Driver of the Year
In a year where five drivers fought a titanic battle for the crown, leading to the youngest ever World Champion, with one of the other contenders nearly making it a treble in an inferior Ferrari, and another coming of (old) age to finally challenge for a title and take the battle to his 'golden boy' teammate, I'm going to controversially ignore them all completely and give my Driver of the Year Award to the man who regularly put his Renault into places it should never have been, including top 3 qualifying positions in Spa and Suzuka. Notwithstanding being beaten by his useless teammate in Hungary, Robert Kubica gets my vote.
Team of the Year
Red Bull Racing. Not much more to add.
Surprise of the Year
The biggest shock for me this year was that Jenson Button was actually able to win as many as two races. I fully expected him to be blown into the weeds very comfortably by Lewis Hamilton, and in the end he was well-beaten by the 2008 Champion, but he started remarkably well, winning two of the first four races and leading the Championship, even taking the race to him in Turkey and beating him easily in Italy. Slow and steady however didn't win the race in 2010.
Flop of the Year
Vitaly Petrov was completely useless, bar an impressive 5th place in Hungary and an Enrique Bernoldi-esque blockage of Fernando Alonso in Abu Dhabi. Sadly a great sack full of Roubles will probably see him back in the sport next year.
Race of the Year
I'd quite like to say Turkey, but one of our other correspondents will definitely have said that, so I'll go for Canada. An entertaining set of battles and mix of tyre strategies, coupled with the genius that is Sebastien Buemi actually managing to lead a lap!
Drive of the Year
I'll have to go for Mark Webber in Monaco. For the first time in his career he won consecutive races, absolutely thrashing his teammate in the process with a totally dominant performance on both Saturday and Sunday, at the most prestigious Grand Prix of them all, taking the lead in the Championship, and giving all those Webber fans out there massive hope that this could finally be his year.
Fail of the Year
Lewis Hamilton's double lunacy in Monza and Singapore quite conceivably cost him a second World Championship. I've never made any secret of my dislike for the arrogant little so and so, and he showed exactly why by getting above his station in consecutive races and ending up with a big fat haul of no points to show for the pair of them, colliding stupidly with Massa in Italy and Webber in Singapore. Considering he ended up just 16 points adrift of Vettel...I think he threw it away. Honourable mention to Webber in Korea.
Quote of the Year
"Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?". OK, so this is a terribly obvious answer, but in a sense it sums up Ferrari's 2010 season. On the one hand, Fernando Alonso so nearly delivered the title at the first attempt for the Scuderia, but on the other, the returning Felipe Massa was absolutely light years behind. Despite outqualifying the Spaniard in Bahrain, Hockenheim was just about the only time all year he could legitimately claim to be beating him. So when Rob Smedley gave that fatal message over the radio, sadly the entire pitlane understood. Felipe is lucky to still be in the red car in 2011, but must surely be looking over his shoulder for 2012.
Memory of the Year
My favourite memory of this year was when the wheels quite literally fell off Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso in Practice at the Chinese Grand Prix, and he still tried to steer the car! Thankfully there was no damage to him so we could laugh about it afterwards. Noooo!
Hope for the Future
My main hope for 2011 is that at least one of 2010's new teams pushes themselves up the order a bit and gets themselves onto the pace of the pre-2010 gang, as we can't really be doing with another year of a 18-car race coupled with a 6-car race. Thankfully it looks like Team Lotus (the green and gold ones I think) might be able to do just that, having made strides in 2010.
Reviewing the Preview
As ever at this point I like to indulge in a bit of self-deprecation and see how atrocious my pre-season predictions turned out to be (from here and here). I forecast Alonso and Ferrari as the title winners, and I wasn't too far away in Fernando's case at least, although my belief that Ferrari had the best pairing on the grid was somewhat wide of the mark! Nico Hulkenberg was an easy choice as Rookie of the Year and was the most impressive, while Virgin Racing did indeed turn out to be absolute rubbish (last in the Constructors!).
Sauber and HRT didn't really get that much of a mention, so I'll claim another moral victory there, while Bahrain did prove to be a talking point, but only because it was the dullest Grand Prix since the Dulux sponsored extravaganza at the Hungaroring in 1978. The title was (sadly) not decided in Brazil for the first time since 2004, but Lotus were (predictably) the most impressive of the new teams by quite a long way.
The big controversies mainly surrounded F-ducts, team orders (or the lack of), adjustable this and that, but not tyres! Jaime Alguersuari did indeed last the season at STR, while sadly Karun Chandhok did not (nor indeed did Pedro de la Rosa), and finally (to the amazement of literally six people), Nico Rosberg did not win TUF1WCIAWCC, as it came down to a conveniently shared title between the two men who missed out on the less important WDC. Maybe next year, Nico. See you then, folks!
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