Interlagos was the end of the road.

The 2013 Formula One Championship ended at Interlagos and the final race of the season put a period at the end on many stories in the series.

It was, of course, the end of the road for the 2.4 liter normally aspirated V8.  Renault has put it's stamp all over the era, winning the last race and more than half of all races in the past eight seasons but there's more to say goodbye to before drawing some conclusions about this controversial yet boring year.

The end of the road, in F1 at least, for Mark Webber.  You must read Webber's comments on  Peter Windsor's  blog,   rather priceless I thought.   Here's a preview:

 On Helmut Marko

I still don’t really know his role in the team, so….yeah…. He was very critical of me from Day One but in the end he’s obviously brought Seb through and done a great job with that. He’s probably disappointed that F1 teams have to have two cars. But they do.

Mark bows out of a bad situation in the best possible way and with class,  well done.  Funny how now everyone loves him at Red Bull.

End of the Ferrari road for Felipe Massa.     The penalty in the race was harsh, but, given drivers were warned rather specifically before the race, inevitable.   What remains to be seen is how many others did the same exact thing.     Massa goes out of Ferrari with a silly mistake costing the team second place from Mercedes not to mention millions of dollars.

The end of Brazil as the final race of the season, next year the season ends in AbuDhabi.    A shame really because Interlagos has shown once again that despite being constantly badmouthed for it's lackluster VIP accommodations , it is just a magical track, far better than any modern bazillion dollar Tilkedrome.  Too bad the rain never came on Sunday.

The 2013 championship, despite Vettel's records will always have an asterisk  beside it,  The changing of the tires in the middle of the season, spoiled it and was profoundly unfair to teams that had designed their car to work with what was, after all supposed to be a tire with a certain engineered limit to it.  Red Bull and Mercedes bullied the series into giving them a tire that worked for the car  they designed.   Magically after their respective tests, with current cars, their performance improved.

Be that as it may, Vettel did an amazing job taking advantage of his advantage,  I just don't think routinely winning by 30 seconds over the likes of an Alonso and Hamilton is driver alone.
Hopefully the new formula will mark the end of the road for Red Bull's domination.  It's not a team easy to like, what with Marko and Multi 21 and braking the spending cap agreements and Newey telling the press the only reason Lotus and Ferrari won at all this year was because of luck.   Great image management but underneath it, they can make Mclaren feel warm and fuzzy.  No wonder people boo'd and RB embarked on that massive PR campaign to "humanize" Vettel in the final races (which most of the press bought hook line and sinker).

In the bigger picture, Formula One needs to take a long hard look at itself:  diving in the "eco" rabbit hole and  spending so much money even top teams struggle to survive,  forcing them to take on lousy pay drivers and leaving clear talent sidelined, is a dead end for what is supposed to be the pinnacle of the sport.

You know something's not right if racers like Hamilton and Alonso have to resign themselves to being tire managers.  Next year, potentially they will have to be fuel managers as well.    F1 had always thrown tough technical challenges to teams but nobody really cares to see engineers compete at who's the cleverest, it's a side interest but nothing if the main attraction is missing.