The final act...

So, the season is over, and what an ending! As the beginning of the Brazilian Grand Prix approached, it threatened to be a bit of a foregone conclusion. However, that threat was rather weak, as the misty rain refused to abate and more rain was forecast for the rest of the Grand Prix. Everybody knew what was required of them if they were to achieve their various goals, but all of that seemed to be dropped by the wayside, as the cars exited the fourth corner, leaving the reigning World Champion facing the wrong way.

Vettel went in to the race with very little to do, relatively speaking. He was leading the championship by fifteen points and his race should have been straight forward. Alonso, on the other hand, had a far more difficult prospect ahead of him. Sat on the grid, he was aware that he needed at least a third place finish, with Sebastian finishing out of the points, if he was to take the championship.

When the red lights went out, Vettel was sluggish getting away, whilst Alonso had his usual storming start and found himself up in third, exactly where he needed to be if he was to take the title. Then, the unthinkable happened for Red Bull, as Bruno Senna ploughed in to the side of Vettel, on the fourth corner, spinning him round and resulting in half a dozen cars appearing to hit each other and Sebastian. To everyone, including the Red Bull team and Vettel himself, it looked like the young German was out of the race. Seb's race engineer was heard saying, over the team radio, "stay out to see how the car behaves, we cannot fix it". Unbelievably, a few minutes later, Vettel was banging in fastest laps and the damage, although extensive, appeared to be cosmetic only.

As the race progressed, rain, safety cars and pit stops continuously mixed up the pack and it became difficult to judge how the final positions would shake out. Many drivers had excursions off the black stuff. Kimi Raikonnen bounced through the mud, in true Finnish rally style, whilst Alonso, overran the first corner more than once. Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button looked like they might cap off the season with a truly inspired result, until Lewis and Niko Hulkenberg had an unfortunate coming together on the first corner. Hamilton's race, season, and time at McLaren were brought to an abrupt end.

It was Jenson who managed to take one final win for McLaren, which was sort of poetic, since he is the driver that is staying with the British based team. Alonso did everything that could have been expected of him, and similarly Massa was resilient and ever the team player. His reaction on the podium summed up his sheer gratitude at being gifted another shot after the accident that saw him suffer a traumatic head injury a couple of years ago. Fernando was exceptionally graceful in defeat. He looked, understandably, disappointed but full of thanks for the efforts of his Ferrari team. All of the drivers were fantastic ambassadors of the sport in Brazil, but the worthy world champion was Sebastian Vettel.

It was a tense final few laps, that saw Sebastian climb to the required position and Alonso struggle to come near to a flying Button. It was nail-bitingly obvious that a failure or a mistake, from almost any of the cars in the top ten, could have swung the championship outcome in one or other's favour. However, Vettel was the deserving winner. The Brazilian Grand Prix made it two races in which Sebastian had found himself plumb last, for whatever reason, and had then worked his way up to the front of the pack to take valuable points.

This season has been record-breaking, unpredictable and utterly, utterly thrilling. Nobody would have guessed that this season could be as good as last season and yet it was arguably better. Red Bull Racing and Sebastian Vettel have done it again, despite having a relatively poor start to the championship fight. Congratulations to them and thank you to all the people who have followed my blog throughout the season. I wish the racing could continue right on through the winter, and for us, the spectators, we have to wait till next March. However, for the teams, the race does continue, seamlessly on, as they strive to design, develop and innovate faster than their rivals, all in preparation for the 2013 season...  

The Bucking Bronco!

Sebastian was attempting to tame a bull, whilst Fernando had a stallion to bring under control, on the slippery circuit in Austin, Texas. Thankfully, Formula One's return to stateside was a successful one. However, pre-race antics from the Ferrari camp threatened to put the sport in to disrepute again. Fortunately, their underhand tactics didn't affect the race too severely, but neutrals will have found the manipulation of the grid lineup a bitter pill to swallow.

