So the season is over and whilst for me at least it seemed to go by very quickly I think you'll struggle to find many people who think it was a classic, apart from being able to say you saw the year when Vettel won nine in a row.
I’ve written some brief thoughts/summaries that came to my mind for each of the top and bottom three races for CTA Race of the Year and CTA Most Disputed Race below with the hope of generating some discussion. If you want to skip straight to the final tables they're at the bottom. But anyway, the moment of truth is here!
CTA Race of the Year
3rd Place - Malaysia (7.5 out of 10)
You can summarise what made Malaysia stand out with just one quote – “Multi 21 Seb, Multi 21”. So early in the season and Red Bull already took the decision to use team orders, and quite unbelievably and supposedly out of character they decided to tell Vettel to stay behind Webber! The tense and awkward scenes between Webber, Newey and Vettel at the end of the race make this one a race to remember all by itself. Let’s not forget that Mercedes also used team orders behind the Red Bulls as both cars were running low on fuel – Rosberg was much more compliant than Vettel. Other moments of note included a wet start and an uncharacteristic mistake for the Alonso/Ferrari combination which ended up in him driving over his front wing. Malaysia takes 3rd.
2nd Place - Bahrain (7.6 out of 10)
Expectations were very low for Bahrain, pretty much everyone expected it to be terrible. In the end it turned out to be a very exciting race and ends up 2nd! There was no really unique or season defining moment but Bahrain provided us with proper battles throughout the field and for most of the race. Perhaps at the centre of all this was Perez, who went in all gung ho against Button and ruffled a few feathers at McLaren after a very low key start to the season. Bahrain also benefits from being before the complete Red Bull domination later on in the season, with some genuine battles between the front runners and a race winner that wasn't completely predictable going in to the weekend, even if it was Vettel.
1st Place - Hungary (7.8 out of 10)
As has looked increasingly likely as time went on and the second half of the season failed to impress, Hungary takes the CTA Race of the Year crown for 2013! Let’s start with the elephant in the room – this was Hamilton’s only win of the season. I’m sure that has some effect but it’s by no means the full story. For starters, to win the race he had to make several crucial overtakes on the likes of Button and Webber – Vettel was a serious threat before getting stuck behind Button himself. We also saw quite a bit of excitement from the Lotus drivers. Grosjean showed great spatial awareness at the start whilst being squeezed by Vettel only to later get himself a penalty by trying to push Button too far. He then pulled off what I maintain was the best overtake of the season around the outside of Massa, even if it was deemed illegal due to marginally exceeding the track limits. At the end Raikkonen frustrated Vettel with some robust defense. No one would get in Vettel’s way for the rest of the season, which is another factor in Hungary coming out top I think – it marked the last race where there was any hope of anyone other than Vettel winning the championship.
CTA Worst Race of the Year
17th Place - USA (5.1 out of 10)
At the time I thought the USA grand prix was pretty decent, maybe caught up in what is looking like a fantastic F1 venue. Looking back at the highlights though it’s pretty evident that very little actually happened – Vettel had everything under control again, loads of messages over the radio about looking after tyres and some DRS overtakes. That seems to be about it and the USA takes the privilege of 3rd worst race of the year as a result.
18th Place - Singapore (4.9 out of 10)
Singapore always looks great under the lights and the support for the race is good too but nevertheless it hasn’t produced many classics and nothing changed this year. From memory, absolutely nothing happened for most of the race until the safety car towards the end. We then saw a few decent battles but it wasn’t enough to save Singapore from a measly 4.9 out of 10. We did at least get the memorable moment of Alonso giving Webber a lift back to the pits.
19th Place - Spain (4.7 out of 10)
Races at Barcelona rarely produce great races, the track doesn’t promote overtaking and the teams know it inside out from testing so there are few surprises. This year was the same. Alonso (yes Alonso, not Vettel) won what was a race completely dominated by strategy. Basically all the overtaking that took place was DRS aided and the only notable events that took place where a few loose wheels and tyre failures. Spain takes the wooden spoon but this isn’t the whole story (see below).
CTA Most Disputed Race
3rd Place - Monaco and USA (Score 1.6, Tiebreak 2.1)
Down to one decimal place in both the score (average deviation on median) and tiebreak (standard deviation on mean) the Monaco and USA grand prixs tie for 3rd most disputed race. I'm not really sure why, I think it might be to do with having dull races at tracks that nevertheless do a great job of showing off the qualities of the cars and/or drivers.
2nd Place - Great Britain (Score 1.6, Tiebreak 2.3)
As has become normal in recent years the tyres were a big talking point for most of the season. Nothing could have prepared us for what happened at Silverstone, however. We saw seemingly random tyre failues take the lead from Hamilton and also cripple Massa's race. Although this created an exciting race it was for the wrong reasons and some people showed their outrage with very low scores, making Silverstone the 2nd most disputed race of the year.
1st Place - Spain (Score 1.8)
As we've seen, Spain was voted as the worst race of the year. It was a race completely dominated by tyre strategy and some people were intrigued by that whereas others just hated it. As a result you end up with a lot of votes clustered around 4/10, but also another group around 7/10. The most common answer (mode) for the worst race of the year was actually 7/10 and this gives it the title of most disputed race.
CTA Least Disputed Race
17th Place - Bahrain (Score 1.0)
As well as coming very close to being crowned as race of the year, Bahrain was one of the least disputed races. With a few exceptions for votes influenced by the political situation the general consensus was very positive - 46 out of 55 votes were for 7 out of ten or above.
18th Place - Korea (Score 0.9)
I can't really think of much to say about Korea. I think the race exceeded most people's expectations, which were very low due to it being Korea and after three consecutive Vettel wins. It gave us battles throughout the field and only failed to impress a select few.
19th Place - Australia (Score 0.8)
The race we all agreed on the most, and also the race with the most votes, was the first race of the year in Australia. After months of F1 starvation everyone was happy just to have an F1 fix. There were only two votes for 5 out of 10 or less, a miracle by CTA standards.
Tables/Graphs
CTA Race of the Year
CTA Most Disputed Race
Full Table
Graphs showing various scores throughout the season
Summary
First of all thanks to everyone who voted and shared their opinions, no matter how strange they were, with no votes there's no CTA Race of the Year! And also to those of you who suggested changes I should make to the format in the early stages of the season when this was in its early stages.
I'm relatively happy with the format we've ended up with after the first year of doing this but I do have some ideas for things that I would like to change for next season. If anyone has any comments or suggestions about things they like or dislike, or features they would like added or removed, for next year please let me know!
The end.
