Formula One - Season in review

An amazing Formula One season produced its final twist at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix when Sebastian Vettel, who had never led the title race, won his first world championship.

Those who say he doesn’t deserve the title will find it difficult to support their stance. The German had more poles (10) than any other driver and shared the most wins (five) with Fernando Alonso.

The Spaniard had a four-point lead going into the final race of the season and only needed a fourth-place finish to assure himself of the title. However, a poor decision from the Italian team’s strategists to react to a pit stop by Mark Webber left the two-time world champion behind Renault’s Vitaly Petrov and ultimately ended his title hopes.

According to Alonso, Petrov “protected like it was the last lap, in the last race in the championship, fighting both for the championship, so he was very aggressive”.

McLaren looked good at the end of a difficult and disappointing season and will be a force to reckon with in the 2011 season if they can finally produce a reliable car capable of performing at the top level consistently. Meanwhile Mark Webber must wonder whether he will ever get another chance such as this to win the title.

Here are my key topics of interest which emerged during the recently concluded season:

Webber vs Vettel:

The rivalry between teammates Vettel and Webber, the Anglophile Aussie who was the favourite among most neutrals to win the title, dominated headlines for most of the season.

Webber was involved in a spectacular crash when he ran into the back of Heikki Kovalainen and the most famous of his four wins, at Silverstone, when after being incensed that a new front wing was removed from his car and given to Vettel, complained loudly that Red Bull are backing the German and said to his team at the end of the race: "Not bad for a No2 driver."

The two drivers had previously faced-off in Turkey.

Intra-team divisions first appeared during the Turkish Grand Prix after Vettel collided with Webber as the pair vied for the lead in Istanbul. Vettel was forced to retire and Webber managed to make the podium, finishing third.

But they key point then was Red Bull's backing for Vettel on that occasion, even though the German was the driver most at fault. Their support for Vettel told Webber everything he didn't want to hear and confirmed his status as the team’s number 2 driver, leaving many to speculate that the Australian’s future will not be with Red Bull Racing.

The Germans:

Michael Schumacher was memorable for not being memorable. But just look at the pedigree of young Germans out there. One feels that if given the right car and support by a competent race engineer, the world could very well see a period of German dominance in the world of Formula 1.

The most notable young German, other than Vettel of course, was Nico Rosberg, who consistently out-drove his Mercedes team-mate, the legendary Michael Schumacher.

Three podium finishes and 7^th place in the World’s Driver Championship is no mean feat for a driver who many long ago dismissed as a nepotistic pretty boy. Add to that the fact that Mercedes GP gave up on their first car model months before Rosberg did, and his regular upstaging of Schumacher, it’s impossible to review the 2010 season without heaping some praise on Nico Rosberg.

Then there was Nico Hülkenberg's stunning pole in Brazil. The world knew that pole belonged to Red Bull, but the German rookie blew the accepted convention into smithereens when he piloted his FW32 around Interlagos in a time that beat Vettel’s best by over a second.

Williams may have improved their car dramatically towards the end of the 2010 season, but Hulkenberg’s pole lap owed as much to driver skill and outright bravery as it did to the car’s abilities.

There were other strong performances from the rookie driver this year – as early as Malaysia, three races into the season, he out-qualified his teammate for the first time, made it into Q3, and finished in the points (the last thanks to Alonso’s engine failure two laps from the chequered flag).

But in the end there was only one young German who mattered. It was the remarkable Vettel. This is expected to be the first of a clutch of championships for him. However, the rise of McLaren coupled with Ferrari’s want for revenge and world-class opposition will make it very difficult for Vettel to retain his title.

Final Thoughts:

Ultimately, though, this will go down as one of the greatest seasons in the 61 years of Formula One, the year where the stories, mostly, happened on the track and not off it.

There have been are some epic races and manoeuvres from what is arguably the strongest field that has even been seen on the same grid. Certainly a number of these drivers felt that this year's championship carried more weight than in recent years, simply because of the class of the opposition.

One can only expect the opposition to get better as technologies develop and this could signal a new golden age for Formula 1 where new legends will be born.