"It was nice to get the wind in my hair,” says Mark. “Normally the fans only get to see our faces on the podium and I wanted to do it for them and the marshals...

Sunday, 24th Nov, 2013-An emotional final race weekend in Formula One ended with Mark taking the 42nd podium of his career. He drove a typically tenacious race to second place, coming home 10s behind team-mate Sebastian Vettel to give Red Bull Racing its third 1-2 finish at Interlagos in the last four years.

“It was a good way to end my career,” says Mark. “I enjoyed myself out there and felt like I got the maximum from myself and the car. It was a strange race because there was always the threat of rain and we had a couple of hiccups in the pits. Each time that let Fernando [Alonso] back into the race, but we managed to get ourselves ahead of him – and I’ll forgive the boys for what happened in the pits because they’ve been brilliant all year!”

There were a lot of unknowns going into the 71-lap Brazilian Grand Prix because the entire weekend was wet until race day. No cars completed a lap on dry tyres prior to the pit-lane opening 30 minutes before the start of the race, which is why Mark passed through the pits four times en route to the grid – twice on option tyres and twice on primes.

“In the end,” says Mark, “the fact that we hadn’t done any dry running didn’t seem to matter and it kept the teams on their toes. Perhaps Bernie [Ecclestone] should only have Sundays from now on! We didn’t have any practice data on tyre wear and degradation, but it turned out to be quite similar to our simulations and that meant a two-stop race.”

Mark didn’t make the best of starts. He dropped from fourth to fifth after Lewis Hamilton forced his way past into Turn 1, but Mark quickly made amends when he drove around the outside of the Mercedes driver at the start of lap two. He then dispensed of Nico Rosberg and Fernando Alonso, but he dropped behind the Ferrari driver when there was a problem changing his left-rear tyre at his first pit stop.

Mark passed Alonso for the second time one lap later and he set about chasing down his team-mate. On lap 35 they set identical lap times of 1:17.327s, and they nearly came unstuck on lap 47 when they pitted at the same time fearing a Safety Car.

“Lewis had a puncture and we decided to pit in case there was a Safety Car,” says Mark. “It was a very late call and the boys weren’t ready when Seb arrived, which meant I was stacked up behind. But they recovered quickly and neither of us lost our positions.”

In the end, Mark crossed the finish line almost within sight of Vettel and 8.4s ahead of Alonso.

“I enjoy racing against these guys,” says Mark. “I’m proud to have raced alongside Sebastian and Fernando, who are arguably the fastest of this generation, and to finish on the podium with them for a final time makes me feel very happy. It was also great to give Renault a 1-2 finish at the end of what has been a dominant season for them.”

Mark stole the show on the slow-down lap when he took off his helmet while returning to parc ferme.

“It was nice to get the wind in my hair,” says Mark. “Normally the fans only get to see our faces on the podium and I wanted to do it for them and the marshals. It was a different touch. It took me half a lap to remove the HANS device, but once I’d got it off it was fun. It was very noisy and you get to hear a whole load of noises and vibrations that you don’t want to hear!”

This second place finish – Mark’s third podium in the last three races – jumped him into third position in the world championship, ahead of Lewis Hamilton. However, it isn’t all good news: the late finish to this year’s world championship means he’ll miss his Swisse Mark Webber Tasmania Challenge.

“I’m too busy to get to my charity event this year,” says Mark. “I hope that goes well for everyone involved. It starts on Wednesday, but I just can’t get to Tasmania from Sao Paulo in time. It’s been a relentless year, and quite difficult at times, and I’m looking forward to having a bit of a break. There’s some Porsche stuff going on before the year’s out and I’m very grateful to Red Bull for releasing me to do that.”