Blundell's view: 2006 F1 season review - Pt. 1.

by Rob Wilkins

The 2006 FIA Formula One World Championship will be remembered for many of reasons, principally though, when people talk about the season just gone, it will boil down to two main things. Namely: Fernando Alonso taking his second successive drivers' title and Michael Schumacher pushing him close, make that very close, but ultimately having to settle for second, before hanging up his helmet and saying 'Auf Wiedersehen'.

Here Crash.net columnist and ITV F1 pundit, Mark Blundell looks back over the year, in the first of two interviews about 2006.

What will be remembered most about the year, at least according to MB?

Read on to find out...

Q:
Mark, looking back at the season as a whole: Do you think it will be remembered fondly?

Mark Blundell:
I think it will be thought of as a memorable season. Obviously at the end of it the championship went down to the wire, with one of the greatest drivers' of all time, Michael Schumacher and also possibly one of the guys, who could become on the of the greatest of all time, two-time world champion, Fernando Alonso, battling it out for the title. So, yeah, there will be a lot of memories attached to the season overall.

Q:
In terms of the drivers' championship, the battle came down to a fight between Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher. Alonso came out top. Do you think the best man won?

MB:
I believe that the best man won in terms of consistency and there were a number of points' through-out the season, Monte Carlo being one of them, which was a bit costly to Schumacher. There was a little bit of inconsistency at the beginning of the season for Ferrari, which may have cost them. But you have to take your hat off to Alonso. He got the job done and didn't give up and even with all the technical things that were thrown at Renault, to try and take a bit of pace out of them, it didn't really have an overall effect.

Q:
For Alonso, it was a highly significant season. He took back-to-back drivers' titles. Will that achievement though be overshadowed by Michael Schumacher's decision to retire? What will people remember most about 2006 - Alonso taking his second drivers' crown or Schumi hanging up his helmet?

MB:
People always remember winners. People will remember that Alonso won the world championship for the second year running and the fight was against Schumacher. But I don't think there will be anybody thinking about Schumacher retiring and making it an easy job for Alonso. That was never the case. The fact of the matter is - the best man won the title. You have got to accumulate points at every single race to get the championship and that is what Alonso did. Every time he went out, he went out to get the points and to get the job done.

Q:
Felipe Massa took third in the drivers', along with two wins - his first in Turkey and his second at home in Brazil at the season finale. How impressed were you with him? Has he shown what it takes now to go on and win the drivers' championship?

MB:
He has shown a great deal of progress and his potential is starting to be exploited. But I am not sure yet whether he has got what it takes to fight for a world championship. He is facing something of a difficult scenario now, as in some ways he will be regarded as the team leader, as he has been at Ferrari for a couple of season's now and Schumacher has left. So, he will take over the mantle in a way.

But he has also got someone coming into the team - Kimi Raikkonen - that has got the biggest of reputations in terms of speed and is definitely hungry for a championship. What worries me slightly is that at times Massa makes little mistakes, which are quite costly. We saw that come out at the front end of the season a little bit, which is an element of his career in F1 so far.

Having said that though, he is definitely calming down behind the wheel and he has definitely made some big improvements. Whether there is the level of confidence there to take him to a championship, we will have to wait and see. Time will tell.

Q:
Were you disappointed with Giancarlo Fisichella's form?

MB:
His form was a little bit patchy. There were certain times when you felt there could have been more come out of his efforts. But Fisi has sometimes been on the downside of some mechanical issues which have not always gone according to plan for him during a race. He has been around a long time now though and everybody expects a little bit more, in comparison to what is actually going on with his results. I think that is something that he has got to live up to - and only he can do something about that.

Q:
Honda's Jenson Button was the only other driver to win a race, when he came out top in a rain affected Hungarian GP. He ended the season by scoring more points than Alonso and Schumacher in the final third of the season. It seems that victory was extremely significant, wasn't it?

MB:
Yeah it was. It was great how he pulled that win out and it does have an overall effect on what we expect now for the future. I am sure expectations will be as high in his mind though, as they are in ours. Overall a great result, and again that is something that has got to be lived up to and we will have to wait and see if that comes out in terms of results next year.

Q:
Of the other drivers', there were a number of 'new boys' on the grid, including Robert Kubica and Nico Rosberg. Were you impressed with both of those drivers'?

MB:
I would have to say the impression with Nico Rosberg was big at the beginning of the season, but as the year went on, it dulled slightly, because he did have a bit of a tough time. Admittedly I don't think he had the greatest of packages around him and I think he got a bit swallowed up with that. He tried to dig deep and find some resources within himself, but will so little experience in F1 he was always going to find it tough to get out of the rut. That is always going to be a problem for a rookie though, but that is what it is all about.

Robert Kubica was very impressive when he came into the BMW Sauber team and he definitely made his team-mate, Nick Heidfeld, sit up and take note. I think he dragged Heidfeld along and made Nick up his game. He didn't seem to have any major problems settling in. Whether with a whole season we might see some chinks in his armour I don't know. There were a couple of little errors, which he made during one of the races, which cost him a strong result. But overall we would have to say quite impressive.

Q:
Was Kubica the rookie of the year then?

MB:
I would say so, yes, because he came in with a thump in terms of making an impressive on the grid. He kept punching all the way to the end of the championship in the races he was in. He definitely made an impact.

Q:
While those two new hopes made a mark, Schumacher wasn't the only driver to bow out. Jacques Villeneuve was dropped by BMW Sauber after the German GP and Juan Pablo Montoya was released by McLaren after the US GP. F1 is going to miss both of those people isn't it, as they were just such great characters?

MB:
That is definitely the case - they are characters. Jacques Villeneuve is his own man and says what he wants to say, which has maybe cost him a bit in times gone by. Unfortunately for Jacques, he was probably driving as good as we have seen him drive for sometime and things were coming together, but there was still a bit of a stigma attached to him being involved with BMW Sauber and that was what cost him. But he has gone on to do, maybe, some bigger and better things in his life now anyway.

Juan Pablo Montoya is, for me, one of the best drivers' behind the wheel in terms of car control. I was left frustrated though because I am a big supporter of him in terms of his abilities, but he never quite gave us 100 per cent. I think in the end that was his downfall. We saw 95 per cent of him, but the last 5 per cent is what is required to compete at the very, very top of F1. I don't think we ever saw that from him and it is a crying shame, because I think he had a lot, lot more to offer.

Q:
Which driver in the smaller teams - Super Aguri, Midland/Spyker, Toro Rosso impressed you most?

MB:
Probably Takuma Sato at Super Aguri - if I am honest, I think he came out of a difficult scenario, departing from the big Honda team, BAR-Honda as it was known at that point and he went into a situation where it was very much an unknown in terms of what results would be forthcoming. We didn't even see if the team was going to make it on to the grid until the very last moment. Once Super Aguri arrived though, he just knuckled down and got on with it. He pulled some very good drives out of the hat and I think he answered a lot of questions in many ways because he did everything that was asked of him and more. That was a testament to him.

Whether the car improves enough for him to get further up the grid in 2007 and make a bigger impression again, we will have to wait and see. But his form was definitely something that caught my eye as the season went on....

Coming soon: The second part of Mark Blundell's 2006 F1 season review. MB turns his attention to the teams...