My 2010 F1 highlight

I’ve stated a couple of times that I thought the 2010 F1 world championship was a classic; even with a little distance between the racing and us I still think it deserves the overused “classic” label.

In the end I’m still not sure if Vettel won it, or Ferrari and Alonso conspired to loose it at the death with a bizarre strategy. There is a difference.

It was a great championship with five drivers winning races and the championship lead changing as teams fortunes strengthened and wavered over the long season.

However, Vettel dominated qualifying and was unquestionably the fastest driver over a single lap. It’s hard to argue that he was not a worthy champion. He made a significant number of errors, was occasionally a little impetuous and this cost him points that could have wrapped it up before Abu Dhabi.

I’ve been thinking about my personal highlight, and there were a number of great drives during the year, but for me it was Lewis Hamilton’s drive at Spa. In part because I was lucky enough to be there and because changing weather adds a whole new dimension to the sport. Hamilton is clearly a smart driver able to read the conditions backed by a team that will aid him in taking advantage of that.

For the true rain-master see Senna at Donnington in ’93. The best drive certainly I’ve ever seen and I don’t think it’s hyperbole to call it one of the best drives in the history of the sport. At one point Senna had lapped then entire field.

Back to Spa, through a very dodgy decision by the stewards a couple of years ago he had a win taken away from him. The race gods owed him and this year they made it even. It was a stunning drive, wonderfully controlled aggression mixed with adapting to the “dry/wet/damp/wet maybe” conditions.

That afternoon Hamilton showed a maturity that’s perhaps been missing in the past.

The conditions were challenging and it was a race when mistakes were easy to come by (Alonso finding the wall and Vettel finding Button), and luck (Button being taken out) was given out a little more sparingly.

Lewis Hamilton led from the start, impressively too. Then everything changed when it began to rain, it poured for a couple of laps and he nearly threw it all away in the gravel at Rivage.

The front of the car just grazed the wall and he got away with a huge moment. He kept on going over the compacted gravel and just about made it back onto the track.

Despite this he kept his lead over the impressive Robert Kubica in the Renault and Mark Webbers fast Red Bull, but the lead was much reduced and he had to be perfect from then on, and to his credit he was.

It was an awesome afternoon of racing, the conditions changed and the teams calls on tires and settings played a huge part for all the drivers. It was one of those weekends that make the sport so interesting, the unpredictability and rain made it a fun race to watch.

The question now becomes, which races will to attend in 2011? Unfortunately it won’t be my first choice of Monza, but maybe Montreal. Valencia would be nice and Suzuka would certainly convenient for Nagoya… We’ll see, but I will be going somewhere I’m sure.