Patronise F1

The Abu Dhabi race didn't quite provide the dazzlingly brilliant showdown that perhaps the closeness of the championship fight up until this weekend had really deserved, but nevertheless it did provide us with a bit of a shock winner. Coming into the weekend, Vettel was only really cropping up in discussions over the eventual destiny of the championship when people questioned whether or not he would be prepared to move over and cede the lead of the race to his team mate Mark Webber in order to allow the Australian to win the title at the expense of pre-race championship leader Fernando Alonso.

Even though he was relatively well-placed in the championship standings, certainly compared to the fourth and final title contender Lewis Hamilton, and came into the weekend at the Yas Marina circuit having won in Brazil in fine style, he remained an outsider in most people's minds. With just 25 points left to play for in the 2010 season, Vettel was 16 points behind Alonso and 8 points behind team mate Webber. Only Hamilton, who was 24 points off the lead, was in a more hopeless situation.

But, in the end, as he kept himself to himself and drove off to record a second dominant pole-to-flag victory in as many weeks, his championship betters succumbed to some pit strategy mishaps and the farcical spectre of Formula One's ever-present 'overtaking issue', to leave the 23-year old German driver clear to march to win number five of the season, and his first world championship crown. And for all of his occasional failings at times this season, it was difficult to argue that he didn't deserve it on the strength of this performance alone.

Practice and Qualifying

Before all the important stuff came, though, we had the usual limp preamble of the three barely-contested practice sessions. After the weather had become an almost constant issue for Formula One at the last few races, everyone was hopeful that going to a track in the middle of a desert which sees an average of four days of rain every calendar year should hopefully preclude any more track time disruptions.

Astonishingly though, F1 was again in the wrong place at the wrong time, as a heavy shower out of nowhere on Friday morning doused the circuit in a moist blanket of rainwater. The wet weather didn't hang around, and the ambient climate of Yas Island meant that the dampness evaporated very quickly, but it still meant that FP1 was even less-contested than it usually is. Vettel finished top of a fairly meaningless timesheet, with the McLaren duo of Hamilton and Jenson Button in close attendance behind him, but the times were some way off the sort of pace that even a self-respecting anonymous midfielder would be turning in come qualifying.

McLaren had been largely expected to fade away into the background in Abu Dhabi, with Hamilton's slim title hopes seen by many as being dependent on his rivals retiring from ahead of him and Hamilton ghosting up the order from there. But, with the 2008 champion lauding somesuch 'breakthrough' that the team had made with their new rear wing, the British driver topped the Friday afternoon session comfortably, a couple of tenths clear of Vettel with Alonso and Webber ensuring the top four places were filled by the four title contenders.

Into Saturday we went, and normal service was quickly resumed, with Vettel moving back ahead in the final hour of practice with the quickest time of the weekend so far. Webber made it a RBR 1-2 in the session, with Hamilton unable to match his Friday heroics in third place, and Alonso continuing to look half a stride behind his title rivals in fourth. 

That set us up for qualifying, where unsurprisingly all of the main contenders made it through to the final part of the session, leaving the title rivals with ten short minutes to sort themselves a decent grid slot. The Red Bulls deviated from the usual two-run gameplan and went for a single long run, hoping that the soft tyres would come to them over the course of the session. For Vettel, they did, and he eased to his tenth pole position of the season in some style. But for Mark Webber, the results were less impressive, and he ended up down in fifth. "I'm not rapt to be fifth on the grid," he said after the session, "It's disappointing, but there's still a long way to go tomorrow – the fat lady hasn't sung yet." Indeed the fat lady was still warming up, because her grand performance for the season would not be required until Sunday evening.

Elsewhere, Hamilton confirmed McLaren's new-found pace by snatching the front row spot alongside Vettel, to take his first front row start since the Belgian Grand Prix in late August and only his fourth of the season, keeping his slender hopes of a race win alive, while Alonso looked to be struggling throughout qualifying, but pulled out a quick lap at the last to claim third place, more than enough if he stayed there on Sunday to guarantee the title whatever Vettel managed. Outgoing champion Button ruined Webber's afternoon further by taking fourth, with Felipe Massa completing the dominance of the 'big three' with sixth spot in the second Ferrari.

