2010 - The greatest season ever?

MCLS

Anti F1 fan
Valued Member
2010 has been a season that will go down in the history books as one of the closest ever with Sebastian Vettel winning the championship by only 4 points with 4 drivers being in contention by the final race (and 5 in the race before). Indeed the podium in Abu Dhabi was made up of the 2008, 9 and 10 champions, 2 of whom at some point were (are in Vettel's case) the youngest world champion, which shows how F1 is developing in the 21st century. It's been a season where overtaken has more than doubled (even if figures have been blessed by the new teams) but as we have seen, racing at the front has been just as intense and has sometimes reached breaking point with memorable incidents at Turkey and Silverstone.

The championship contenders

Sebastian Vettel - Despite winning the championship in the last race, question marks are still raised by his overtaking ability and had a poor pole to win ratio, but despite continued allegations of favoritism in Red Bull, (most of which could be vindicated like the front wing saga at Silverstone) has shown himself to have more raw race speed than Webber.

Mark Webber Will be left thinking that he has blown his best chance at the title and many will feel he wont get another one, battled against the tide throughout the season, but stupid mistakes like Australia and Korea proved fatal to his championship hopes and a poor weekend in Abu Dhabi put paid to his hopes. A shame for the gritty Australian who showed strong pace this season with strong wins at Spain, Monaco, Britain and Hungary, but he isnt getting any younger and question marks still remain over his future at Red Bull

Fernando Alonso - Started and ended the season strongly but an extremely poor summer left him too much work to do, but still pulled it back in autumn and even lead the championship going into the final race but a poor strategy left him bogged down behind Petrov, unlike the others he had the full support of the team and this was never more apparent than at Hockenheim in summer when Massa controversially let past Alonso so he could win the race and left many people believing Alonso wouldn't be a worthy championship winner despite stunning drives at Monza, Singapore and Korea.

Lewis Hamilton - A mixed season by his standards, great wins at Turkey, Canada and Spa were tempered by poor races at Monza, Singapore and Spain. While he drove the car to the limit and often beyond, too many DNFs proved to be his downfall, outperformed team-mate Button, but not to the levels predicted before the season started. He also dispelled the myth that he was hard on his tyres with the new rules.

Jenson Button - Suprised many in the close season by leaving Brawn to join McLaren, but this decision was vindicated very early on with 2 victories in Melbourne and Shanghai, remained in the title hunt all the way until Brazil and was more than a match for Hamilton. Qualifying was a weak point for him however which often left him too much to do in races, strong pace towards the end of the season showing that both Mclaren drivers will be competitive in 2011

The midfield

Mercedes - pulled off the coup of the century by prizing Michael Schumacher out of retirement to partner Nico Rosberg, but 2010 was one to forget for the 2009 champions, Schumacher was out of sorts all year and questions raised about his participation in 2011. Rosberg outperformed the car and impressed finishing just behind Massa in the championship, but with Mercedes focusing on 2011 early on, they are sure to be back at the front next year.

Renault - most improved team of 2010 with Robert Kubica often battling at the front for podiums, established Renault as one of the best of the rest up with Mercedes. Petrov still has much to prove with mixed performances. A strong performance in Abu Dhabi will go some way into keeping his seat for 2011 but he needs to improve yet.

Williams - Very mixed season, started poorly, improved in summer, and bar a pole position in Brazil, ended the season poorly. Rubens Barrichello shone for the team by driving the team forward with good performances in Valencia and Hungary while Nico Hulkenberg shocked everyone with pole position in Brazil but has some way to go yet before he proves himself as a star of the future.

The rest of the field

Sauber - Strong pre season promise but a shocking start to the season with more DNFs than finishes but Kobayshi underlined his talent with a strong second half to the season, the highlight being a bold strategy in Valencia and a late overtake on Alonso. A poor season for De La Rosa who didn't have the speed all season who was later replaced by Heidfeld who was fairly anonymous. Strong base for improvement in 2011

Torro Rosso - While an improvement on 2009, points were still hard to come by with Alguelsari getting the bulk of them and looking like he has a future in F1. Buemi continues to flatter to decieve and outpaced by his team-mate this season. Need to do better next year to avoid being outpaced by Lotus HRT and Virgin

Lotus - Best of the new teams in 2010 and winning the bet with Virgin. Heikki Kovalinen looks re-energized and drove the team forward and on occasions to the outside of the points, even getting into Q2 once. Trulli less so, whenever there was a problem with the car, more often than not the problem was on Trullis car. Will benefit next year with help from Red Bull but a legal fight over name ownership will cloud matters

