Right up until around Hungary time, I’d have said this was absolutely nailed on to be Robert Kubica, who drove brilliantly to keep his BMW in contention for the Championship right up until the penultimate round in Shanghai, with a string of podiums and very few mistakes. However, whether it was him or the car, he tailed off dramatically towards the end of the year. Fernando Alonso was a real force to be reckoned with despite his return to Renault, whose car was dog slow for the first half of the season (particularly in the hands of teammate Piquet). In the final third however, the Spaniard’s class finally reaped rewards with two superb victories, a podium and strong fouth place finishes in Hungary, Belgium, Italy and China. For me, still the best driver in Formula 1, and here’s hoping Renault give him a car to get in amongst the Championship battle next year.
For my driver of the year, however, I’m going with a man who took a few races to get his season off the ground (admittedly his early season performances were at the wheel of the old Toro Rosso), but once he did get going he showed himself to be a real Champion of the future with some fantastic drives, notably a strong fifth in Monaco, a magnificent weekend at home in Germany and good points finishes in Valencia, Spa, Japan and Brazil. Oh, and the small matter of a dominant win at Monza (more of which later). It’s Sebastian Vettel, of course.
Team of the Year
This is a difficult category in my opinion, and I’m not going to make an obvious choice. I’d have loved to give this to Toro Rosso, but I don’t feel completely comfortable doing so with them taking their car from Red Bull Technology. I would have liked to give it to BMW, but they just seemed to give up after their maiden one-two in Canada, and seven races don’t make a season. Ferrari took the Constructors Championship yet again (only the 8th time in the last 10 years), and McLaren took the Drivers’ Championship for the first time since 1999, so they would obviously both be strong contenders for this title, yet both have made big mistakes this year so I’m not sure they deserve it.
So, since I’m obviously not going to give it to Williams, Red Bull, Force India, Honda or Super Aguri, that doesn’t leave many options left. Renault improved strongly throughout the year to have a front-running car by the end of the year, in the end beating Toyota to 4th in the Constructors’ Championship. The Japanese outfit however impressed me greatly this year, with Timo Glock seemingly giving the team a new lease of life, a refreshing change from the stagnant status quo that had been present for the past 3 years. But they still weren’t really team of the year material.
Oh sod it. Scuderia Toro Rosso win my team of the year.
Performance of the Year
Following on from the previous categories, there’s only one performance this year worthy of taking out this gong, and it has to be Sebastian Vettel's stunning victory from pole at Monza. Yes, ok, it was a little bit wet all weekend, but it was the same for everybody, and yet the young German barely put a wheel wrong all weekend. It was a simply stunning performance, and one which marked him out as a real star. Shame he’s off to Red Bull next year.
Honourable mentions here to Lewis Hamilton’s equally brilliant drive to victory at Silverstone, one of the best individual performances I’ve ever seen, and also to Felipe Massa’s annual Sao Paulo exhibition.
Pass of the Year
The most defnining pass of the year was obviously Hamilton on Glock in Brazil, but that was one ailing car passing a rather more ailing car, so that can’t be it. I would go for Hamilton on Raikkonen at Spa but he cheated his way into that one. Massa’s start at Hungary was fantastic, doing exactly what he needed to do by jumping both McLarens, including passing Lewis “he won’t pass me on the outside” Hamilton down the outside into the first corner.
However, a couple of moves stand out above all of these for me. The first would be Massa again, this time in Canada when he was recovering from a refuelling problem, he managed to dive past both Heikki Kovalainen and Rubens Barrichello into the hairpin in one superb manoeuvre. But my favourite move of this season was another double pass – Nick Heidfeld at Silverstone, as he took both Finns through the Luffield and Woodcote section at the end of the lap. Superb stuff.
Race of the Year
This is a difficult one – it hasn’t been a vintage year in terms of on-track racing but there have been several entertaining races. From a spectacle point of view you’d have to say Singapore, which looked fantastic, and the race itself was very decent if not a thriller. Monaco and Silverstone were highly entertaining races spiced up by the weather, as were Monza and Spa, while Canada benefited from a timely Safety Car to shake things up. However, with the Championship going literally down to the final corner of the season, the Brazilian Grand Prix will go down in my mind as the race of the year. The on-track racing as a whole wasn’t brilliant, but the occasion and drama made it one of the most unforgettable Grands Prix of all time.
