And so, the scene was set for a rapid spate of five globe-travelling flyaway rounds to decide which of the five top drivers of the season (well, four top drivers and Jenson Button, anyway) would take the 2010 drivers crown. Would it be the smug Brit, the slightly less-smug Brit, the journeyman Aussie, the crash-happy German or the scheming Spaniard? Well, unless you've been avoiding finding out the result until this review, for some odd reason, you will of course already know the answer. But let's wrap up the final races nonetheless, and just act a bit surprised when we get to the end.
The teams arrived in Singapore for the annual F1 night race and immediately began complaining. Some about the wet weather that was lurking menacingly on the horizon, and others (or largely just Lewis Hamilton) about the state of the newly-reprofiled 'Singapore Sling' chicane, which had been redesigned on the request of leading drivers after they complained that it was too fiddy in previous seasons, and was now simply operating like a launching ramp for any drivers that managed to miss their braking point into the corner.
Despite all that whining, the race itself was largely free of excessive drama, aside from Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus nearly flame-grilling him when it set alight in the final few laps, and Fernando Alonso held off the challenge of Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull to take his second grand prix win in a row. In the other Red Bull, Mark Webber's race was nearly ruined by a slightly naff pit stop strategy, but the Australian recovered to finish third and maintain a 11 point championship lead over Alonso. He also survived a run-in with Lewis Hamilton, who managed to spectacularly finish up parked at the side of the track with broken suspension for a second race in a row after going side-by-side with the Red Bull man, only to get tagged and break his car on the super-high kerbing. A 50/50 incident and nothing more, but another blow to the 2008 champion's title hopes. Despite his second DNF in a row, Hamilton predictably retained the backing of the team, but he was now 20 points off the championship lead in an increasingly weak-looking car.
From the dazzle of the Marina Bay circuit, we headed to Japan and the historic Suzuka track, which produced a singularly naff race aside from a now-standard one man overtaking display from bonkers Sauber driver Kamui Kobayashi. At the front, though, it was a dominant win for Sebastian Vettel, who came into the race weekend 21 points off the championship lead, but was entering his end-of-season dream run of results (not that he realised it at the time of course). The Japan weekend was marred by some truly awful weather, with the fans on Sunday treated to the delights of a back-to-back qualifying/race duo of entertainment when a torrential downpour made a mockery of Saturday's action, and allowed PatroniseF1 to publish its first ever raindrop-by-raindrop report.
The win saw Vettel close to within 14 points of Webber's championship lead, level with Alonso, and with Hamilton now 28 points back and Button 31 points behind following disappointing Suzuka weekends for the McLaren pair, we were nearing crunch time in the title battle. We were also nearing crunch time for the Korean Grand Prix, with the new track set to be the next round of the championship after Suzuka, but ending up being completed just moments before the start of the race weekend after ongoing construction delays that saw the race only green-lighted by the FIA a week before kick off.
Still, Korea it was. And the brand new slippery track caused the drivers no end of entertaining problems all weekend. After Vettel predictably took another pole position, the track situation was made even worse by a downpour for the race itself. Cue plenty of driver moaning about the 'impossible' conditions (all except Lewis Hamilton, who was desperate to race on no matter how bad the conditions were in the hope that all his rivals might crash out) and the race began behind the safety car, was then briefly red flagged, then restarted behind the safety car for almost half of the full race distance, before we finally got going with some actual racing. Red Bull might have found themselves wishing that the whole race had been behind the silver Mercedes coupe though, as Mark Webber spun off into retirement within a lap of the restart, and Sebastian Vettel retired from the lead with another mechanical faff, gifting Alonso another win and a narrow 11 point championship lead over Webber, with Vettel now a full 25 points back from top spot.
With just two races to go, the title seemed to be boiling down to a straight fight between Alonso and Webber, as Jenson Button all-but threw in the towel and Hamilton slipped further back, even if he had got through a couple of races without crashing into someone. But Vettel was remaining confident on his own chances and the Red Bull squad refused to drop their sporting mandate to install team orders in their squad despite protestations from pragmatists and Australians across the world.
The commitment behind the team's determination not to resort to the sort of tactic that might make some idiots on Twitter a bit angry was clear to see in Brazil, as Vettel stormed to a pole-to-flag win to boost his slender title hopes heading to the championship finale, leading Webber across the line to close to within 15 points of the championship lead of Alonso, who could only manage third at the Interlagos circuit. After delivering the last six title-deciding races, the Brazilian track couldn't make it seven in a row, as the top three (as well as Hamilton) all headed to the last race of the season with a shot at the title. Alas, one driver's hopes ended before then, though, with Jenson Button finally falling too far behind as to be mathematically eliminated, and the Brit getting carjacked before the Brazilian race to add some insult to his upcoming injury.
One title was decided in Brazil, though, as the Red Bull squad wrapped up a richly-deserved constructors title with a whole race to spare, with most of the credit for their impressive success falling at the feet of designer Adrian Newey. His RB6 car had been the class of the field all year, even if the team had often failed to convert their pace into results, and it allowed Red Bull to become constructors champions in only their sixth year of competition and their second year of actually taking things seriously. You see, Toyota? That's how you do it.
But the drivers championship itself all came down to the pretty but uninspiring confines of Abu Dhabi, with the gloves well and truly off at Red Bull, Hamilton needing a major series of miracles to somehow secure the crown and Fernando Alonso still chasing a modicum of 'perfection'. Qualifying saw Vettel take pole position #10 of the season to keep his dreams alive, though with all of his rivals within striking distance, and then all eyes fell on the race itself.
And then, after the epic scrap up to this point, the final race was naturally a huge letdown. Not that Vettel was complaining, as he sauntered to another win to take his first world championship crown after his rivals became immersed in pathetically hapless scraps with slower cars further down the order, hamstrung by the overtaking deficiencies of the sport and the Yas Marina track. In the end, no team orders or anything like that were needed, and to the victor went the spoils, leaving Webber to quietly recycle some of David Coulthard's best lines and Ferrari to engage in a quiet game of "Who the effing hell told Alonso to pit?".
And that, in essence, and summarised in around 400,000 words (around 399,993 too many) was the 2010 season. Formula One has it's youngest ever world champion, and the 2011 grid will now be graced by no less than (and no more than) five current or past title holders, a depth of talent that the sport has not enjoyed for many a year.
Was it a classic season? Despite the super-tight championship fight that gave F1 it's first ever four-way title decider, it probably wasn't. The racing action was more often than not dismally flat despite the front few rows of the grid aching with potential action, the season finale was a risible waste of everybody's time, and Formula One can't rely on barmy tweaks to the points system and occasional bouts of tyre-based chaos to keep itself entertaining forever. The cars still need plenty of sorting.
But it was nevertheless more than just a chaotic, tumbling, complex formula-heavy spreadsheet of a season. The balance of power ebbed and flowed between the front few drivers in a way that has rarely been seen before. 2011 promises more of the same, with possibly even Renault or Mercedes getting in amongst the fight at the very front, but with a newly-crowned world champion who is maturing all the time on one hand, and a design genius on the other, the early odds would suggest that Red Bull's rivals will have their work cut out to hold back the SebVet juggernaut next season. The Age of the Finger may well be upon us.
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