This was quite a year for
Formula 1...
We witnessed the sublime arrival of
Lewis Hamilton, the dismal transformation of
Fernando Alonso from quiet hero to petulant villain amid the insidious 'Stepneygate' affair, and finally, the emergence at Interlagos last Sunday afternoon of
Kimi Raikkonen as the rightful world champion and dominant driver of the year.
Raikkonen won six races, two more than both
McLaren drivers and finished the year with a flourish, making the podium in every race he finished over the season’s second half and winning three of the last four races.
Unfortunately, Formula 1 is characterised by the great industrial espionage 'Stepneygate' saga and the way it’s been handled by the
FIA rather than the on-track competition. And following Sunday’s Brazilian GP there was more squabbling, this time over the temperature of Ferrari’s fuel with at least two other teams protesting the race results. Under Max Mosley’s leadership the FIA has turned
F1 into a lawyer’s paradise where it’s all about legal arcana and big egos trying to demonstrate who’s the smartest of all.
As my colleague Nigel Roebuck has written, spitefulness and paranoia rule, and I have to say I cannot disagree with
Jackie Stewart that a change in leadership is needed at the FIA to push F1 in a new direction where sport is more important than politics. It seems futile to believe that such a thing is possible, but you can only hope.
Meanwhile, despite all the raving about Hamilton it has to be said that on his and Ferrari’s day, Raikkonen was the man to beat this year. He had one or two uninspired races but was the strongest performer in the second half of the season and showed how tough he is by shrugging off a big crash in practice at Monza in September and coming back to finish third in the race.