Moment of the Year
From a purely personal point of view, my moment of the year rests entirely on a flash of inspiration I had on the Wednesday before the first race of the season in Melbourne, when I walked into my local bookmakers and backed Nico Rosberg to finish on the podium. It looked a decent bet when the German took seventh on the grid, and as Ferrari hit the self destruct button in the race, Nico progressed to third place and earnt me some nice dosh! Up alongside that would be the maiden victories for Kubica and Vettel, and the return of the King to the top step in Singapore (alongside Nico) and Japan.
Overall though there were two moments that had me out of my seat this season. The Championship finale was an obvious one, as naturally the twists and turns had me (and everyone else) spellbound. But I think what I’ll remember best from this year was the last couple of laps of the Belgian Grand Prix. Forget about the aftermath with the stewards for a moment – the racing we saw from Hamilton and Raikkonen was something we’ve been waiting to see between leading drivers since…maybe even as far back as Mika and Michael at the turn of the century.
Quote of the Year
My own favourite came from retiree David Coulthard who, while signing a cap was hit by a camera, and said (in his best Colombian accent) “If I was Montoya, I’d be like “What the f*** are you doing?”. I’m sure there’s hundreds of far better quotes I’ve forgotten already, but that one certainly made me laugh.
Fail of the Year
2008 has been something of a failure for many different parties. The most upsetting was the loss of Super Aguri after just four rounds of the season, with the little Japanese team sadly running out of funds. Their parent team Honda had a second season of dismal failure, with the only bright spot being third place at Silverstone for the old man Rubens. Then there was Williams, who on occasions looked absolutely fantastic (second in Singapore and third in Australia), and yet more often than not found themselves fighting with the Force Indias.
On the driver front, Jenson Button had a fairly dismal season (granted he was driving a skip), and Heikki Kovalainen’s first season at McLaren proved a huge disappointment with only 3 podiums, and although the likeable Finn did suffer more than his share of bad luck, his pace was fairly rotten at times. His replacement at Renault, Nelson Piquet Junior, has managed to bag himself a contract extension on the back of a couple of strong drives in Japan and China to end the year, and yet if it wasn’t for his lucky second place in Hockenheim there’s a fair chance he may not have seen the season out. However, it’s fair to say he’s the perfect team-mate for Alonso (outqualified 18-0), so I guess he did the job he was hired to do.
The jury is still out on Sebastien Bourdais, who at times showed glimpses of the talent that helped him win multiple truck championships in the USA, but for the most part was comfortably outpaced by Vettel. Across the Energy Station, David Coulthard’s final season sadly saw him pick up just one glorious result, a third place in Canada as he kept his head while all around were losing theirs, but it’ll sadly be remembered more for his numerous incidents. As a long time DC fan I’ll certainly miss him in Formula One, but you have to wonder if his career went on maybe a year too long.
Arguably the biggest fail of all on the driving front though was the man who was considered by many as the fastest driver in Formula One. His ten fastest laps this year did nothing to dispel that, but it’s fair to say that 2007 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen completely lost his way this year. His season got off to a strong start, with Kimi leading the Championship after Spain and also sharing the lead after Silverstone, yet on many occasions he was comprehensively outpaced by his oft-derided teammate Massa. His run of 4 races from Valencia to Singapore put a terminal hit in his hopes of retaining his title, and his continued tendency to run heavy in qualifying then disappear for 80-90% of the race was baffling to say the least.
Perhaps the biggest fail of all was my pre-season predictions? Certainly my view that Kimi would be World Champion was well wide of the mark, and Nelsinho Piquet certainly wasn’t the rookie of the year (that goes to Timo Glock, who was a rookie in my book). My prediction of Singapore as most talked about race wasn’t so bad (it was always going to be up there with the whole night element), and my forecast of Toro Rosso to be the most improved team was a strong shout.
Fisichella wasn’t far off being a laughing stock (how on earth has he earned another year at Force India), and Heikki did indeed win his first race…but he certainly didn’t beat Hamilton! There were no Spanish taxi drivers leading Lewis up the wrong path, there wasn’t a single driver replaced during the season (indeed my forecast of Trulli was daft, as Jarno had his strongest season in years), and I was wrong to suspect Nico’s second successive TUF1WCIAWCC had been fixed prior to the season. However, I don’t think I was far off the mark in suggesting Bernie had picked the Champion, judging by the script for the final race.
It’s been great fun being part of the Patty team bringing you coverage of F1 and GP2 this season, and I look forward to doing it all again next year (provided The Head doesn’t break anything else!).
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