Simply put, Ferrari were faced with the disadvantage of having both their drivers, Massa and Alonso, starting from the dirty side of the grid, in sixth and eighth respectively. To remedy this unfavourable circumstance, the Ferrari engineers intentionally damaged Filipe's gearbox, resulting in the need to replace it and thus incurring a five place penalty. This put Fernando up one place, in to seventh, and on to the clean side of the grid. It didn't break any rules, aided in Alonso getting in to fourth place after the first corner, but will be considered unsportsmanlike by many and may be seen as a stain on Alonso's championship if he can go on to win it in Brazil.

The race wasn't the most exciting of the season, but on the first couple of laps there were a few surprises thrown up. First of all the lack of experience on the circuit led to the drivers taking numerous different lines, and continuously weaving and passing each other. It was more like Karting than Formula One and at times the position changes became difficult to follow. The majority of the action was in the middle of the field, with the Lotuses, Williams', Toro Rossos and Jenson Button, battling it out as though they had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Hamilton was the star of the day. He passed Mark Webber very early on and proceeded to chase down the usually unbeatable Sebastian Vettel. Lewis continued to push, until he got within a second of Vettel and then he breezed past on the DRS back straight. There was a moment when Sebastian attempted, tenuously, to accuse Hamilton of getting too close in his overtaking manoeuvre, however it was clear that it was Vettel who had moved back across the circuit towards Lewis, and Seb's remonstrances came to nothing.

Hamilton took the victory with a skilled and tenacious performance, with Vettel still managing to take the fastest lap record. Alonso claimed the third and final podium position after Webber suffered with his first technical failure since the Canadian Grand Prix in 2009. The result means that the Driver's Championship will be decided in the final race of the season in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Red Bull Racing have made it a hat trick of Constructor's titles and will be looking to add the Driver's Championship to the trophy cabinet as well. Overall, the American Grand Prix was a great success and the stetsons on the podium were a nice touch too.

Kimi has a #@!*ing good race!

Well, what a contrast to India. In fact, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix literally blew the Indian Grand Prix out of the desert. The race at the Yas Marina circuit was arguably the most exciting race of the season and so full of incident its difficult to know where to start. It's probably best to kick off with the fact that, in the week running up to the Grand Prix weekend itself, Yas Marina played host to the eighth F1 in Schools World Final, which saw 33 teams, from schools around the world competing for the increasingly sought after title of F1 in Schools World Champion. It was a fantastic support act for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the race itself continued to deliver excitement.

Kimi Raikonnen profitted from Lewis Hamilton's poor luck, but it can't be denied that Kimi was utterly brilliant and showed us all why he is a former World Champion. He didn't falter, even as Alonso started to breathe down his neck, and went on to make it the first time Lotus have had a driver on the top step of the podium in over one hundred and eighty races. As a result of Raikonnen's win, he finds himself still in the hunt for, at least, second place in the Championship. During and after the race, in true Raikonnen style, he found a few choice words and phrases to emphasise his feelings. Over the team radio, Kimi's race engineer calmly informed Kimi that Alonso was "five seconds behind", adding "I will keep you updated on his distance and his pace", to which Kimi replied "Leave me alone. I know what I'm doing!"

Mark Webber had a torrid day, which all kicked off with yet another poor start. All of Red Bull Racing's hopes were sensibly pinned on Webber, as the beginning of the race approached, and it was clear that Mark was the only Red Bull driver who could plausibly achieve a decent result in Abu Dhabi. The poor start saw Webber tumbling down the order and provided an indication of things to come. As the race progressed Mark's attitude became uncharacteristically wild. He first attempted an overtake around the outside of Pastor Maldonado, unfairly slamming the door on the Venezuelan and leaving Maldonado with nowhere to go but into the side of the Red Bull. Miraculously, both cars were completely unharmed and, after Webber had righted himself, they continued the race.

