After disastrous starts to their 2009 seasons, the big boys of F1 were always likely to return to the front at some point. Even after the first couple of races, where Brawn GP swept the board and McLaren and Ferrari displayed the sort of pace that looked like they would struggle to overtake a Sinclair C5 on half-charge, with or without a KERS boost, most people believed that the usual suspects would rise back up to the front and fight it out for the championship as Brawn and their upstart ilk fell back.
But that never really happened. By the time the teams reached Hungary, McLaren in particular were finally looking a competitive prospect again, but any dream of challenging for titles was long gone. The Hungarian weekend, though, represented a watershed moment for the two top teams from 2007 and 2008, but for different reasons. While McLaren would win for the first time since the Chinese GP last year, Ferrari would suffer a massive loss.
Before the racing resumed though, F1 had the chance to greet their first mid-season replacement for a good long while, as Toro Rosso ran out of patience with doleful Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais and gave him his marching orders (who reacted in a remarkably mature way by threatening to sue the team) replacing him with the alarmingly inexperienced form of Jamie Alguersuari, someone who was seen by some as being too wet behind the ears for F1 at that time. Nevertheless, 'Algie', as he would come to be known by lazy Patronise F1 writers too stubborn to learn how to type his full surname, acquitted himself reasonably well, never looking like causing any great waves, but also not behaving like a man who had never driven an F1 car before should probably have done.
With rookie crashes off the agenda, the race weekend itself was instead dominated by a chaotic qualifying session. In the middle portion of the session, Felipe Massa was struck by a piece of suspension debris from Rubens Barrichello’s car. The Ferrari man was knocked unconscious and crashed into a tyre wall at sickening speed. Although he was seen to be conscious after being extricated from his car, the Brazilian was placed in a coma in hospital as checks began on his head injuries. Unsurprisingly, Massa was ruled out of the Hungarian race, and in the end, he wouldn’t race again all season.
In the midst of the shocking crash, the qualifying session itself was subjected to a farcical finale, as the live timing system broke down in the closing stages of the session, and drivers gathered to compare individual lap times in parc ferme to try and figure out who had actually managed to secure pole position. Fernando Alonso was judged to have got the top spot, albeit using the controversial tactic of not using any fuel. Meanwhile, highlighting the despair of Brawn, Jenson Button could only manage 8th place, with a suspensionless Barrichello down in 13th.
In the race itself, Lewis Hamilton came through to secure a straightforward victory, with Kimi Raikkonen securing a morale-boosting second for the Ferrari team, whose thoughts were presumably still with the recovering Massa. Button, meanwhile, had the ignominy of his 7th place balanced by a DNF for Vettel and a 10th place for Barrichello. Mark Webber took third place and was rapidly becoming the most realistic title contender to challenge the Brit. Alonso’s race meanwhile was stymied by a botched pit stop which saw him lose a wheel halfway round the track. Given the recent spate of drivers being struck by debris (Massa’s accident came just a week after the tragic death of Henry Surtees in a Formula 2 race at Brands Hatch, after being struck by a loose tyre), the FIA reacted in typically heavy-handed fashion and banned the team for the next race. This was something Renault were quick to dispute, and lo and behold, we were off to court again.
As F1 entered it’s typically long and pointless 'summer break', the sport was beset by another mini-crisis. After arguing until they were purple in the face about the future of the sport throughout the summer, BMW reacted to the solid new Concorde Agreement by announcing their withdrawal at the end of the season, going as far as to not bother signing the new Concorde and leaving the remains of the team stuck in a fight to justify their future on the grid.
If the combination of "ZOMG F1 in crisis!" screaming on the back of BMW’s exit and the build-up to Renault’s day in court wasn’t enough to keep us entertained over the break, Ferrari announced that they were planning to replace the injured Massa with none other than a certain Mr M. Schumacher Esq, who had got bored with gurning at timing screens on the Ferrari pit board, and decided he wanted to play around in an F1 car once again.
In the end, the pair of headline-generating debacles were resolved. Schumacher, after not being allowed a test run in a new Ferrari decided that actually, he was old and his neck was knackered and he couldn't be bothered racing anyway, leaving Ferrari to call up Luca Badoer into a race seat for the next few races, a decision that would have sensationally amusing consequences. Meanwhile, Renault managed to get their ban overturned with the minimum of fuss, while the wheels were already in motion for their next court appearance, after the team finally rid themselves of the useless Nelson Piquet Jr, replacing him with the equally useless Romain Grosjean. But more on that particular drama later.