The grid didn't promise a huge amount of action on Sunday, but Vettel was in a perfect position to complete his half of the deal he would need to complete an unlikely triumph, and could now only hope that his rivals would follow the script and bottle their own chances come the race itself.

The Race

And so, the final race day of the season rolled around, in front of the packed and almost-interested grandstands of a random Tilkedrome in the middle of a freshly-monied Emirate. The four title contenders assumed their places at, or around, the front of the 24 car grid following a remarkably fast formation lap from polesitter Vettel, who got back to his grid spot a good 45 seconds before the back few rows eventually crawled round to theirs.

Still, there were no nasty stalling issues from anyone, and as the lights went out, Vettel led the pack into a first corner which some had predicted would be the scene of doom for any one of the title contenders. But, with the turn one braking zone at the Yas Marina track nowhere near sharp enough to bunch the pack up to any great extent, everyone got round safely, with Vettel chopping Hamilton's nose off sharply enough to get the 2008 champion to ask his team on the pit wall to check for any damage to his front wing. Behind the front two, Alonso's afternoon was already starting to go badly, as for pretty much the first time all year Jenson Button beat a rival off the line and then didn't just casually gift the place back at turn one, taking advantage of having the natural inside line for turn one to grab third place on the road, from Alonso, Webber, Massa, the Williams of Rubens Barrichello, the Mercedes duo of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, and Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber.

If turn one had been clean enough, though, the quick-ish chicane at turns five and six nearly saw a tragedy unfold. Heading into the braking zone, Barrichello was overly-defensive in protecting his line, slowing Schumacher and allowing Rosberg to go around the outside of the right-hand entry for the inside line on the exit. As the Mercedes ran side-by-side, Schumacher lost control of his W01 and spun 180 degrees in front of the rest of the pack. As he sat impotently facing the traffic, most managed to avoid him, but Tonio Liuzzi's Force India had nowhere to go from the middle of the chasing bunch and he slammed head-on into the stricken silver car, his front-left tyre avoiding striking Schumacher's head by mere inches. 

The crash sent debris flying across the track and necessitated a five lap safety car period while the track was cleared, but mercifully both Liuzzi and Schumacher were uninjured and walked back to the pits unaided. It was enough to rattle even a seven-time world champion, who when told after the race that the crash had looked scary from outside the cockpit, noted that: "It was even scarier from inside..." Liuzzi, for his part, insisted that there was nothing that he could have done to avoid the German's car. 

The first crucial moment of the race unwittingly occurred at the end of the first tour, as a number of drivers took advantage of the appearance of the big Allianz-emblazoned Mercedes coupe to get their mandatory pit stops out of the way. Rosberg was in to switch to the harder tyre, as was the Renault of Vitaly Petrov, the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari and a number of newbie backmarkers. That left Vettel leading, from Hamilton, Button, Alonso and Webber. Behind the top five came Massa, Barrichello, Kobayashi, Force India's Adrian Sutil and Renault's Robert Kubica, both of whom were into the top ten and had started the race on the harder tyre, looking to run as long as they possibly could before switching to the super soft towards the end. 

The racing restarted at the start of lap six, with Vettel nearly confusing Hamilton into a mistake before they crossed the line, as the German backed the safety car pack up suddenly, forcing Hamilton to take avoiding action on the run up to the final corner. That moment of near-calamity rather seemed to chasten the British driver, and Vettel took the lead at the restart with no real issues from behind. From there, the Red Bull man immediately went about establishing a lead, as further back we got a few hopes for a forthcoming overtaking-fest, as Kubica managed to hoist a move around the outside of the Force India of Sutil to take ninth place. 

