New Rules

I'm glad to see that as I suggested on this blog a couple of months back, lapped cars will now be allowed to pass the safety car. This will ensure they don't get in the way during restarts and we should see closer more exciting racing after a safety car period.

I think the rule restricting drivers to only one change of direction to defend a position is also a good move. If a driver has the speed to get past a competitor it is only fair he should get pass without being unnecessarily blocked.

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.

What's Motivating Kimi?

I'm wondering what the real reason is behind Kimi Raikkonen signing for the Lotus (nee Renault) team next season. Does he really believe he will have a chance of winning races or is he just going to be there to collect a cheque?

Since leaving Formula One at the end of 2009, Kimi has had seemingly half-hearted attempts at Rallying and NASCAR Trucks. Obviously neither of these though satisfy his desires, hence the return to F1.

Raikkonen showed incredible promise in the early 00's driving a Sauber. Somehow though that potential wasn't fully realised when he went to Mclaren and his title for Ferrari in 2007 is better remembered for how Lewis Hamilton managed to lose it rather than how Raikkonen won it.

I think a moment that sums up Raikkonens commitment better than anything else was the Malaysian Grand Prix in 2009. Heavy rain had caused the race to be stopped and while the rest of the drivers were still on the grid Kimi was seen by millions of TV viewers to be eating an ice-cream dressed in his shorts and T-shirt. There was still a possibility at that time that the race might be restarted. You'd expect a driver of that stature, well actually any driver who has the opportunity to drive a Formula One car, to be prepared to restart the race until there is definitely no chance of it going ahead. 

Then There Were Six

In 2012 all the F1 World Drivers Champions since 2000 will be competing in Formula One. They are Michael Schumacher (1994-5, 2000-4), Fernando Alonso (2005-6), Kimi Raikkonen (2007), Lewis Hamilton (2008), Jenson Button (2009) & Sebastian Vettel (2010-11).  

The Head Master

Sad to hear that Patrick Head is ending his involvement with Formula One as from the end of this season. Apparently he will still be working for Williams but nothing to do with the racing team.

In the thirty years I have been a fan and follower of Formula One Patrick Head is one of the characters of the sport that has always been there. Back when I started following F1 in 1981, Patrick was arguably at the peak of his brilliance. The Williams FW07B he had designed had just won the previous years championships (both drivers and constructors) and it's successor, the FW07C, was in the running for both titles until the last race but in the end had to settle for just the constructors. In 1982, the fourth incarnation of the FW07, the normally aspirated model D won the drivers championship in the hands of Keke Rosberg despite being considerably underpowered compared to some of it's turbocharged rivals.

As the years progressed, Patrick Head seemed to move from being chief designer to being more a technical director, helping to keep the many complex facets of a modern Formula One design team synchronised. He also took on the responsibility of leading the team for much of the 1986 season after team founder Frank Williams was seriously hurt in a road accident. All through the years though he was always a presence in the Williams garage. Other designers like Adrian Newey came into the team and produced vehicles as brilliant as Heads earlier designs.  Patrick Head though was always there, one feels he was having the final say on what a Williams Grand Prix car was going to look like when it hit the track. He was also often quite frank in interviews and wouldn't be afraid to criticise the performance of one of his drivers, you felt though that he appreciated and respected a driver who would do his cars justice.

Despite being a hard taskmaster, I can't think of any controversy surrounding Patrick Heads career. He has always played to race and raced to win.