Virgin - Started the season with too small a fuel tank and a car designed entirely from the windtunnel, while the jury is still out on whether that is the best method of designing a car, they made it to the end of the season and have a base to push on in 2011. Glock and Di Grassi were solid without being spectacular which is the most they could have been expected to do. Finished behind Lotus which means Branson loses the bet with Fernandez

HRT - Achieved a small miracle by making it to Bahrain, another by simply making it to Abu Dhabi, Senna and Chandok showed early promise, but HRTs need for money lead to Yamamoto getting a run in the team and then Klien at the end of the season, agreed a deal with Toyota to use the 2010 car next season (http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/14112010/ ... ently.html) and hope to compete with Lotus and Virgin next year

Overall

The best season ever? Well.... possibly, Red Bull still had the fastest car by a mile and there were still quite a few processional races with poor racetracks that we all agree shouldnt be on the calender (Singapore Valencia Hungary), and the issue of team orders still lingers in the air, but overtaking doubled this season which is a strong positive and that going into the final race 4 drivers were still in the hunt for the championship, and with the field looking even closer next year, the racing should be even more intense, I for one cant wait for March 11th 2011!
 
Sorry I would have to say No.

I found the season was littered with a few inidents and great racing, but this was few and far between the procesional racing. Abu Dhabi showed this season up in all it's entirity, how can a double World Champion in a faster car not be able to overtake a slower car in 40 laps? Alonso drove behind Petrov for 139 miles and never once had 1 chance to over take him.

The sequence of results made it interesting, like a mathematician gets excited over a new calculation. Red Bull slowly becoming a professional team & stopping all the mistakes that had hindered them earlier in the season, meant it was 5 horse race instead of a 2.

I do hope all the new Reg's in 2011 allow us to see better racing in March next year.

For me this year key moments are:

Boring Bahrain.
Buemi trying to steer the car in China with no front wheels.
Turkey's RBR's coming together.
Alonso is faster than you.
Button & Vettel @ Spa.
Sour taste in my mouth of a German team making sure their German driver won the Title.
 
ATL11 said:
Sour taste in my mouth of a German team making sure their German driver won the Title.

Two points about this:

1. They didn't (Mark Webber was never taking that title with that reaction to pressure)
2. They're Austrian

As for the greatest season ever, I refuse to be caught up in such hyperbole.
 
ATL11 said:
Sorry I would have to say No.

For me this year key moments are:

Boring Bahrain.
Buemi trying to steer the car in China with no front wheels.
Turkey's RBR's coming together.
Alonso is faster than you.
Button & Vettel @ Spa.
Sour taste in my mouth of a German team making sure their German driver won the Title.
Agreed, although I will add that Button winning Australia was a key moment for me, it said that he meant business to Lewis and maybe caused Lewis to look at his driving and strategy, meaning they both stayed in the hunt longer than expected.

Also TBY is right, they are Austrian, but then so was Hitler.. ;)
 
Greatest season? ROFL not really and i'd never attempt to name one.

It was truly great to have 4-5 contenders, but the only reason for that was the fastest team by a huge margin took most of the season to get their act together.

I have to look back to last year where one team had a small speed advantage at the start of the year, no money and little sponsorship, but capitalized on pretty much every finish and every point they could. The only reason we've had such a close season is because the fastest team spent so much time taking pot shots at their own feet.
 
Grizzly said:
The only reason we've had such a close season is because the fastest team spent so much time taking pot shots at their own feet.
Usually with a bazooka which ended up taking their foot off at the shoulder :D
 
Brogan said:
Grizzly said:
The only reason we've had such a close season is because the fastest team spent so much time taking pot shots at their own feet.
Usually with a bazooka which ended up taking their foot off at the shoulder :D

...usually proceeded by management or one of the drivers saying... "watch THIS!"

Seth_boom.jpg
 
Man some misrable gits here lol LOL 8-)

Yeah the racing could of been better at times but we forget we were treated to some races early on in the season, that should live long in most peoples memory.

Yes the racing itself perhaps trailed of towards the end a little, and some people seem more intrested in berating tracks rather then taking notice that there was actually a half decent race going on, if not always up front (sinapore?)

but what we had is a season with more twists and turns then the old Nordscheilfe, 5 top drivers pushing each other to braking point (rather then shooting ones own foot IMO) and to top it off a championship winner who had never even lead the championship all season.

Diffult to measure up to different seasons, but there have been a lot worse. I enjoyed it throughlly.

I think this one in years to come, for me, will go down like 03, A great season but no-one noticed because people were too busy moaning about other things (in 03 schumacher winning it again, although people forget he had to really fight for it).
 
teabagyokel said:
ATL11 said:
Sour taste in my mouth of a German team making sure their German driver won the Title.