But although Kubica found that move easy enough to pull off, the rest of the field was struggling. Even Kobayashi, the usual provider of passing action when dullness descends on proceedings, was struggling to make anything happen, as he tried a heft up the inside of Barrichello only to run too deep and cede the spot back. Aside from the recoveries of early pitters Rosberg, Petrov and Alguersuari, though, there was little action. Which was suiting Alonso just fine, as he sat in a comfortable fourth place. By lap 10 he was some 7.6 seconds behind Vettel, but was ahead of Webber, his closest rival in the points, and was securely in the top four place he needed to prevent the race leader from winning the title. Behind the Spaniard, Webber was getting ragged, grazing the barriers on lap nine as he pushed with all his might to try and make something happen, without reward. 

With his title hopes fading, then, the Australian driver took matters into his own hands with another tactical gamble. As the soft tyres went through an aggressive period of graining which hindered his lacklustre pace even further, Webber took the decision that they were shot for good, and pitted at the end of lap 11 to switch to the hard tyre, rejoining behind the already-pitted traffic of Alguersuari, but now free to race to the flag, Almost immediately, Ferrari seemed to react, with the mechanics heading for their own pit box a lap later before thinking better of it and returning to the garage.

A further lap later though, they were back out, and having seen Alonso's rear gunner Massa set a personal best lap, and with Webber's pace temporarily being hurt by the Toro Rosso, the Brazilian was in. His mission, should he choose to accept it, was pit, rejoin ahead of the Webber/Algie battle, and tie up the Australian driver for the rest of the race, leaving Alonso free to concentrate on maintaining the required points gap to Vettel. 

It was a mission that, as has been Massa's way in 2010, he spectacularly failed to complete. The Brazilian popped back out of the pitlane well and truly behind the Alguersuari and Webber battle. Ferrari's first shot at getting a car to slot in ahead of the Australian had failed, and as Webber managed to bundle past Alguersuari shortly after to get into some clear air, Ferrari quickly decided to have another go and pitted Alonso at the end of lap 15, with the Spaniard pushing enough on his in-lap as to nearly find the armco. This time, the plan worked, and Alonso was out ahead of his rival, but he was now stuck with a number of cars running to the chequered flag following their own safety car stops between himself and that net fourth place that he needed for the title. Still, surely the likes of Vitaly Petrov wouldn't cause too many issues for a double world champion in a Ferrari? Hmm.

Adding insult to all of Alonso and Webber's impending traffic issues, it transpired that the soft tyre graining had been something of a false dawn, and as the other soft tyre runners found their pace returning, so they avoided having to make their own early stops to drop into the traffic. Not that this stopped Williams performing one of their traditional weird pit strategy moments when they called Barrichello in to ruin his afternoon. By lap 20, then, Vettel had a 1.9 second lead over Hamilton, who was proving to be a fair match for the Red Bull man through the first stint, but whom still required more miracles than Jesus working overtime down at Bethlehem market to secure his second world championship. Button was still third, five seconds down the road from Vettel, with a big gap now having opened up back to the temporary top ten of Kobayashi, Kubica, Sutil, Sebastien Buemi, the recovering Rosberg, Nico Hulkenberg and Petrov. Alonso sat just outside the top ten, and just behind the Russian, in 11th, with Webber still on his tail. 

So the scene seemed to be set for a classic end to the season, with Vettel trying to keep Hamilton at arms length and take the win he needed to stand any chance of the title, while Alonso and Webber fought their way past some random midfielders, and fought each other, to move back up towards the front of the field and the results that they needed for the crown. That was what we were hoping for, but in actual fact we got absolutely nothing like that, as Formula One's dirty air issue made a mockery of the whole situation. Alonso, and therefore Webber, remained stuck behind Petrov for lap after tedious lap. 

Never mind, at least there was still the fight for the race win to get excited by. Except this, too, was ruined shortly before the midway point of the race. The top two pushed on with their soft tyre phase, both desperate to build up a lead to the loitering form of Kubica in 5th, keen not to get stuck behind the hard tyre-shod Polish driver who was set for a much longer first stint of the race than they were. But for Hamilton, that plan also failed, as he pitted at the end of lap 23 to resume behind the Renault on the road. A lap later, Vettel pitted, but a speedy turnaround from Red Bull in the pit lane got the German driver out ahead of the traffic, resuming just ahead of new third placed man Kobayashi, who thought better of trying to pass the title contender and instead inconvenienced his own pace, allowing Kubica to make the move of the day on the Sauber around the outside on lap 25. Hamilton, smartly, also passed the Sauber driver a lap later as the Japanese man's soft tyres started to fall apart. 