Only a few laps later, after it had been declared that, unbelievably, Webber would incur no penalty for the move on Maldonado, he had another coming together, this time with Massa. The contact between the two of them in the first part of the chicane was quite inocuous, but after crossing the corner Mark Webber rashly threw his car back on to the circuit, directly in to the path of Filipe, causing him to spin in an effort to avoid contact. Even more unbelievably, Mark got away with this incident as well.

Webber eventually came to grief when he joined the scuffle between Paul Di Resta, Sergio Perez and (surprise, surprise) Romane Grosjean. The shuffling of positions was complicated but it ended in Grosjean sat in a broken Lotus, Webber rolling off the circuit in a three-wheeled Red Bull and Perez facing a stop-and-go penalty for causing the incident. The race officials must have drawn straws to decide who had to pick the bones out of that mess and attribute blame.

There was a big heart-in-the-mouth moment, when Narain Karthikeyan had an engine failure, causing him to experience a sudden loss of power, which drammatically resulted in Rosberg launching his Mercedes over the top of the HRT and in to a distant barrier. Both drivers were out of their cars quickly and Nico seemed to fully understand that there was nothing Karthikeyan could have done about the incident.

The real story of the race was Sebastien Vettel's phenomenal recovery, not only from having to start in the pitlane, but having to pitstop under a safety car to replace his front wing, which put him plumb last again, 14 laps in to the race. It was from there, and even with a second pitstop, that Vettel managed to climb all the way up, past his teammate and in to fourth place, just before the second safety car. The icing on the cake came when he made a fabulous passing move on Jenson Button, to steal the third and final podium place. I firmly believe that this race could well go down in history as Sebastien Vettel's greatest ever.

Let's all take a breather and prepare ourselves for Austin, Texas, in two weeks time.

A two bull race??

Firstly, I need to apologise for the late blog, sometimes full time work on top of other commitments gets in the way of me writing my blog, but hopefully this won't happen too often.

The Indian Grand Prix, unfortunately, was probably the most boring race of the season. I say unfortunately, because the season has been packed with excitement and, more specifically, unpredictability. The Indian Grand Prix was a relative procession, with the Red Bulls packing out the front row of the grid in qualifying and Sebastien Vettel doing a proper job to take the win. The only glitch for Red Bull was Mark Webber dropping a position to Vettel's nearest rival, Alonso.

Alonso just keeps on emphasising his great ability, by achieving performances well beyond the competency of his Ferrari. He did it last year in a Ferrari that, on paper, was no match for the Red Bull cars or the McLarens. This year he is doing the same, in a car that is perhaps the fourth or fifth fastest in the field.

The DRS zone wasn't especially effective and passing was very limited. And that is pretty much all I can say about a decidedly dull event. It was an unusually predictable race and left fans wanting more. It's also fair to say that Red Bull Racing are on the verge of wrapping up the Constructors Championship, so a season with so much potential, could end up being a massive anti-climax. 

Red Bull do it gangnam style!!

The opening lap of the Korean Grand Prix was more reminiscent of a Karting or GP2 race, with the front runners dicing for position and some of them even finding themselves four abreast as they stormed down to the second corner. The Red Bulls appeared to have the race sewn up from the very start, irrespective of the fact that Webber, was denied the lead, from pole, by his young German teammate. Possibly, for the first time all year, a team is standing out above the rest and, with Adrian Newey as chief designer, it's not surprising that Red Bull Racing are that team. And, as a matter of fact, there was quite a distinctive change in appearance of the Red Bull's nose cone and one must assume that Newey has been contantly updating other more obscure elements of his racecar.

The DRS zone, once again, provided a source of great excitement. The passing down the second straight was sometimes easy, sometimes difficult, but always unpredictable. At times, even teammates such as the two Williams drivers, plunged in to turn two and almost collided or pushed one another off the circuit. When Lewis Hamilton and Grosjean got intimate down the DRS straight, Hulkenberg made a fantastically opportunistic move around the outside of both drivers at the third corner. The race was packed with these kind of opportunistic and rash moves, but without many casualties. One high profile DNF was jenson Button, taken out by Kamui Kobayashi, in an incident that was totally unavoidable for Button and so a great disappointment to the neutral fan.

