Timo Glock has started to show real signs of improvement this year. While the Toyota team may have bizarrely liked to have criticised Glock for the car’s poor performance, the fact is that Glock put in some great performances in 2009. Particularly notable was his heroic performance in Singapore, where he finished in second position, climbing his way up from sixth on the grid. Despite still making the odd mistake, he generally impressed me more than Jarno Trulli.

9. Kimi Räikkönen

By now it is no secret that the Ferrari F60 was a difficult car to drive. Nor was is particularly fast. In this light, Räikkönen’s achievements seem rather better than the results may suggest. Strangely, he seemed to become better after Felipe Massa was sidelined. He scored four podium finishes in a row from Hungary onwards. This included a magnificent win in Belgium. It is always a joy to watch Räikkönen at Spa.

However, the same question marks surrounding his commitment and motivation continued to float around him. Sometimes his behaviour did little to dispel this notion. It is a shame that he won’t be racing in F1 in 2010, but you can’t help but wonder if he could have done a little more to make his mark this year.

8. Fernando Alonso

I am a great admirer of Fernando Alonso, but it was a difficult year to watch him. The Renault car was not up to Alonso’s capabilities, and as such I feel that Alonso spent much of this year going through the motions. This year was a year of him just waiting for a Ferrari contract to be signed.

At the start of the season, Alonso would collect a sixth place here, a fifth there… Although it didn’t set the world alight, it was admirable stuff considering that his team mates could not even think of touching a points position. There were some flashes of greatness — an early dominance of the Hungarian Grand Prix before it all fell apart after his first pit stop and a nifty third place at Singapore among them. I look forward to seeing him in a good car again.

7. Felipe Massa

Obviously Felipe Massa had a very difficult season for reasons outwith his control, what with him having to sit out the second half of the season after being injured in Hungary. But he looked good during the first half of the season, when the car wasn’t letting him down. He out performed his team mate, grabbed the fastest lap in Monaco, a good podium finish in Germany and possibly would have had another good result in China if his car hadn’t broken down.

6. Nico Rosberg

A solid year for Rosberg in my view. I was critical of him during the 2008 season, when he got involved in too many needless scrappy accidents. This year he looked more mature, and is ready to step up to the plate with a better car. He comprehensively outperformed Kazuki Nakajima. Although there were no podium finishes, he had a great run of very strong results, with eight consecutive points finishes in the middle of the season.

5. Rubens Barrichello

Rubens Barrichello had a brilliant year considering it was marginal whether or not he would even be in F1 this year. But the sport’s elder statesman showed why he is still entrusted with the world’s fastest cars. He took a while to get up to speed at the start of the year. This gave Jenson Button the vital momentum he needed in order to secure this year’s Drivers’ Championship. But Button would not have been in that position were it not for Barrichello’s set up data. You might not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but you can certainly rely on him to bring you your pipe and slippers. He will be a great asset to Williams, although he is unproven in the role of team leader.

4. Mark Webber

At last, Mark Webber has had a decent season where he has been able to show his abilities without being hindered by bucketloads of bad luck. Even then, he was disadvantaged by the fact that he had a huge chunk of metal embedded in his leg as a result of the injuries he sustained while bicycling last winter. Given that Mark Webber is already quite large as drivers go, this extra weight was an enormous disadvantage. For a portion of the season he looked like a decent Championship contender. Even though a bad phase in the final third of the season put paid to this, Mark Webber took two wins and a handful of other great results too.

3. Sebastian Vettel

It is no secret that Sebastian Vettel is hugely talented. But he is also still young, and has a lot yet to prove if he is to truly deserve the mantle of “Future World Champion” which is often attached to him. He does still make too many mistakes. His lap 1 foul-up in Turkey is unforgettable, and his late tangle with Robert Kubica in Australia was avoidable. Meanwhile, Vettel has shown a worrying trait of failing to overtake drivers. That said, he is undoubtedly fast and generally had the upper hand over his team mate.

2. Lewis Hamilton

This has been a learning year for Lewis Hamilton, and I am sure he exits 2009 a much stronger driver than he entered it. McLaren started the season with a horrid car. The year also began in disaster when he was caught, in collusion with members of the McLaren team, lying to the FIA stewards. But he didn’t let any of that get the better of him. Instead, the McLaren team got on with the job of making the car better, and Hamilton was ready to take advantage as soon as the car was good enough to win races.