So, with the lengthy pitstop window still only really two-thirds complete, Button now temporarily held the lead, making his own soft tyres work remarkably well. On lap 30 he was 11.6 seconds ahead of Vettel, who was now some seven seconds up the road from the hapless Kubica and Hamilton train. Kobayashi still ran fifth, from Sutil, Buemi, Rosberg, Hulkenberg and Petrov, and Alonso was still there in eleventh place, stuck behind the Russian, with the greater traction of the Renault and the narrow opportunities for an outbraking move beginning to frustrate the Spaniard, who was aware all the time that Petrov merely represented the first in a series of at least two cars that he needed to overtake in order to secure the title. He had already tried one half-hearted stab up the inside on lap 23, nearly running into the back of the French car as he skittered too deep into the corner and across the run-off, resuming his vigil behind the yellow and black car afterwards.

Alonso was finally elevated into at least a points-paying place when Kobayashi pitted on lap 33, and subsequent stops for Hulkenberg and Buemi promoted him and Webber further up, but the situation was now looking hopeless, and increasingly the title battle that we had been promised was looking like a straightforward battle between Vettel and his own fallibilities. Adding to the Spaniard's issues, Kubica's pace in second was soon enough to ensure that when he pitted, he would also resume ahead of the Ferrari. At the front, Button's incredibly long opening stint finally came to an end on lap 39, and Vettel retook the lead of the race, with Button's own half-hearted tactic of trying to leapfrog the Kubica and Hamilton squabble falling well short of success.

Hamilton's time in Kubica-imposed purgatory was finally ended with ten laps to go, as the Pole pulled in for his late stop, rejoining in sixth place and just ahead of Petrov. The British driver then took second place, albeit some 11 seconds behind Vettel, with Button just behind him in third place. The final stopper was Sutil on lap 47, and that released Rosberg into fourth, from Kubica, Petrov, Alonso, Webber, Alguersuari and Massa, the Brazilian having been stuck behind the Toro Rosso since that useless early pit stop.

The scenario that Massa found himself in, of course, wasn't just an issue being suffered by the #7 Ferrari. Alonso, despite a few more half-hearted stabs at Petrov's rear, remained a hapless seventh, as Vettel counted down the laps to the chequered flag, and a remarkable title glory. The German was, as it turns out, literally driving his own race, with the pit wall at Red Bull refusing to tell him of the full enormity of the result he was heading for over the radio, in some sort of bizarre sporting moment of cock-teasing, presumably motivated by the idea that he might fall into some sort of shock-induced coma when he heard quite how useless his rivals were being and spin out. 

But, even if he didn't realise it at the time, Vettel crossed the line to take the chequered flag for the fifth time this season to provisionally become world champion. Red Bull, mindful of the events of the final lap of the 2008 decider, kept quiet for a while as they counted the rest of the field home, making sure that there was no physical way that Alonso could possibly finish fourth without the use of a modified DeLorean and a sniper rifle. Hamilton led Button home in second and third, and then Rosberg flashed across the line to produce arguably the most jubilant scenes the RBR team will ever produce at the sight of a naff Mercedes car finishing a race in fourth place. That was it, the title was secure, and Vettel was told the full story, producing a moment of shocked and delighted bawling from the 23-year old over the pit radio.

Behind Rosberg came Kubica and Petrov, followed by the thoroughly miserable duo of Alonso and Webber. The Spaniard was so irate after the race that he took some time out of his schedule on the slow-down lap to somewhat pathetically gesticulate at Petrov, for a crime that seemed to revolve around not simply pulling over and letting him through. As the ever-keen Martin Brundle opined in the BBC commentary box: get real, son. Alguersuari and Massa completed the top ten in the final race of the year. Nick Heidfeld ended his Sauber cameo with 11th place, with Rubens Barrichello, who faded thanks to a slightly naff strategy, coming home 12th, ahead of late-stoppers Sutil, Kobayashi, Buemi and Hulkenberg.

