1) Driver of the Year
It's been a season that has contained more surprising performances than a particularly adventurous over 60's orgy. Jenson Button was searing in the early part of the season, Luca Badoer ploughed new furrows into the bottom of the barrel marked 'slow', Giancarlo Fisichella produced a weekend's work that is still scientifically indecipherable in Belgium, but for all the shocks and surprises, the performance of Sebastien Buemi was perhaps the most unlikey. A man who had struggled to make a name for himself even in the average ranks of GP2, who I had written off before he had done a racing lap, turned out to be an entertainment-fest, with his most infamous pit radio comment even making it as far as the Patronise F1 tag line at the top of the site for a few weeks. Added to that, he wasn't half bad behind the wheel either, particularly with his late-season rally that saw him secure well-deserved points in both the final events. Off the radar he may have been, but Buemi is my driver of the year. With, obviously, special mentions for Button, Rosberg, Webber and the incomparably bonkers Kamui Kobayashi.
2) Team of the Year
A sort-of joint award for Honda and Brawn GP. Though possibly the bulk of this award should be granted for their efforts in 2008 behind the scenes. Though the team largely benefited from the massive technical changes that took place between 2008 and 2009 with the look and performance of the cars, and by abandoning their 2008 development so early they got a hell of a head start on the rest of the grid, the scale of their improvement cannot be ignored. If you need clarification of that, just remember quite how bad Honda had got at the tail end of the old flick-up-and-grooved-tyres era. From that miserable cataclysm, the team then went through a protracted takeover through the winter, a hasty redesign of the car to accomodate a Mercedes motor instead of the Honda unit, and then missed the majority of the pre-season testing schedule as they rushed about daubing fluorescent paint on their naked cars. And after all that, they rolled up in Melbourne and ripped the field apart (Boobens being Boobens notwithstanding). Yes they lost their way a bit, but worryingly for the opposition, Ross Brawn blamed that mid-season wobble on putting too much early effort into their 2010 car development. Be afraid, be very afraid. Possibly.
3) Flop of the Year
I'm giving this to Romain Grosjean, but not with any great delight. After the farce of Nelson Piquet Jr accompanied by complaints from the Brazilian regarding his lack of chances in testing with the car, at least he got to drive it before he raced it, even if that was with used tyres, blindfolded and after Alonso had put gaffer tape over his visor, or whatever the excuse was he eventually used. Grosjean never looked spectacularly good in GP2, but equally always looked strong enough to cut it in F1. But plunged into an imploding Renault team with zero car time, up against "noob killer" Fernando Alonso, he was always up against it. He responded not in a Liuzzi or an Alguersuari-like manner, who both found themselves in similar situations (albeit with more limited team mates), i.e. by knuckling down and quietly doing "ok but not great", but by spinning, crashing, messing up and generally being Piquet Jr. He almost certainly won't get another chance in F1, which seems a bit of a shame, but his 2009 was a complete flop.
4) Race of the Year
In a fairly dreary season for out-and-out thrilling races, the Australian Grand Prix was still a whole lot of fun, as it nearly always is. Button had things his own way at the front, but with Boobens staging a first lap calamity, Hamilton's recovery drive, Kubica and Vettel's late game of dodgems and all the other fun, it was one of the few races that crept above "diverting" on the GP rating scale of "dire" to "thriller". Brazil was the other obvious standout, but everyone else picked that, so I thought I'd be contrary.
5) Drive of the Year
Jenson Button at Monaco. Like a game of Domino Rally, Jenson Button follows the frustrating maxim that as soon as little things start going wrong, the whole thing collapses fairly quickly. But around the streets of Monte Carlo, with a Brawn GP so perfectly dialled in that it may as well have been on a Scalextric track, he was sublime. Watching his lap times drop off slightly as he eased off, allowing Barrichello to catch him for a bit, before pounding in a new quick time to leave Boobens in his wake was like watching a lion toy with a limping gazelle. In a car. Or something. Credit as well to Webber @ Nurburgring, Hamilton @ Melbourne and Button again @ Interlagos.
6) Fail of the Year
Plain and simply, the KERS experiment was a needless disaster. Contrived as a way of introducing more overtaking, it seemed to spend most of the year preventing it, as fundamentally slower cars conspired to leap ahead of quicker ones off the start line and then just sit there ap after lap, using a bit of nitro every time their rival so much as got a sniff of a pass. It could have been implemented in a better way, much in the same way that I could have had a shot at Rachel Stevens, but with F1 choosing to use KERS as a "look at us being environmentally good" tool, it meant that any possibility of making a standard unit for all the teams to use and equipping them with a limited number of boosts per race (a la Champ Car) was never really going to be a goer. Much like me with Rachel etc.
7) Quote of the Year
Rubens Barrichello for: "It will be all 'bla bla bla' and I don't want to hear that." after the German Grand Prix. Partly because he managed to so completely undermine his own irate anger over his conspiratorial concerns that Brawn GP had "thrown away" his podium shot just to make him finish 6th and give Button an extra point by sounding so comical when he said 'bla bla bla bla'. Partly because it offered a look into the torn and battered psyche of the normally-grinning Barrichello after so long being Schumacher's doormat. He believed that the whole world was out to get him, simply because he didn't know any other way.
8) Memory of the Year
Almost too many to mention. Qualifying in Melbourne, Buemi's pit radio moaning, Webber scrapping with Alonso in Malaysia and again in Spain, Hamilton's fail in Monaco, Liegate, Diffusergate, Fixgate, FIA vs FOTA, Eddie Jordan's incomparable idiocy, the shambolic qualifying session in Brazil, literally everything Kobayashi ever did, Martin Brundle's manboobs being revealed during a BBC feature on Webber's fitness programme, Schumie's protracted return, Massa's horrible crash, Fisichella's pole lap in Belgium, the epilipsy-triggering nu-Chain intro on the Beeb, staying up all night to cover two rained-off practice sessions for Patty in Japan, Nico Rosberg's Q2 lap in Singapore, everything Button did between Melbourne and Istanbul, Trulli's press conference shenanigans, the Donington debacle, Nico's pass on Massa at Monaco, Button v Webber in Abu Dhabi and Romain Grosjean's hair. Above all of those though, and because I think he deserves an award for a brilliant 2009 and haven't given him one yet, I'll give it to Mark Webber for his unapologetic screams of delight on winning in Germany. The team didn't seem to have time to hit him with the "We're on telly now so STFU" line to allow him to give the usual protracted spiel thanking the team and the car and the sponsors, instead we just had a bewildering series of "YEEEEEEEEESS"'s that seemed to go on for the entire slowing-down lap, coupled with the odd expletive for good measure. With all the neutered, sponsor-wary chat from drivers these days, it was refreshing to get such a willfully delighted reaction from an F1 driver for once. Button's rendition of "We are the Champions" in Brazil doesn't count, incidentally.
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