also drove a good race, driving competitively in terms of pace and performance, as can be seen from the fact he set the eighth best lap time," he said.

Fisichella agreed that he had definitely taken a step forwarded over his previous Ferrari form.
"I had a better feel for the car this weekend and I think the effect from that could be seen, although maybe not in terms of the results," he said.
"Today, I could run at a good pace, especially in the middle part of the race."

He was beaten to 11th by Heikki Kovalainen after a close dice in the pit exit - the McLaren squeezing back ahead into the first corner after being jumped in the pits.

"We managed to get ahead of him in the pit stop, but then he swerved across to the inside at the only point where I left the door slightly open and he leaned on me, managing to get by," said Fisichella.

Japanese Grand Prix result (53 laps)

1.  VETTEL       Red Bull             2.  TRULLI       Toyota        +4.8s
3.  HAMILTON     McLaren       +6.4s
4.  RAIKKONEN    Ferrari       +7.9s
5.  ROSBERG      Williams      +8.7s
6.  HEIDFELD     BMW           +9.5s
7.  BARRICHELLO  Brawn         +10.6s
8.  BUTTON       Brawn         +11.4s
9.  KUBICA       BMW           +11.7s
10. ALONSO       Renault       +13.0s
11. KOVALAINEN   McLaren       +13.7s
12. FISICHELLA   Ferrari       +14.5s
13. SUTIL        Force India   +14.9s
14. LIUZZI       Force India   +15.7s
15. NAKAJIMA     Williams      +17.9s
16. GROSJEAN     Renault       +1 lap
17. WEBBER       Red Bull      +1 lap
R.  ALGUERSUARI  Toro Rosso    +8 laps

R.  BUEMI        Toro Rosso    +27 laps
DNS.GLOCK        Toyota

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel dominated the Japanese Grand Prix from start to finish to keep his slim world title hopes alive, while Rubens Barrichello finished one place ahead of Brawn GP team-mate Jenson Button to inch one point closer to the championship leader.

Vettel was in a class of his own throughout, pulling as much as 10 seconds ahead at one stage before a safety car period in the closing laps (triggered by a huge crash for Jaime Alguersuari) concertinaed the field.

Jarno Trulli lost second place to Lewis Hamilton at the start but regained it at the final pit stop exchange to record Toyota’s second consecutive runner-up finish, this time at its home event.
Hamilton lost time with a slow exit from the pits and then was hobbled by a KERS problem in the closing stages, but managed to fend off Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari for third.

Meanwhile, Button again played a perfect game of damage limitation after the points leader recovered well from his grid penalty and a poor start to finish eighth behind Barrichello.
It means Button now has a 14-point advantage over his Brazilian team-mate heading into the season’s final two races, with Vettel clinging on 16 points adrift.

Brawn's seven-eight finish meant it narrowly failed to clinch the constructors’ title but the trophy is now on ice for the Brackley-based team, which has 35.5 points in hand over Red Bull with just 36 still up for grabs.

At the start of the race the KERS-equipped Hamilton had pounced on front-row Trulli and positioned himself to the right of left of pole man Vettel on the run down to the first corner.

However, the McLaren driver would have soon run out of track should he have attempted a move around the outside of the Red Bull, so it was Vettel who lead the field through the super-fast right-hander.

Further back and Button was coming under attack from the KERS cars of Heikki Kovalainen and Giancarlo Fisichella and reached the first corner in 12th - although he soon took one place back from the Ferrari driver.

But while the world champion elect was again toiling at the start of a race, Vettel quickly showed he was in no mood to waste the opportunity to stay in the title hunt by romping clear of Hamilton in the first two laps.

By the end of lap two the German was already 1.9s ahead of the McLaren and continued to steadily increase that advantage by several tenths to give himself a handy 2.6s lead four laps later.

Button's eventful start to the race was only continuing, however.

The Briton had managed to regain his 10th-place starting position by lap three after expertly outbraking BMW’s Robert Kubica at the chicane, Button having got onto the Pole’s tail by dint of a better run through 130R.

But while it moved him that one place closer to the points, Button found his attempts at further progress significantly blunted by the scrapping Kovalainen and Force India’s Adrian Sutil.

Kovalainen had quickly fallen off the pace of the cars ahead and was clearly holding an increasingly agitated-looking Sutil up, while Button himself had started to complain over the radio of suffering with understeer travelling in the pair’s turbulent air.

Yet just when all sorts of nightmare scenarios may have been beginning to loom large in his mind with several one-stoppers in striking distance behind, Button benefited from the kind of fortune that often decides titles and, in truth, he has benefited from several doses of in recent months.

On lap 13 Sutil finally got a run on the similarly Mercedes-powered Kovalainen coming out of 130R and went for a clear gap down the inside of the chicane, but the McLaren man decided to keep his foot in and tried to hold his ground on the outside.

A collision was inevitable and as the Force India spun round and Kovalainen took to the asphalt run-off, the road was clear for Button to breeze through into eighth.

At this stage main title rival Barrichello was running in sight of fifth-placed Raikkonen, but Button now had the chance to get himself back in contention for more points in the laps before his stop and immediately started lapping 1s faster than he had up until that point.