Heikki Kovalainen won the final 'Class B' race of the season, ensuring that Lotus would finish in that precious 10th place in the constructors standings, clear of Lucas di Grassi's Virgin and Bruno Senna's HRT. Christian Klien's third HRT cameo of the season brought 20th place, while Jarno Trulli was last home in 21st after suffering a damaged front wing on lap 29, and then a damaged rear wing in the last couple of laps.

Aside from the first lap crash pair of Liuzzi and Schumacher, the only other retirement was Timo Glock, who ensured that he would be classified last of all the full-season runners in the final points standings by pulling off with gearbox problems on his Virgin with a handful of laps to go. 

But all eyes after the race were on a certain young German driver, who got over his sudden burst of emotion in the cockpit to wag his most celebratory of fingers at anyone and everyone within 50km of parc ferme. Vettel took the trophy and the glory, Red Bull broke out their remarkably limited mixtape of celebratory music, and the 2010 season had reached a denouement of sorts. Perhaps not the epic finale we wanted, but a finale nonetheless. 

Vettel's success means that Formula One now heads into 2011 with no less than five world champions on the grid. And with McLaren and Ferrari determined to hit back, Red Bull looking to start their own Schumie-at-Ferrari-esque dynasty, and Mercedes and Renault aiming to bridge the gap between themselves and race-winning pace, next year could be even better.

Who knows, we might even get some overtaking?

Moment of the Race

Lap 15 - The moment of the race, and indeed of the championship, came when Ferrari chose to call Fernando Alonso in for his catastrophic early stop. Granted, there were other moments that had a similar impact, most notably the early safety car that allowed Petrov et al a free tyre change, and Massa's inability to jump Webber while he was stuck behind Alguersuari, which would have precluded the need from Ferrari to panic and stop Alonso, but the moment that the Spaniard veered right off the track and into the pits, he was unwittingly kissing goodbye to the world championship.

Quote of the Race

"Thank you boys, unbelievable, thank you, I love you." - Plus lots of teary sobbing. Not a brilliant quote, to be fair, and in years to come he might regret that he didn't come up with something snappier. But that was the first words we heard from our new world champion after he was crowned. The Finger can be incredibly annoying at times, but hearing that, it's hard to not feel a bit happy for our new glorious leader.

Five things we learned this weekend

1. Vettel is a worthy champion.
Did the best man win the title? In a season as close and as littered with combinations of stunning drives and farcical failures as this, that question is always going to be too subjective to really answer with any degree of certainty. But what you can say is that the fastest man won, and isn't that, to an extent, what this whole merry circus is designed to reward?

Vettel's 2010 campaign was far from perfect, riddled with driver errors and team failures that meant he was never able to truly dominate to the extent that his ten pole positions for the season should really have allowed him to, but that shouldn't take away from the prodigious run of form he hit at just the right time. But for a couple of loose engine bits in Korea, he should really have won the final four races in a row, and in many ways, the super-epic-four-way-title-battle was turned into a bit of a farce, as three of the contenders spent those races circulating some way behind his wake.

Yes, the title came his way thanks to a big dose of luck, with Ferrari's botched strategy handing him the results elsewhere that he needed to ensure victory in Abu Dhabi gave him the title, but then given that his own bad luck had robbed him of so many points throughout the season, a fraction of which onto his total would have ensured that this four-way finale was never given the chance to happen, it was probably the least that the Luck Gods could have done for him.

2. This has not been a classic season on the track.
2010 has arguably been the closest, longest and most hotly-contested Formula One season in the history of the sport, with the prediction that the inclusion of the upper echelons of F1's driver talent pool in the quickest cars (unlike the slightly odd pecking order last year) would lead to an incredible title battle proving true, at least to an extent. But while we got the sport's first four-way title decider, and witnessed the top spot in the standings handed around between the drivers like a particularly unwanted hot potato, was the racing actually that exciting?