The most eyebrow-raising moment of his season was when he let a great result in Italy slip away when he pushed too hard unnecessarily on the final lap. Apart from that, I think the second half of the season was textbook from Lewis Hamilton. I am sure he will be extremely strong in 2010, particularly if McLaren produce as good a car as they ought to.

1. Jenson Button

But the best driver of the year for me has to be Jenson Button. His utter dominance at the start of the season meant that, no matter how much he went off the boil in the second half of the season, he was untouchable no matter which way you slice it.

The thing that impressed me the most about Jenson Button this year was the fact that when he needed to overtake someone he just did it. This is in stark contrast to his main rival for the Championship, Sebastian Vettel. Most of the season’s best overtaking moves have come from Jenson Button, meaning that not only was he the best driver — he was also the most entertaining one.

Happy new year to all readers of vee8!

I don’t think there is much need to justify why I have placed Piquet at the bottom of the list. Suffice it to say that I hope he never races competitively again.

24. Sébastien Bourdais

Sébastien Bourdais spent the 2008 season explaining that we should wait to judge him until the return of slicks in 2009. Slicks came in 2009. He has been duly judged.

23. Romain Grosjean

I feel a little bit sorry for Romain Grosjean. He was thrown into as difficult a situation as it is possible to imagine. Having done no testing whatsoever, he became Renault’s second driver just in time for a massive scandal involving Renault’s previous second driver to envelop the team. He didn’t perform very well, but they were exceptionally difficult circumstances in my view.

22. Kazuki Nakajima

I thought Nakajima did a good job in 2008, but 2009 was a huge disappointment. His main achievement of the season was to qualify an admittedly impressive 5th place for the British Grand Prix. However, his race was poor and he finished 11th. Way to hoof it over the bar.

21. Jaime Alguersuari

As with the other drivers who were expected to hit the ground running mid-season, Alguersuari was disadvantaged by the fact that he had done no testing. It may also be said that he was brought into F1 too quickly by the impatient Red Bull driver development juggernaut. While he was British F3 Champion of 2008, he was having a moderate season in World Series by Renault and may have befitted from some extra time to develop his skills away from the intense spotlight of F1. As a result, Alguersuari spent a lot of his time crashing or being rather unspectacular.

20. Adrian Sutil

I do wish Adrian Sutil could show us something — anything — that would once and for all conclude that he fully deserves a place in F1. He does show flashes of potential, but contrives to throw his chances away. He could have had a decent points finish in China if he had been more careful in the worsening weather conditions. And he has gained a reputation for being involved in a lot of needless crashes. His crash with Nick Heidfeld in Singapore following a needless spin was particularly unnecessary. This was made all the worse by the fact that he pulled off a frighteningly similar manoeuvre in Japan at the following race. His performance in Belgium looked poor in comparison with his team mate who battled for the win all race long. The main saving grace was a fourth place in Italy.

19. Luca Badoer

Yes, Luca Badoer was massively disappointing as the substitute for Felipe Massa at Ferrari. However, as I have written before, he had a harder job than anyone else on the grid, being expected to become instantly competitive after 10 years away from racing. Given the circumstances, I think Luca Badoer performed quite admirably. It is not as though Fisichella could do much more in that Ferrari — and he didn’t have the excuse of being out of practice for a decade.

18. Sébastien Buemi

I think Buemi did a decent job overall in 2009, although it’s difficult to remember any real stand-out moments. He should have another year in F1, but ought to show more in 2010 in order to justify his continued presence on the grid.

17. Heikki Kovalainen

2009 was another disappointing year for Heikki Kovalainen. The Finn was totally outclassed by his team mate all season long, and never looked like a driver who deserves to be driving for a team as good as McLaren. He seems competent enough, but clearly lacks the hunger and seems incapable of putting in a truly great performance.

16. Vitantonio Liuzzi

Liuzzi made his long-overdue return to the cockpit in a Force India this year. He did a great job at his first race back in Monza, but was slightly disappointing for the remainder of the season. 2010 will be a very important year for his career — it’s make or break time for Liuzzi.

