F1 diary: Brazil - Telegraph November 23: São Paulo doesn't cultivate quite the same feelings. I love Interlagos as a racetrack, but the city always contains a hint of menace and we fly in at a time of significant tension (drug gangs v the police, mainly) and a higher than usual casualty rate. It's almost lunchtime when we land and my case reaches the carousel with its security straps unravelled. Inside there's a charmless note from US Homeland Security, explaining that it was chosen for a random search and that they do not consider themselves liable for any damage done. Nothing is broken, but carefully packed contents have been thrown back in without a moment's thought and I'm lucky that some things - spare diabetic kit, for instance - have not been squashed. For once we opt not to turn up at the circuit on a Thursday: most media briefings take place during the morning, to accommodate Europe, so our time can be spent just as profitably at hotel desk and keyboard. Tony is in the room when we arrive and it's a comfortably sized triple. Funny that: we used to book the same place through an agency and were told we could only choose the rather more expensive option of three singles, because twins and triples didn't exist. The internet betrays many a useful secret. It transpires that we're not the only ones to skip Thursday at the track: Kimi Räikkönen doesn't go in, either, the difference being that he was supposed to... November 23: In terms of distance Interlagos should be about 25 minutes from our hotel, but the São Paulo rush hour (there are about 20 of these per weekday, on average) converts that to 75. It always feels nice to reach the circuit's inner hub, although the grubby perimeter ought to be safe enough as it's absolutely teeming with armed police. For the first practice day there are probably as many of them as there are paying spectators. It might be my final weekend as a full-time grand prix correspondent, but it feels like any other and I spend the first day outside. Many parts of central São Paulo owe their architectural conception to the 21st century, but Interlagos is trapped in about 1974. It has less corporate fluff than other F1 hosts, its core components being cars and a damned fine circuit layout. Parts of it are a bit like a nature reserve, with a vivid array of birdlife flitting around even when engines scream past at 18,000rpm. The local burrowing owls sometimes even perch on the guardrail to watch. It lacks modern trappings such as access roads, so to obtain photographic vantage points you have to scale crumbling banks, clamber over (or duck beneath) scaffolding and avoid open sewage drains. The paddock is an anachronism, too, a cramped hangover from the days when grand prix teams had a dozen employees rather than several hundred. I won't hear a word against it. We leave fairly early, in order to hail a taxi while it's still light, the only drawback being that there aren't any. So we're standing there for 25 minutes, computer bags highly visible in a city where you're told not to wear watches or jewellery, before a Chevrolet Corsa finally rumbles into sight. It's never a particularly comfortable feeling, even with a phalanx of pistol-packing policemen across the road, but it's one to which we've become accustomed in time. And taxi supply usually improves during the weekend's course. The same sinister ambience tends to restrict our eating habits. A mall close to the hotel contains an endless array of furniture shops and one spectacularly good Italian: it closes at 9pm, oddly, but there's ample time for spinach ravioli and a bottle of Argentinean white. When in Brazil... November 24: The working week's bustle subsides. Our early cab ride lasts little more than 20 minutes and guides us to the hub of the police whistle philharmonic's aggressive symphony, part of the morning routine by Interlagos's main gate. It's possible that the final practice session will the last I spend trackside here: for all its good points, the Interlagos hassle factor means this isn't a race to which I'll necessarily return. You never know, though, because there aren't many better places to watch F1 cars. This includes the inside of Turn 15, the final kink onto the pit straight. There is no debris fencing and marshals allow you stand right behind a barrier, so you're a matter of inches from the cars as they zip by at 180-odd mph on the other side. Lewis Hamilton takes pole position by half a tenth from Jenson Button, with the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel third and fourth. If he finishes there, or better, the German will be world champion, irrespective of other results. Fernando Alonso is an in-touch seventh, but needs to finish in the top three (and hope Vettel is kidnapped by aliens) if he's to have any chance of the title - a tough assignment, but not insuperable. During the afternoon, the media assembles in the Red Bull office - to await Vettel - when Webber strolls in. "Bloody hell," he says, "I come to get a quiet bite to eat and you lot are here." He then spots me and wanders over to ask how Mrs A's cancer treatment is progressing. When I later relay news of his touching enquiry, it creates an instant feelgood factor back home. The Australian could be forgiven for having other things on his mind, but he's a class act: dealing with people like him on a fortnightly basis is something I'll miss. Mark, Tony and I subsequently head back to town and the