A worthy finish to a great season

This was maybe the most exciting drivers title chase in a long time, certainly since Senna and Prost traded wins in the late 80’s.

Vettel did what he had to do today in Abu Dhabi. He went out, dominated the race and took care of everything he could control. His drive today was fitting a world champion and it would be difficult to argue that he did not deserve it.

Vettel and Red Bull have been the fastest combination on the grid all year, over a single lap there have not been many that have been able to stay with him. However a mix of driver errors, a few mechanical problems and a significant amount of bad luck had meant that the first time Vettel led the drivers’ championship was this afternoon after the race.

The start, as always, was crucial and Red Bull led from pole, and the first lap finished Vettel-Hamilton-Button-Alonso.

For Vettel to win he needed Alonso and Webber to have issues, and they did. Webber never got past his poor qualifying performance, compounded by poor race strategy and coming in for fresh rubber too early. Alonso made the same error in pitting too early and being forced to try and battle his way through the field. It was a huge error by Ferrari. The team forgot the first rule of race strategy, track position is everything.

Once Vettel had come in for his stop on lap 24 and got out ahead of Hamilton it was just a matter of the car being reliable and staying out of trouble.

Prior to Bahrain this is what I had to say.

“Based on testing times it looks a little like the F1 world has returned to business as usual with McLaren and Ferrari a little ahead of the rest. The rest are led by Red Bull and Mercedes, with Sauber, Williams and Force India looking very competitive.”

“As I’ve said, this could be a fascinating year with four world champions, really quick drivers like Vettel and Weber who want to join that club, and potentially 6 or 7 teams capable of competing at the sharp end.”

The 6 or 7 teams competing at the sharp end part was a little optimistic, Sauber certainly flattered to deceive, but I think a lot of that was down to budget. Force India had some good races, but like Sauber never developed through the season.

Overall I’m rather pleased with the accuracy of my thoughts from 9 months ago. It’s been a great season and I’ve been lucky enough to make it to a GP. There will be more next year, that I’m sure of. With five world champions in the top three teams, plus Schumacher if Mercedes is able to their shit together for next year could make it another great year.

It was the first time four drivers had ever gone into the final race all with good shout of the title. The fifth, Button, was only eliminated last week in Brazil.

What has made this year so compelling was very basic. A number of superb drivers in cars that were evenly matched. Looking forward to 2011 the same five drivers are contracted to be with the same teams, Webber is the biggest question mark after his statements over the last couple of weeks.

Of the rest Kubica has shown he belongs at the sharp end of the grid with some great drives in mid-table machinery. If Renault can give him a good car and Mercedes do the same for Schumacher it could be another great season.

However, it’s also possible Vettel and Red Bull will learn how to eliminate the mistakes, if that happens it would be difficult to see who could stay with him.

It’s less than three months until testing starts for 2011.