Red Bull could be considered the likely World Champions this season and are almost certainly the team to beat, but lets hope Ferrari can bring the fight back to them and make it a closely fought end to a thrilling season.

Kamui does it for Japan!!

Well the story of the day had to be Kamui Kobayashi, who became only the third Japanese driver to ever stand on a Formula One podium. He drove a fantastic race, from third on the grid, to hold third right to the chequered flag. The crowd went crazy, chanting "Kamui! Kamui! Kamui!", as the three podium finishers received their trophies and it felt as though Kobayashi had been the victor as opposed to the young German World Champion.

The Japanese Grand Prix winner, Sebastien Vettel, is really taking the fight to Alonso, chopping Fernando's Championship lead down to only four points. It appears to be coming down to a two horse race, as we approach the conclusion of the season, and with Alonso trying to defend his Championship lead in a slower car and only completing two out of the last four races, it's looking more and more like Vettel might make it three titles in a row.

Grosjean took the controversy headline in Japan. It's an awkward situation when a driver simply appears to be out of his league. Another first lap incident and another one that's been caused solely by Romain Grosjean and, almost the worst thing about it, the incident wasn't malicious. If Romain was causing these collisions with intent, then action could be taken against him and we could all say that he needs to change his attitude. However, it's not an easy task to actually improve your driving skills at the absolute peak of motorsport. It's very difficult to know what to hope for with Grosjean; that he gets banned from the sport? that he gets dropped from the team? but I guess the most favourable outcome would be that he can improve and overcome this period.

The incidents and accidents are ramping up, people making rash moves and irresponsible decisions, as we close in on the final race of this topsy turvy season. With only five races to go, every single point is extremely valuable.

Bring on the carnage!

The prediction I made in my last blog appears to be right, so far, as the Singapore Grand Prix delivered no end of thrills, spills and incidents. There were lost or damaged wings, punctures and wall slams aplenty, at a circuit renowned for its lack of passing opportunities. Also, a rare thing occurred this weekend, when the driver who took to the lead in the opening laps failed to go and take the victory. Its important to point out that it was due to a gearbox failure that Hamilton was forced to drop out, leaving Sebastien Vettel to take the race win, but Vettel was pressuring Lewis and there was a good chance he could have challenged for the victory anyway. The win promotes Vettel to second in the Championship and poses the question, could Sebastien conjure a repeat of the 2010 season, when he came from behind in the Championship to take the title.

There were quite a few instances of rash passing attempts and, especially on the first couple of corners, people leaving the track. Despite this, fortunately the FIA decided not to take action and destroy an otherwise thrilling race. As I pointed out in my last blog, the stakes are getting higher and higher, and as a result drivers are trying to snatch up every point they can. Filipe Massa took a plunge around the outside of Bruno Senna and almost got squeezed in to the barrier, only just making pass stick despite getting a scary tank slapper on. Hulkenberg made an opportunistic move on Kobayashi, after Mark Webber had passed Kamui, and ended up making contact with the Japanese driver. Hulkenberg punctured his tyre and Kobayashi lost part of his front wing, but it was just another display of drivers pushing their luck a little too far in pursuit of as many points as possible.

It was refreshing to see Michael Schumacher eating a little humble pie, after ploughing in to the back of Jean-Eric Vergne's Toro Rosso. Neither driver was hurt, but it was obvious that the incident had been entirely Michael's fault and that Vergne hadn't stood a chance of avoiding the collision, so it was nice to see them putting their arms around each other and instantly quashing any suggestion of controversy regarding the coming together.

As a result of the early races in the season, the Championship is extremely close and every result changes the standings quite dramatically. However, disregarding his bad luck in Spa, Alonso appears to be the most consistent driver and is skillfully holding on to his lead.