The Spaniard, at 24 years of age, became the sport’s youngest ever champion and ended a five-year run by Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher.

Critics will claim the champagne was not as sweet as it may have been considering the beating Alonso was dealt by his McLaren rivals at Interlagos.

Juan Pablo Montoya gave the British team their sixth victory in seven races after leading home his teammate Kimi Raikkonen in a one-two finish.

The pair, who had qualified second and fifth respectively, was never as much as challenged after the first round of pit stops with Alonso’s Renault down on the pace required.

With his chances of victory obviously slim Alonso cruised home to collect six points – all he required for championship victory – and allowed his rivals to duke it out for the win.

Raikkonen ended the afternoon with the fastest lap but couldn’t overhaul Montoya who took his second Brazilian win in two years.

Schumacher ran home a distant fourth in one of Ferrari’s stronger races.

The German did well to pass the second Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella (fifth) that was arguably a stronger machine.

Rubens Barrichello was sixth in his last home event for Ferrari, heading home BAR’s Jenson Button whose high-downforce setup saw him seriously struggle for pace.

Rounding out the points scoring positions in eighth was Toyota’s Ralf Schumacher.

Williams’ Antonio Pizzonia and Mark Webber never had the chance to battle for points after both men were taken out at the opening turn.
The incident occurred after Red Bull Racing’s David Coulthard clipped Pizzonia’s FW27 and sent the Brazilian flying into the side of his own teammate’s car.

While Pizzonia and Coulthard immediately retired, Webber limped back to the pits where the team replaced bodywork and a right rear wishbone and eventually sent him back on track.

By the time the Australian returned to the action he had conceded 24 laps to the leader and was only ever driving to improve his qualifying slot for the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix.

In the end he could only improve it by one position with Minardi’s Robert Doornbos dropping out after a Cosworth engine failure.

Tiago Monteiro also suffered a failure in his Jordan, but the problem occurred late in the race and the Portuguese rookie already had enough laps in the bag to be rated ahead of Webber.

With Alonso having ended the race for drivers’ glory, attention now turns to the constructors’ fight.

McLaren’s one-two finish in Brazil now gives the team a two-point lead over Renault who had led the fight since round one in Australia.

The fearsome MP4-20 is showing few signs of being beatable and with only two rounds remaining – in Japan and China – the title would appear to be the British squad’s to lose.