15. Kamui Kobayashi

Kamui Kobayashi was notable for being the one rookie who grabbed your attention. He had only two races, but he made a huge impression on the F1 world. He was ballsy and aggressive, and provided some hugely entertaining racing, particularly against Jenson Button! The downside to this was that he overstepped the line once or twice, particularly when he caused a crash with Nakajima in Brazil. I also doubt whether the driver that races for Sauber in 2010 will show the same hunger. In these two races, Kobayashi had nothing to lose and so took the necessary risks. In 2010 it might all be very different.

14. Giancarlo Fisichella

At the beginning of the season, Giancarlo Fisichella continued in the trajectory his career has generally taken — downwards. The season began ignominiously when he missed his pit box in Australia. There were even rumours that Force India were less than impressed, and were looking to replace him. Then came the rumours that Ferrari were looking to Fisichella as the replacement for the struggling Luca Badoer. Bang on cue, Fisichella put in one of the drives of his life. With his Force India car on song at Spa, he really should have won the race were it not for the kers of the Ferrari car he was about to step into. Once he’d secured his dream drive for Ferrari, it was back to business as usual as he lurched from disappointment to deeper disappointment.

13. Robert Kubica

Robert Kubica was unable to shine this year in the difficult BMW car. Matters were not helped by his height, which was a major disadvantage when BMW tried to run with kers. He took a while to score his first points of the season, and was behind his team mate in the Drivers’ Championship all year. The main consolation was a superb second place finish in Brazil. I hope that Renault can produce a good car for him next year — he deserves a better chance than this.

12. Nick Heidfeld

It was a difficult year for Nick Heidfeld. The BMW car was a massive disappointment and it must have been quite a demoralising season for Nick Heidfeld. Nevertheless, he managed to grab a handful of points, including a second place in the curtailed Malaysian race. He also did a better job at scoring points than Robert Kubica. I deeply hope Heidfeld gets a drive for next season.

11. Jarno Trulli

For a long time, I have disliked Jarno Trulli. However, grudgingly, I have to admit that he did a fairly good job in 2009, despite the Toyota team’s best efforts to throw it all away. Two third place finishes near the start of the season reflected the performance of the car. But his second place in Japan was truly impressive.

Come back tomorrow to read my top ten.

By my reckoning, this is the first major decision taken by Mercedes since they bought the Brawn team. I feel that it is very revealing about the way a manufacturer approaches Formula 1, as opposed to a privateer team that is in it for the racing. While the lure of attracting the sport’s biggest name must surely attract any team owner, only a manufacturer would set their sights so firmly on the notion.

After all, aside from his reputation, there does not seem to be much going for Schumacher. At 41, he will be the oldest F1 driver since Nigel Mansell in 1995 — and we all know how that went. And it is difficult to think of someone who has taken a sabbatical of three years and made a successful return to F1.

Furthermore, I would have thought that after the embarrassing spectacle of the summer, when Schumacher threatened to return to race for Ferrari before deciding he wasn’t up to the task, he everyone concerned would have learnt their lesson. Michael Schumacher is struggling with what are now quite well-documented fitness problems.

His neck issues are now well publicised. James Allen revealed earlier this year that Schumacher also had problems with his back towards the end of his career in 2005.

With so many question marks surrounding his abilities, I find it difficult to see the justification for expecting Michael Schumacher to be truly competitive. There is no doubt that Michael Schumacher is the most successful driver of all time, certainly as far as statistics go. But the conditions surely just aren’t right for him to make a competitive return.

Yet, as we can all see, the prospect of Michael Schumacher returning to F1 generates a tremendous amount of publicity. It makes little sense in terms of racing, but in terms of marketing the possibility is apparently irresistible.

In other words, Schumacher is coming back to F1 for all the wrong reasons. And Mercedes have signed him for all the wrong reasons.

This move seems to be little more than a crass marketing stunt by Mercedes. Brawn would not have made this decision. Nor would any team other than Ferrari. Even Ferrari went off the idea after this year’s shenanigans.

I must say that I am disappointed in Mercedes. Throughout their involvement in F1 in the past couple of decades, they have seemed to be a very sensible operation indeed. They were a world away from the attention-seeking but ultimately hollow nature of other manufacturers, notably Toyota and Honda.