Not particularly, no. In a season bookended by dreary processions around Middle Eastern Tilkedromes, the racing action was thin on the ground all the way throughout 2010. Aside from some rain-affected weekends, the tyre carnage of Canada and the barmy internecine battles of Turkey, this was a season that proved that the process of qualifying the cars in precise speed order, then locking them away for the night, giving them equal fuel loads and then somehow expecting them to overtake each other was precisely as flawed a concept as it sounded at the start of the year. Even pit stop strategy, once a helpful part of mixing the order up, was pretty much reduced to a single mandatory tyre change at most events.

For next season, the FIA will try Barmy Rule Change No.265 to try and induce more action into the sport. Gone are double diffusers and F-ducts, and in come 'driver adjustable rear wings' and the returning, now mandatory, KERS devices. Will it work? Well, it's got to be worth a try, hasn't it? Because there's only so long the sport's end-of-season montages will be able to be bailed out by the weather and the sight of Mark Webber flipping his car upside down at Valencia.

3. F1's safety record remains one of coincidence.
With the conclusion of the 2010 season, the sport of Formula One has successfully negotiated a first ever full decade without a single driver fatality (though, sadly, not without a single fatality at all, following the deaths of track marshals Paolo Ghislimberti at Monza in 2000 and Graham Beveridge at Melbourne in 2001). But if the sport felt like toasting this run of remarkable good fortune, the Abu Dhabi race provided us a reminder of quite how fragile that record remains. Because no matter how safe the cars and the tracks are made, when you send 24 drivers onto a series of circuits to drive close to each other at ludicrous speed, there will always remain the potential for disaster.

Michael Schumacher and Tonio Liuzzi's shunt was the perfect example of how fragile the record is. That Schumacher was not seriously injured, or worse, from Liuzzi's car riding up over the top of his prostrate car was nothing more than a lucky break, as Liuzzi's left wheel passed within a merciful distance of his helmet. As with Felipe Massa's potentially grisly fate when he was struck by a suspension spring during the Hungarian GP weekend last year, Formula One was once again a tiny distance from the ultimate tragedy.

4. This has been a season for odd records.
For a season so clearly dominated by five drivers, who between them have greedily snaffled up all 19 of the race wins, 18 of the pole positions (Nico Hulkenberg's bonkers Brazilian GP pole breaking the chain there), and 17 of the fastest laps (with Robert Kubica nabbing the quickest tour prize in Canada, and there's a prize for whoever can guess who got the other fastest lap), there are some statistical oddities about 2010.

Victory in Abu Dhabi gave Sebastian Vettel the championship lead for the first time all season, while it also confirmed that throughout the entire season (and indeed since Turkey 2009), the championship leader coming into a race weekend had never gone on to win the race, with the lead in the championship changing hands ten times throughout the season. We also saw the record for biggest points haul smashed, though that one is fairly redundant now as a record, given the extra thousand points the FIA made available this season. Though just to emphasise how dominant he once was, Schumacher's 2004 points haul under the old system would still have placed him sixth in this year's championship.

But there was only one record that really mattered, the one for youngest world champion, which saw Vettel eclipse Hamilton's own record from 2007 to take the bragging rights for the shortest time from nappies to F1 championship by some 166 days. The scary thing for his rivals is that Vettel is already a world champion, and will start next season still yet to celebrate his 24th birthday.

5. The constructors standings don't lie at the front, or the back.
The cream always rises to the top, it seems. No matter how close and hard to rate the front four drivers have been all season, there is no doubt that one team stood head and shoulders above their rivals in 2010. That Red Bull's final points margin over McLaren was a mere 44 points belied quite how far ahead of the curve Red Bull have been this season. Though perhaps it would have been more appropriate to award the constructors prize to Adrian Newey rather than the team itself. Either way, although there will forever be debate as to whether the ‘right man’ won the tight drivers championship battle, the constructors standings carry no such doubt.

Similarly, Lotus secured 10th place in the constructors standings and top spot amongst the three newcomer teams in 2010, and fully deserved it was too, given that the Malaysian team are actually giving F1 a proper go, in comparison with the hapless farces at Virgin and Hispania Racing. It seems that whether teams are fighting over hundreds of points, or no points at all, the constructors championship ends up the right way round whatever the situation.

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