And so, with all the entertainment of the break out of the way, F1 got back to the more tedious assignment of actually racing cars for the Europe leg of the schedule, and the endless misery of the Valencia street track. McLaren continued where they left off with a dominant performance in qualifying, while the title fight looked to have taken another twist, as Brawn seemed back on the pace and Red Bull struggled, much as they had done around the streets of Monaco.
In the race, McLaren conspired to throw a comfortable second win on the trot away when they botched the call for Hamilton’s second stop, the 2008 champ arriving in his pit box to find the tyres still in the blankets. Rubens Barrichello came through to take a popular victory, his first in five years, and with Red Bull conspiring to make an almighty mess of another race, with Vettel retiring with engine failure and Webber ending out of the points after a dire race stuck behind Heikki Kovalainen, it suddenly looked like a Brawn-only scrap for the title. At this point, 4th placed Vettel was 25 points behind Button in the standings, though he was adamant he still had a role to play in the title scrap.
If the return to form of the McLaren team had been as predictable as Badoer’s hilarious uselessness, then the shake-up to the established order that we got in Belgium was anything but. The qualifying session at the always fun to visit Spa-Francorchamps saw Giancarlo Fisichella's Force India take the pole. Surely some mistake, we thought? Well, not really. Although his fuel load was somewhat lighter than his rivals, he still looked to have a competitive package. In a Force India, a team that was yet to score a single point in the sport.
What price a race win, though. Well, as it turned out that price was roughly the cost of development for Ferrari’s KERS device. After a mess of an opening lap which saw both British drivers eliminated on the first lap (calling Button's desire to 'go aggressive' that weekend into question) Fisichella’s lead lasted all of a bit of a lap before Raikkonen KERSed his way past down the run to Les Combes. Even then, though, the Findia man wasn’t giving up, as he tailed the Ferrari all the way to the chequered flag, only losing out in a remarkable win thanks to Kimi’s boost button and the desire not to get involved in an accident when trying to overtake. Truly an unbelievable miracle had happened in that, for the whole weekend, Force India had the most competitive package.
Button’s luck continued to be marked under 'good', though. Despite his nil points result, he saw Barrichello limp to 7th, Webber finish out of the points again, after more naff pit work from Red Bull, while Vettel secured third place but remained some way off Button’s championship lead. Badoer, meanwhile, limped to another last place, and was promptly given his marching orders, with Ferrari stealing Fisi from Findia to fill in for the still-injured Massa. Chunky Italian Tonio Liuzzi replaced Fisi at Force India.
As the teams left Belgium and headed for Monza, arguably the biggest story in the increasingly credibility-free season was just beginning, with the FIA announcing that evidence had come to light that Renault had fixed the result of the 2008 Singapore GP, and that they would be investigating forthwith, before finding enough evidence to call the Renault team back to the World Motor Sports Council for the first time in nearly a month.
With the shadow of that debacle hanging in the air like a bad smell in a lift, the F1 teams arrived in Italy in a surprisingly charitable mood, with FOTA welcoming Force India and Williams back into the fray after their rank-breaking over the breakaway series moan. While Hamilton blitzed his way to another pole position, narrowly beating new Findia lead driver Adrian Sutil to the top spot, the race saw a return to dominance for Brawn, who beat Hamilton on strategy to finish with a 1-2, with Barrichello leading home Button. Hamilton compounded his misery by crashing on the final lap and ending a promising weekend with nothing but a bruised ego. Red Bull’s misery continued, with Vettel picking up the flukiest point ever in 8th and Webber being eliminated on the opening lap thanks to a tap from Robert Kubica. Such was their deficit in the championship now, with Button (80pts) and Barrichello (66pts) well clear of Vettel (54pts) and Webber (51.5pts) that their team boss effectively conceded the title.
But, as F1 left Europe for the final flyaway races in Singapore, Japan, Brazil and Abu Dhabi, Red Bull weren’t quite finished yet, and would be the form team over the last few races. While they and Brawn though about the title though, Renault were awaiting their day in court...
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