Two points about this:

1. They didn't (Mark Webber was never taking that title with that reaction to pressure)
2. They're Austrian

:o Never mind, I was never any good @ Geography.

I still state my case though, Webber was probably told Sunday morning, his car was slower, so he would pit early to come out into the pack and draw Ferrari into making a move. A move that Ferrari fell into, Webber was the bait to allow Vettel win the Championship. Webber's body language and recent comments showed that RBR thought more of Vettel. Webber's post race interview also include 1 key word 'team'.
 
ATL11 said:
I still state my case though, Webber was probably told Sunday morning, his car was slower, so he would pit early to come out into the pack and draw Ferrari into making a move. A move that Ferrari fell into, Webber was the bait to allow Vettel win the Championship. Webber's body language and recent comments showed that RBR thought more of Vettel. Webber's post race interview also include 1 key word 'team'.

Webber screwed up under pressure. From 3 races out he was the number 1 driver in the significantly faster team. Considering Vettel's engine blew at the end of Korea, all he had to do was follow his team-mate for the last three races. No, he binned it stupidly in Korea, giving Alonso a chance, and regardless of what happened Sunday morning, he'd boxed himself into a corner by qualifying 5th on Saturday. If Vettel won the race, Webber was out! Even if Red Bull wanted to slingshot Webber past, they couldn't because he was nowhere near him.

RickD said:
Also TBY is right, they are Austrian, but then so was Hitler..

Godwin's Law! :thumbsup:
 
If you looked at this season's stats in thirty years time, it would be easy to thinnk with all the lead changes, and 5 winners that it was a great season. But Alonso trying as much as he could to pass Petrov and failing to get even close is pretty much this season in a nutshell.

Only the occasinal crash or rain was exciting, and Australlia at the end was tedious, as Webber/Hamilton simply couldn't pass much slower cars of Alonso/Massa. Canada was alright thanks to adverse tyre wear , and I wouldn't put it in the top ten of races in the latt ten years alone, it just seemed good compared to the drivel we had become used to. Its only luck this season has been OK, as the rule changes should have ruined this season.

In short - No it isn't.
 
teabagyokel said:
Webber screwed up under pressure. From 3 races out he was the number 1 driver in the significantly faster team.

I don't think Webber was ever the no 1 driver at RB this season. Or did you mean championship leader? Either way, I think it's hard to win the championship when all the support is going to the other side of the garage.
 
fat_jez said:
teabagyokel said:
Webber screwed up under pressure. From 3 races out he was the number 1 driver in the significantly faster team.

I don't think Webber was ever the no 1 driver at RB this season. Or did you mean championship leader? Either way, I think it's hard to win the championship when all the support is going to the other side of the garage.

I think it's interesting to note that since the FIA brought in the more stringent wing-load tests (Monza), Webber was never as close to Vettel. This could mean 2 things - Either each car was re-engineered to differing levels (i.e. Webber's altered much more than Vettel's car, thereby giving Vettel an advantage), or Mark had been able to get much more out of the flexiwings (perhaps in association with their EBD) than Vettel, and when this was taken away, he in effect lost more speed than his teammate. I'm inclined to think it's the latter.
 
Muddytalker said:
Mark had been able to get much more out of the flexiwings (perhaps in association with their EBD) than Vettel, and when this was taken away, he in effect lost more speed than his teammate. I'm inclined to think it's the latter.

Every driver has their own preference for setup, within the parameters of what can be done to the car. As you say, if RB had to change their flexi-wing to meet changed FIA requirements, it could well have left MW without the options he previously enjoyed. The other thing to note (and I can't remember who said it, maybe Jackie Stewart?) is that being the no 1 driver in a team allows you great influence in car design such that it can be directed in a way that benefits you and not necessarily your team mate.
 
tooncheese said:
If you looked at this season's stats in thirty years time, it would be easy to thinnk with all the lead changes, and 5 winners that it was a great season. But Alonso trying as much as he could to pass Petrov and failing to get even close is pretty much this season in a nutshell.

Only the occasinal crash or rain was exciting, and Australlia at the end was tedious, as Webber/Hamilton simply couldn't pass much slower cars of Alonso/Massa. Canada was alright thanks to adverse tyre wear , and I wouldn't put it in the top ten of races in the latt ten years alone, it just seemed good compared to the drivel we had become used to. Its only luck this season has been OK, as the rule changes should have ruined this season.

In short - No it isn't.



Amen to that.
 
Its treading a very fine line, where overtaking is almost impossible, or where its incredibly easy like in Indycar and therefore the excitement is removed as half the excitement is the skill in overtaking, but at the moment we lean too much towards the former. Its interesting to see how the adjustable rear wings and KERS work next year.
 
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