Having Interlagos coming hot on the heels of Suzuka is almost like trying to eat two chocolate cakes in one go. But they are very different types of cake: in Japan, everything is neatly sliced and beautifully presented and in Brazil, it’s just a tasty mess of cacao and cream served in your hand.

And this year, there is a really special buzz to the place, given that Rubens Barrichello is in the running for the championship and that Felipe Massa made his first public appearance since his Hungary accident and has an important job to do: waving the chequered flag at the end of the race.

If Rubinho wins on Sunday, the fans will probably pull the Interlagos circuit to the ground. That isn’t saying much, as a lot of it is nearly falling down already.

But one element is just fantastic and that’s this short little track that follows the contours of the land between two lakes, hence the name Interlagos. It’s the fans here who really make the race weekend as they are the most enthusiastic on the calendar, making the Ferrari tifosi look like kindergarten kids, so vocal and fierce is their support for any local driver.

Go down to the grid for the race start and the grandstand is so close to the track, you feel as though the slightest provocation and the fans would be on the grid with you. When Ayrton Senna was racing and last year with Massa, the atmosphere and noise would really make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

The crowd is very good natured, but somehow they are a bit quieter than the days when we raced in Rio. There, entire Samba Bands would come into the stands, playing music loud enough to drown out the engine noise. They were all well lubricated with huge plastic containers of beer, which would be passed along each row, so that everyone got a drink.

It may be best not to go into details about how they got rid of all this drink, but it involved passing the now empty jugs back down the line to be filled with something the same colour as beer.

Every city hosting a grand prix likes to talk about the way in which the race stimulates the local economy. In Sao Paulo it can be more of a direct transaction.

There was a quite heavy, highly-conspicuous police presence on the avenue going up to the circuit entrance his morning. It both is and isn’t a good sign. Good, because everything is a little bit safer, bad because it usually appears after someone from the paddock has been robbed.

You won’t find anywhere in the world as wealthy as Sao Paulo. And you won’t find anywhere quite so poor either. And bizarrely, at least to our eyes, the two aspects of the city somehow managed to co-exist side by side. The muggings and car-jackings that take place every year when F1 comes to town are a lesson in simple economics. The street kids know there’s basically one road in and out of the circuit, and that in the evening, any car coming down the road with a parking sticker on it is going to be packed full of laptops, watches, cameras and more assorted wealth than they’ll ever see in their lives. Knock one car over and eat for a year. It’s hard to argue with the logic, and impossible to blame them for having a go – but you still try damned hard to stop it happening to you. 

And so we scuttle from the track to the hotel, trying not to stop or slow down for anyone or anything, but every year someone gets relieved of their valuables. What’s annoying is that we know it’s going to happen, and we know where it’s going to happen, and so do the local police – but they don’t bother to show up until after it’s happened, when they suddenly put on a show of force to face down the horde of Genghis Khan.

As it turned out this year’s first robbery happened miles away from the circuit, when one unlucky soul had a puncture on his drive in from the airport, in a place where stopping by the side of the road really wouldn’t be your first choice.

Of course Sao Paulo isn’t the only place where anyone in team kit gets treated as a mobile ATM: in fact talk to any seasoned truckie and they’ll say that for years Silverstone was the worst place in the world for things walking out of the paddock – though obviously mysterious disappearances in the night isn’t quite the same thing as staring down the barrel of a handgun.

There’s nothing particularly that you can do to stop it, but you will see a conspicuous number of petrol station watches and ancient mobile phones on display in the paddock this weekend. Best not to tempt fate…

These days at a European race we’re a little bit spoiled for working space. Obviously there’s the Energy Station, which is handy for meals, but is the domain of the drivers, principals and marketing and communications teams. The engineering effort operates out of the transporter trucks and the ‘tree-house’ which is built over the top of them; then the overspill is accommodated in the back of the garage and under the tree-house in the space between the trucks. It’s really quite civilised.

But none of that travels to fly-aways. Instead everything and everyone is crammed into the garage and whatever office space is allocated in the paddock. At the newer tracks, built specifically with a travelling F1 circus in mind, this can be quite palatial. Interlagos is at the other end of the scale. Pokey doesn’t do it justice. The paddocks in China and Turkey are so big you could have game of 11-a-side football without getting in the way. Here you’d be hard pressed to play dominoes.