But as soon as they have been released from the leash of McLaren, Mercedes have revealed their mad side. This is a decision made by money-men, and I would be amazed if this approach doesn’t end in tears like it has done for Toyota and Honda.

I am also stunned at Michael Schumacher’s decision to bite. Just a few months ago he was talking about his flirtation with replacing Felipe Massa as though it was a moment of madness. Now he has let the blood rush to his head again and is putting his considerable reputation on the line.

It also reveals his supposed passion and love for Ferrari to be just as shallow as his sportsmanship. As soon as another company will promise to stuff more money into his wallet, he will move like a shot. Very passionate, very romantic!

This whole thing comes across to me as the world’s most public mid-life crisis.

I have not always been convinced that Jenson Button is a good driver. In fact, the only times he has impressed me before were his début season in 2000, and 2007 when he did an admirable job in what was by all accounts a horrendous car. In 2008 he was, oddly, not so impressive. Perhaps he had lost motivation after being let down by Honda for too many years, but the fact is that Rubens Barrichello did a better job in 2008.

The Brazilian had his moments in 2009, but it is difficult to argue that he was better than Jenson Button throughout the season. While Button’s sudden rise to the sharp end of the grid at the start of 2009 got many people asking whether it was all down to the car, Barrichello was often to be found scrapping around in the lower end of the points positions.

There is no doubt about the fact that this year’s Brawn car was much better than last year’s Honda car was a major contributory factor towards Jenson Button’s Championship victory. And it is true that Rubens Barrichello performed better than Button in the second half of the season. And, yes, without Barrichello’s vital set-up data, Jenson Button would probably have been nowhere.

But while Jenson Button was pounding in the wins, taking full advantage of the Brawn’s superiority while it was still there, Rubens Barrichello took too long to get up to speed with it. Let us also not forget that Jenson Button was seriously impressive during the first half of the season, putting in some of the best overtaking moves there have been all year.

It is certainly the case that this sort of aggressive form was not much in evidence during the second half of the season. After gaining victory in Turkey, it seems as though Jenson Button tensed up, not returning to form until Brazil.

For a lot of people, this was turning out to be a real damp squib. People do not like to see a driver winning a championship by merely bagging points rather than taking impressive victories. However, Button earned the right to be given this leeway, so impressive he was at the start of the season.

I would have said after Turkey that Jenson Button would have to have been really bad in the second half of the season to not deserve the title. But while he may have been slightly disappointing, he wasn’t really bad. He only failed to score once all year, in Belgium when he was crashed into on lap one. That is a pretty intimidating achievement.

Now it is no secret that Jenson Button suffered under the stress of defending his championship lead. Simply looking at his results for the season tells its own story. He was dominant in the first seven races, but occupied the lower end of the points for the rest of the season.

While some were critical of this drop in form, the fact is that almost all championship leaders do this. In fact, it would be completely foolish to any driver with a massive championship lead at the mid-way point to tackle the second half of the season in the same manner. As Ross Brawn said, if a football team is leading 3-0 at half time, they don’t play the second half in the same style as the first.

Looking back over the years, this is a pattern that is repeated time after time. The driver who leads at the halfway point of the season almost always scores fewer points in the second half of the season. Looking at the past ten seasons, the leader at the halfway point has always turned down the wick, with the exception of Fernando Alonso in 2005. The drop in performance has been particularly marked since the points system was changed for 2003, which shifted the balance towards consistency and conservatism over aggression.

(In seasons with an odd number of races, the middle race has been removed from the calculation.)

Clearly, Button’s drop-off was particularly extreme. However, it was not that much more extreme than Alonso’s in 2006. Alonso is rightly lauded for being conservative when he needs to be. Button should be too. Even though the drop-off seemed alarming, the fact is that he had made himself more than enough room to get away with it, and still secure the championship with one race to spare. Why expend more energy by taking the more risky strategy of going all-out for wins when you can achieve it in the way Jenson Button did?

Nonetheless, it is difficult to deny that the way Jenson Button won the championship was slightly underwhelming. It certainly wouldn’t have been very satisfying were it not for his scintillating performance in Brazil. Of course, he did indeed pull that performance out of the bag just when he needed it, so it is slightly academic now.