Meanwhile, second-placed Hamilton could have done with a similar surge in pace if he had ambitions of catching Vettel, the world champion the first of the front runners to pit on lap 15 when he was some 4.3s in arrears of the Red Bull.

After Trulli pitted a lap later to retake a comfortable third, the race leader was in himself on lap 18.

However, while Red Bull’s stop was mistake free, Vettel nevertheless lost around two seconds as the lollipop man waited for BMW’s Heidfeld to come down the pit lane.

The small delay meant Vettel resumed with his lead reduced to 2.9s, but the lost time only seemed to spur the German star on and he quickly began to build a more comfortable advantage over Hamilton once more.

Hamilton in turn began to fall into the clutches of the impressive Trulli, the Italian getting the gap down to as little as 2.2s during the stint before Hamilton responded with several quicker laps.
The McLaren driver had been told over the radio that he needed to keep at least 3s ahead of the slightly-heavier Toyota if he was to stay ahead of him through the their respective final stops, but with Hamilton struggling to shake the veteran off it looked set to be a close run thing when he initiated the second round of fuel stops on lap 38.

All went like clockwork for the service itself, but as he flicked his pit limiter off as he crossed the white exit line Hamilton's MP4-24 appeared to take more time than usual to get up to speed which lost him crucial seconds.

The stuttering exit seemed to prove decisive too as, while Trulli only pitted only two laps later, he re-emerged just ahead of Hamilton to set up Toyota’s best ever result on home ground.
With serene race leader Vettel enjoying a trouble-free final stop of his own to cement an almost certain race victory and 10-point haul, what remained unclear was just how many points he would travel to Interlagos behind Button with the Briton still trying to move up from eighth.

Indeed it was the other Brawn of Barrichello who had been striggling in the middle stint of the race, the Brazilian having dropped like a stone from the increasingly fast Raikkonen after his first stop and into the clutches of Rosberg, Button and Kubica.
With the Brawns the first to pit – Button ending up right on the tail of Barrichello as the raced entered its final 10 laps – the only question now remaining unanswered was where Rosberg would filter back onto the track in relation to the pair, the Williams driver going longer on the fuel.

The answer would be surprisingly ahead of both in fifth after he was able to make that stop under the safety car after it came out following a heavy crash for Alguersuari at the 190mph 130R.
The Toro Rosso teenager put a wheel on the asphalt as he exited the circuit’s fastest corner which put him into a wild spin across the track and sent him smashing through one of the foam advertising boards and into his second sizeable impact with a tyre barrier in as many days.

The scattered debris meant the safety car was called and, while the field lapped to the controlled time indicated on their dashboard as they prepared to form up behind the pace car, Rosberg took the opportunity to take his pit stop and re-emerged ahead of both BMW's Nick Heidfeld and the two Brawns.

After a five-lap full-course yellow, the scene was set for some late order changes at the front but Vettel had simply been in a class of his own all day and reeled off the final four laps to take his fourth career win ahead of Trulli and Hamilton.

Raikkonen had closed onto Heidfeld’s tail with a rapid middle stint and got ahead when the BMW driver had a slow final stop, with Heidfeld's late slide compounded when he then fell behind Rosberg.

After post-race claims from Brawn that Rosberg had failed to adhere to the controlled speed limit on his in-lap, stewards investigated the incident after the race but later decided no punishment was required.

Button came under intense pressure from Kubica in the closing laps but held on for the final point, while Fernando Alonso finished ahead of Kovalainen in a commendable 10th for Renault after his qualifying penalty.

For the 2009 season, the FIA are making public the weights of all cars ahead of the race start to help give an idea of relative fuel loads. The cars that made Q3 are weighed after qualifying, while the weights of the remaining cars must be declared by their teams shortly after the session.

Below is the provisional grid for the Japanese Grand Prix with each car's weight. Note - Brawn GP’s Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, Force India’s Adrian Sutil, Renault’s Fernando Alonso were all handed five-place grid penalties for failing to slow adequately under yellow flags. Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi received an identical penalty for impeding other cars and causing a potential hazard to other drivers.

Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Toyota’s Timo Glock will start from the pit lane after swapping to new chassis.

1. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 658.5kg
2. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 655.5
3. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 656
4. Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber, 660
5. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 661
6. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 675
7. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 684.5
8. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber, 686
9. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 650
10. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn GP, 660.5
11. Jaime Alguersuari, Toro Rosso, 682.5
12. Jenson Button, Brawn GP, 658.5
13. Giancarlo Fisichella, Ferrari, 661.5
14. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 665.4
15. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 695.7
16. Romain Grosjean, Renault, 691.8
17. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 689.5
18. Vitantonio Liuzzi, Force India, 682.5
19. Timo Glock, Toyota, n/a
20. Mark Webber, Red Bull, n/a

The starting grid for the Japanese Grand Prix has been scrambled after five drivers were penalised for failing to heed yellow flags following Sebastien Buemi’s crash during qualifying.

The two title-contending Brawn drivers, Force India’s Adrian Sutil, Renault’s Fernando Alonso and Toro Rosso’s Buemi were all docked five grid places after lengthy deliberations by the stewards.

The first four drivers were adjudged not to have slowed sufficiently when passing the scene of Buemi’s accident, where debris had been littered across the track.