Like Montreal, the paddock is a victim of geography. In Canada it’s a case of it backing onto the Olympic rowing basin and having no room to expand; here in Brazil it’s because the Paddock’s perched on the top of a hill. Actually, the garages are perched on top of a hill, the Paddock is on top of the girders that stretch out from the top of the hill. Probably best to not dwell on that one too much.

Anyway, the upshot is that this place in tiny. If you’re defining the Paddock as the space between the back of the garage and the front of the offices, then this one is about four metres wide. Knock off about a metre for all the garage paraphernalia (tyre stacks, gas bottles) stored out the back and probably one and a half metres for the tables and chairs out at the front of the offices, and what you’re left with is a thoroughfare about a metre and a half wide, through which the entire business of the race has to pass: people; kit, forklifts, everything. It’s a bit cosy.

The only thing around that moves with any speed is a good rumour; for anything more tangible it’s a bit of a slog. It just about works so long as everyone keeps moving; whenever a gaggle forms – for instance when one of the drivers does his media work in front of a board at the back of a garage, then everything clogs up solid. And it’s only Thursday. Imagine what it’s like when the place is full of camera crews and guests at the weekend…

Wednesday night in Sao Paulo produced a rare sighting, rarer than a hummingbird in the Arctic, of not one, but two driver wallets. Incredible but true, Sebastian and Mark took the whole Red Bull Racing team, including our Renault engine guys out to dinner.

The only problem was how to get rid of all the KFC Family Jumbo Buckets when the dinner was over.

Only kidding, as our two drivers splashed out on the very popular Fogo de Chao restaurant, one of those amazing Churascaria restaurants where they serve about 20 different types of grilled meat, served on long sword-like skewers.

They operate in a very practical way in that each diner gets a paper disc, red on one side, green on the other and you select the former for “Stop, no more,” or the latter for “I could eat a horse.” The Churascaria virgins on the team didn’t know you have to go to the buffet and put some salad on your plate before the waiters, dressed like South American Cowboys, will start slicing the steak. Experienced pros just put one leaf of lettuce on their plates and make it last all night long.

So a big thanks to Mark and Seb for a slap up feast to start the weekend off in style.

Thanks for everyone who took part in our competition to win a set of stamps produced by Australia Post.

And well done to our three winners:

Barbara Pignatti of Italy, Adam Haack from Australia and Gabriel Mendizabal also from Australia.

Their prizes are on their way over now.

Congratulations.

Seb’s emphatic win in Suzuka was a bit special. He led from start to finish, dominating the Japanese Grand Prix.

As ever this season, to celebrate a team victory we produced a limited edition poster for the whole team based at our Milton Keynes Factory to commemorate the win.

…we’ve also got hold of 25 to give away to the winners of our competition.

If you fancy owning one of these rare, rather attractive prizes which feature the picture of Seb (taken by Getty Images above) on one side and shots of the RB5, the team celebrating and the race on the reverse, then just answer the following question and enter our competition:

Where did Sebastian finish in the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix?

You need to send the answer, your name, full postal address and a daytime phone number to competition@redbullf1.com before 5pm (CET) on Friday, October 23 2009. The 25 winners will be chosen at random from the correct answers.

Good luck…

Bitter sweet was how one member of the pitwall (the management) described Sunday’s outcome.

While the left-hand side of the garage was celebrating a clinical win from Sebastian, Mark’s crew were congratulating them but left wondering ‘what if…’ It did seem cruel that of all the (many) incidents over the weekend Mark’s was the one which meant he missed Qualifying and had to start from pit lane. And then the insult of the three early pit stops didn’t help any. He was sanguine about the affair though and we all now travel to Brazil to fight on.

The first part of that long journey to South America for most was a three-hour bus trip to Osaka Airport on Monday. Which started at 5am. So there was precious little time to celebrate Seb’s victory between garage pack-up and hotel check out. Although we managed it some how.

The more observant may have seen Seb’s own podium celebrations involved the stroking of his chin. Not an itch, nor contemplation but a covert mark of recognition to his crew. Ever since Singapore when his number one mechanic decided to stop shaving daily, others in the garage have joined in as well. Leading to a decidedly hairier set of mechanics, some of who look better hirsute than others.

