2010 Season Review 'A Fight to the End'

 

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Many say that this years championship was one of the greatest seasons of all time, with four drivers going into the final race still with a chance of winning it. 19 races this season, Longest in a while, was going to bring fantastic racing for the whole of the season.

Three new teams, Lotus, Virgin and HRT appeared on the grid hoping for a successful year in Formula one. New drivers also appeared Lucas di Grassi, Vitaly Petrov, Nico Hulkenburg, Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna- (people thought a lot of him since he has the 'Senna' name). Then we welcome back long time Mclaren test driver Pedro de La rosa and seven time world champion Michael Schumacher hoping he can relive his former glory.

We arrived at Bahrain hoping for an outstanding race with many world champions, Red Bull dominated from the Start with Sebastian Vettel taking pole position ahead of Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso. The RB6 was very quick but could it keep it up in the race? All things were going well until a spark plug malfunctioned and this cost Vettel the race win, letting Alonso, Massa and Hamilton gain a place. Many people said this was a boring race, 'F1 is boring' but BBC Pundit Eddie Jordan said 'It only can get better' And it did....

Once again the Red Bull of Vettel was dominating in Vettel taking his second pole position of the season, but reliability hit him again when his brake disc broke and he was out of the race. A clever tyre change from saw 2009 world champion Jenson Button take his first win this Turkey last year with Kubica and Felipe Massa making up the top three. After the disappointment of Bahrain, Australia was fantastic, great overtaking and a bit of rain to spice things up.

Vettel finally got a win at Malaysia, getting past teammate Mark Webber to the first corner, A disappointing race for Alonso retiring due to an engine failure. It was obvious that Red Bull had the quickest car and the others had to catch up. Going into Shanghai, a surprising name was top of the championship- Felipe Massa after two podiums and a points finish saw him top the championship. Red Bull dominated qualifying and the race was a whole different story, a jump start from Alonso saw his race disappear and awful conditions saw Jenson Button take his 2nd win of the season with Hamilton behind him. Heading into Europe another driver was going to establish himself.

Mark Webber took two consecutive race wins at Barcelona and Monaco, which put him firmly in the title hunt, much to the amazement of teammate Sebastian Vettel. Formula One then arrived at Turkey with it being Ferrari's 800th race, people expected a lot from the maranello based team. A awful race saw Instanbul Park expert Felipe Massa way down the points just ahead of Alonso. Webber was leading to Vettel, Webber was told to turn his engine down, Vettel then turned his up, he was a long side Webber but he misjudged things and turned in too soon handing Lewis Hamilton first win of the season with Button and Webber making up the podium.

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After a year absence formula one was back at Montreal, where Hamilton won again, he took his first pole positon of the season and for a change a Red Bull wasn't, it was a great race because extremes of two tyres- the super softs and medium tyre meant for the first time drivers would have to make two stops in a race. Then came Vettel's first victory since Malaysia, but big talking point was Mark Webber's spectacular 360 degree back flip after colliding with back marker Heikki Kovalainen. Webber fought back to take another win at Silverstone, as soon as he crossed the line he shouted 'not bad for a number two driver' He said this because his teammate got a new front wing for a qualifying which was meant to be quicker, and it was, Vettel took pole but after touching Webber which caused a puncture, made Vettel loose a lot of points.

At this stage the Ferrari's were well off the pace and most thought out of the championship, Alonso thought not, we arrived at Hockenheim with the F10's as quick as the red bull's with Alonso qualifying 2nd and Massa 3rd. Alonso went on too win the race after Ferrari used team orders to give Alonso the win over Massa. If Massa had won, it would of been a year a go he had the accident in Hungary. A win which shouldn't have been, many fans saying if Alonso wins the championship was 6 points. Ferrari went on to have a $100,000 fine but others thought Ferrari should of lost all there constructors points.

Red Bull were very dominant in Hungary with Webber taking his fourth win of the season, with Ferrari's showing decent pace. Vettel screwed up in this race after falling behind the safety car to much and got a drive through penalty, he went on too make another mistake in Spa, After lunging into Jenson Button, which caused the Mclaren driver to retire and Vettel to finish well down the field. Another title contender, Alonso crashed later in the race, when it was light rain conditions. At this stage many thought the battle was between Hamilton and Webber but they were wrong.

We arrived at the final european race of the season, at Ferrari's home race of Monza. Alonso took pole and won at Monza, but was troubled by Button, he led for the first half of the race but messed up the timing of his stop. Another win at Singapore saw Fernando Alonso be the biggest challenger to Mark Webber. After a double DNF at Monza and Singapore it was hard for Lewis Hamilton to get his second championship. Vettel and Button were still in contention at this stage.

Vettel repeated his 2009 Japanese GP performance this year at Suzuka taking his third win and another 1-2 for Red Bull, then we arrived a Korea, a heavy rain race saw Mark Webber crash into the wall, and Sebastian Vettl have another engine failure, this gave Fernando Alonso his fifth victory of the season. And was the Spaniard going to get his third championship? Another fantastic performance saw Vettel take his 4th victory of the season with teammate Webber 2nd, Hamilton still got a chance and Button is out of contention. This was the first time in the sports history that there was four title contenders going into the final race of the season.



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Vettel dominated throughout at the Yas Marina Circuit, Webber, Massa and Alonso screwed up there chances by pitting two early, This handing Sebastian Vettel his first world champion, making him the youngest world champion in the history of the sport.

We forget, the other teams. A great comeback by Renault and Robert Kubica, saw the team take podiums and regular points finishes. 'World Class' says Martin Brundle, time will tell when he gets into a good car will he be a world champion.

Steady progress for Williams throughout the season, with Barrichello taking 4th place at Silverstone and Hulkenburg shining throughout, Williams pipped Force India to 6th place. Force India had a solid year, with Sutil performing throughout and Luizzi having the worse luck out of the two, For sure these two teams will be hoping for a better 2011. A great second half of the season for BMW Sauber and Kobayashi, Kobayashi stayed one of the sports best overtakers and very quick in the races. Very few things to cheer about for Toro Rosso, notable peformances at Malaysia, Canada and Abu Dhabi, lack of development seemed to be the problem for them. Next year Buemi and alguersauri will be more experienced and that should help the team move forward.

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Lotus were easily the best of the new teams with Kovalainen finishing most races, HRT the worst but probably had the best reliability out of the teams which got them 11th in the constructors championship. Next year the new teams will be hoping to get next too the Toro Rosso's and Saubers.

We welcome Pirelli and say goodbye to Bridgestone after they have been with us since 1997.

I think next year will be even better with 5 world champions, many runner ups, possibly 8 title contenders, 20 races. Bring on the 13th March. 'The best season in years'