A League Of Their Own

Just about every other sports discipline has separate events or a league for women. Why doesn't motor sport have the same? There's always talk of the possibility of a woman making it in Formula One but none have tried to qualify a F1 car since the early nineties and that situation doesn't look like changing soon.

Women deserve the same opportunities in racing as men and so it would only be fair to have a all-female F1 as well as ladies only feeder series. Knowing that they will have more of a chance to be competitive and achieve success will no doubt attract more of the fairer sex to the sport and ensure full fields. 

Overtaking Killed The Racing Star

I was a bit bemused to hear today that Sebastian Buemi has been dropped from the Torro Rosso team for 2012. I have always regarded him as a quick and reliable driver, somebody a mid-field team like Torro Rosso would want to hang on to.

I do admit though that in 2011 Buemi's results haven't maybe been as good as I would have as expected. Given his performances in previous seasons I'd have expected to have seen him more consistently at the forefront of the midfield runners. Somehow things didn't quite work out that way. I blame the new Pirelli tyres and the push to pass DRS and KERS systems for this. Now instead of a driver just concentrating on doing what he's there to do, i.e. drive fast, he now has to worry about tyres that are designed to lose grip after a ridiculously short distance and getting passed by cars with a massive straight line speed advantage. Gimmicks like these are only there to try and artificially improve the spectacle and the only losers are going to be the genuine racers, racers like Sebastian Buemi. 

My 7 Of 11

The Formula One  season is finally over, the champion was decided about two months while the rest fought on for a few more races for the minor placings. Here though now is who I think have been the top seven drivers this year. This is based on who I believe has delivered the best driving performances irrelevant of their overall competitiveness during the season.

1. Sebastian Vettel Nobody can argue that Seb hasn't dominated most races with effortless efficiency this year. The gaps he has had to the second place drivers in most races this season probably don't reflect the true advantage he has had this year. Often he has put in a fastest lap of the race on the last lap, just to remind his competitors what he could be capable of if he was really trying. 
2. Fernando Alonso Though he only achieved a single victory this year, you felt that Fernando's driving was flattering the Ferrari somewhat. He fairly trounced his team mate Felipe Massa who didn't even score half the points of Alonso and to be honest was for most of the season not really in the same race as Fernando. I must admit I haven't been a big fan of Alonso, I thought he relied a bit too much on team orders and pit strategy when he won his titles at Renault and the incidents at Mclaren and then the Piquet incident in Singapore didn't make me warm to him much. With the performances I have seen from him this year though I am slowly coming to appreciate the racer in him, I don't think I'd be too upset if he was a contender for the championship in 2012.
3. Jenson Button I don't think many people thought Jenson Button would beat Lewis Hamilton over a season in the same car. Jenson probably did more in 2011 to bolster his reputation then he did in his championship year of 2009. He had that dramatic zero to hero race in Canada and then again in mixed weather conditions showed the way in Hungary. At Suzuka he proved that even in dry conditions he was capable of annihilating the field. 
4. Nico Rosberg In 2010 Nico was able at times to mix it with the top six and looked at times that he might, with a bit of good fortune, be able to pull off a win. This year he seemed further away from the top three teams in terms of pace but he was still the best of the rest.
5. Nick Heidfeld Maybe a strange choice seeing as he was replaced by Bruno Senna after eleven of the nineteen races. At the end of the year though Heidfeld finished the season with 34 points, only 3 behind Vitaly Petrov who started 8 more races and 32 more his replacement in the Renault team.
6. Lewis Hamilton A somewhat erratic season from the 2008 World Champion that has been over-documented already. Several victories prove he's still got it though.
7. Mark Webber Despite being thoroughly beaten by his team mate, Webber still managed third in the championship. He rarely though looked like a match for Vettel this year, only in Britain where he was told by the team to back off was he looking like he could pass the German. His only win was at the end of the year, thanks to a 'gearbox problem' with Sebs car.