The German press have taken this to their hearts and even imagined what Seb would look like if he spared the razor. Although there’s a too much grey in their mock-up for someone his age:

Let’s hope those lucky beards work their magic in two weeks’ time. And that the RB5 is the fastest car on the track, of course.

Off track everything was fairly simple: Sunshine + Suzuka = Thousands of fanatical Japanese fans.

And Japanese fans are a breed apart. Nowhere else do we find such dedication and invention. Case in point? Two young ladies visited our hospitality area in the Paddock yesterday armed with gifts for the team (mobile phone charms in the shape of miniature pieces of sushi), a poster they’d bought off eBay to get signed by the drivers and – since one of them used to work as a beautician – offers of free hand massages for everyone they met.

As we drove in this morning the patient crowds of supporters in team colours, wrapped in flags or wearing full racesuits had grown in number, each one managing to simultaneously wave and point a camcorder at any car with team personnel. And within the merchandise area they queue for hours for any F1-related experience: The Ayrton Senna Foundation gallery, the Marlboro stand, the chance to change a wheel on a Toyota, the chance to have their picture taken next to a full-size picture of Mark and Seb. There’s more atmosphere in one day of Quali here than in a decade of, well… certain other grands prix we could mention.

And the local spirit of invention extends to the circuit refreshments. No pie and chips, beer and burgers here. Nope. On offer at the food stalls are F1 Car Cakes and Aspalt Choco Crunch – cakes that look like the track’s tarmac. Every racing fan picnic should have some.

And on track, the fans’ patience was rewarded with one of the most enthralling Qualifying sessions in some time: three red flags, one helicopter, nine drivers penalised and one glorious run to pole position for Sebastian. And the Suzuka track, the only one at which DC says he really wished he was still racing, has been worth that three-year wait. In the wet it was treacherous and in the dry it was… still treacherous, but gave those spectators some qualifying which had more action in it than many an actual race.

Let’s hope that deal to keep the race here until at least 2011 sticks. Suzuka is one amazing place to race.

Nothing polarises opinion quite as well as the prospect of a wet race. Anyone sitting in a comfy armchair at home with a bucket of tea and a plate of cakes waxes lyrical about how much better the racing is when the heaven’s open. Anyone out here trying to work in a monsoon usually has a few choice words regarding exactly where the armchair fan can stick that plate of cakes.

It’s not that we knock the sentiment: take a racing circuit, add water and what you get is a race decided by the talent of the driver and the instincts of the pitwall. It’s something to be applauded – though you tend to forget that when the trench-foot begins to take hold and the rest of the crew starts to smell like damp spaniels. It’s a fact at most racing circuits that the pitlane is usually slightly below the level of the track, which means the garages tend to turn into swimming pools at the slightest provocation. They’re often only one blocked drain away from having all the kit drift off towards the first corner. It’s surprising how well carbon-fibre floats actually…

Of course, the pit crew has it (relatively) easy in comparison to the photographers, who spend all day standing out under the downpour, desperately trying to keep their livelihoods dry and functional (stop it, we mean the 20 grand’s worth of cameras, lenses and assorted paraphernalia). And then there are the high-voltage portable power packs they all strap to their arms. The manufacturers say they’re waterproof – but then they would say that wouldn’t they?

Still, mustn’t grumble, being wet and at Suzuka is better than being dry and at virtually any other circuit. At least here we know it’s going to be a good race whatever the weather…

It’s raining. And – like everything else this country does – it’s doing so with a passion.

Rain in Japan seems heavier and, if it’s possible, wetter than anywhere else we visit. Not even Spa at its torrential worst can compete with the precipitation here.

This may be one of the reasons why the re-styled Suzuka Paddock retains its great slope down to the first corner. It gets better run-off. Much better run-off than Fuji, which in 2007 saw most of the garages employ some kind of flood-prevention/water evacuation system to keep water out.

Despite the weather the fans remained all day, mostly sheltering under coloured cagoules, and remained all through the largely absent second practice session. After all they’ve waited for nearly three years to see Formula One cars go around this circuit so a little rain isn’t going to send them running.

Our own drivers have been given special footwear to cope with the downpour Rather than get their race boots soaking wet, they’ve been given overboots by our friends at Puma. Not the most elegant of attire (they look like a cut-off Wellington boots) but they’ve kept our boys’ toes dry.

Tomorrow the forecast is for better weather, so hopefully we’ll see a lot more track action. And a lot more fans no doubt.