Italian: Tony is hoping to leave on Sunday evening - although he tried that once before in Brazil, in 2003, and remained trapped in São Paulo until Wednesday after missing his flight. This is the last evening meal we'll share as permanent travelling companions (for now, at least) and they kindly pick up my share of the tab. November 25: The forecast had predicted that rain would commence on Sunday evening and continue uninterrupted until about Tuesday, although it has already stopped by the time we head to the circuit. For much of the morning it feels as though it might remain dry, but there's definitely a hint of moisture in the air as cars come to the grid. This is the 878th world championship grand prix: I have attended the last 215, plus another 80 or so beforehand, and can't recall any quite as hectic as the one that follows. Jenson Button and Nico Hülkenberg give everybody else a driving lesson, building a lead of more than 40 seconds by staying out on slick tyres as the rain starts and stops, but have their advantage erased by a rather questionable safety car. That reprieves Lewis Hamilton, whose final race for McLaren ends in a collision with Hülkenberg while they're disputing the lead. Sebastian Vettel is knocked off on the opening lap, but tears back through the field in what's left of his Red Bull and is in a title-winning position for 69 of the 71 laps - including, importantly, the one that most matters. The German becomes his sport's youngest triple champion and only the third driver - after Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher, who finishes seventh in his final race - to take the main prize for three years on the bounce. Oh, and Jenson Button wins: he has scored 15 points more than Lewis Hamilton during their three seasons together, an outcome quite a few would not have predicted. The post-race paddock is always chaotic in Brazil - but especially so when it's the final race. There is barely space for fatigued mechanics to strip down pit garages, let alone various media scrums. It doesn't help that Ferrari conducts its press briefings in the open, outside its paddock hut, so almost anyone can join in. Fernando Alonso is sanguine in defeat: in 2010 he says it hurt like hell losing the title at the final race, because it was a result of the team's own strategic error. This time, though, he'd had no real business keeping the battle alive for quite so long, given his car's uncompetitive state at the season's dawn. He thinks this has been his best season yet and it's hard to disagree. He, Vettel and Hamilton have all performed exceptionally throughout the campaign and in many ways it's hard to distinguish between them, such have been their peaks. Tony cadges a lift to the airport in a BBC bus and we don't hear from him again until the following day, by which time he's been standing in an Atlanta immigration queue for more than an hour (because American airports lack the rest of the world's straightforward transit system). Mark and I work at the track until about seven, then dash away to catch a cab before sunset. Our driver immediately heads off into the back streets, rather than following the police-patrolled main highway: we seem to be going in more or less the correct direction, but it's not the most comfortable of feelings until a few familiar landmarks eventually materialise. We grab a quick supper in the hotel restaurant and repair upstairs to write. November 26: Finish my Motorsport News report at 1.15am and turn in, oblivious to the fact Mark is writing for another three hours or so. When I stir at breakfast o'clock, I have to do it all again - in even greater detail - for Autocourse. The hotel wifi keeps failing - and even when it is working seems reluctant to permit attachment of files to emails. Everything eventually gets done, though, and at teatime we head out into the São Paulo bedlam for the weekend's final taxi adventure, which turns out to be a lot calmer than some. November 27: Reach Frankfurt airport at lunchtime following 11 hours in a TAM Boeing 777 (made more comfortable by a vacant seat alongside), then drink coffee while awaiting a connection. The hop from Frankfurt to London takes about one hour, that from Heathrow to Beckenham almost three thanks to a fire alert at Victoria station. It's sometimes hard to remember which country you're in, but Britain is ever ripe with obvious clues. And that, then, is it. When I began compiling this Diary, a colleague - no names, but he might be called Joe Saward - predicted that it would be hard to maintain a travelogue for a whole season, but six years have passed since. Although I am stepping down from full-time F1 coverage, I will still attend a few grands prix, so the hours spent poring over flight deals and listening to Tony trying to justify his engaging but sometimes perplexing brand of logic will reduce, rather than evaporate. There are many things I'll miss - trusted companionship foremost among them - but quite a few I won't (Bahrain, for instance). I look forward to renewing bygone acquaintance with Motor Sport, although I will still pop up in Telegraph Motoring from time to time. Wherever life's journey takes me (possibly North Wales next Sunday, as a couple of mates are trying to persuade me that December is a good time for a spot of motor racing in Anglesey), I'll always reflect fondly on my time in F1. As I think I might have mentioned before, it's been an irreversible privilege.