But by almost any measure you can conceive of, Jenson Button was the most deserving person to win the championship. I have had a look at different scoring systems that would reward more consistent performances throughout the season. Although it is always a spurious exercise to impose different scoring systems on a set of races that have already taken place (remembering that altering the incentives inevitably affects behaviour), it is interesting to look at systems that may have punished Jenson Button for not performing so well towards the end of the season.

One such system would be to split the season into, say, four sections, with drivers dropping their worst score from each quarter of the season. What with there being an odd number of races in 2009, this is affected by where you decide to place the splits. But with three sections of four races, and a final section with the final four races, this cuts Jenson Button’s lead down to just three points over Sebastian Vettel. However, Button would still win under this system.

Splitting the season into two halves and making drivers drop two scores, Button’s victory margin can be cut down to two points. However, Button still wins the championship.

The only vaguely sensible system I have been able to come up with is making drivers drop six scores from the whole season. This puts Button and Vettel level on points, although of course Button would still win the championship because he has won more races.

Only by splitting the season into two and making drivers drop three scores from each half does Vettel score more points than Button. Whether it would be desirable to have a system where six races from each driver’s season do not count towards the championship is debatable.

Looking at the results of the season, it is striking just how superior Jenson Button was to everyone else. Jenson Button only failed to score once. His nearest challenger, Vettel, chalked up five zeros. Mark Webber failed to score seven times, while Hamilton finished pointless nine times.

Button also won two more races than anyone else. To Button’s six, Vettel took the chequered flag four times, while Barrichello, Webber and Hamilton each took it twice.

In terms of the results, the clear closest challenger to Button has been Vettel. No doubt there would have been complaints about his championship too, due to his tendency still to make mistakes, and his alarming inability to overtake. And speaking of overtaking, who could deny that Button pulled off some of the best overtaking moves of the season?

Is Jenson Button a deserving champion? I can hardly imagine what more you could ask for.

There was a magnetic attraction to the Cinderella story that was the life of Brawn GP. Until March, the existence of the former Honda team hung in the balance. A last-minute lifeline and some punchy Mercedes engines (which required the incredible generosity of McLaren) saved the day for the employees at Brackley.

The car turned out to be devastatingly quick. In its short life, the Brawn team achieved some juicy records. This made it, by many measures, the most successful new team there has ever been in F1. Today it secures a status as the only team ever to have a 100% championship-winning record.

The shortest-lived legendary team

Despite a lifespan of less than a year, Brawn will go down in legend. Its rapid success ensured that it had become a household name. And its livery — with the distinctive chartreuse swooshes highlighted by bold, black borders — will surely become as iconic as a JPS livery, a Marlboro livery or a Gulf livery.

People quickly became attached to the Brawn colours. Just look at how many of this year’s F1 books are decked out in a snot green that tries to replicate the fluorescence of the car itself. It is such a strong image.

A livery change was widely expected as soon as Brawn started to get more sponsors. But a livery change never happened. Despite the fact that most of Brawn’s sponsors over the 2009 season actually had red logos, thereby clashing awkwardly with the neon yellow, Brawn stuck with the original livery because it worked so well.

Mercedes to ignore Brawn heritage?

Maybe I am over-egging the pudding a little. But I genuinely think the sport has lost an icon. Today’s announcement that the Brawn team will be bought by Mercedes brings to an end this incredible story of the plucky underdogs who won against all odds.

It is yet another stage in the rollercoaster existence of the Brackley-based team whose history can be traced back to Tyrrell. In the past five years alone, the team has been owned by British American Tobacco, Honda and Brawn. The Mercedes era should finally bring some stability to this team.

In its press release today, Mercedes has included a mock-up of the sort of livery it presumably wants to run with next season. All trace of the Brawn heritage has apparently vanished.

Maybe I am just too romantic for my own good. But I would like to see the splashes of Brawn chartreuse remain, with the rest of the car remaining silver. After all, the current McLaren livery has “Rocket Red” in more or less the same places as Brawn’s chartreuse.

There is much talk about how the “return” Mercedes to F1 as a works team will mean a return of the legendary “Silver Arrows”. That’s funny, because I seem to remember everyone saying the same thing when McLaren switched to a silver livery in 1997. Maybe it doesn’t count any more.

McLaren’s colours: If not silver, what?

Speaking of McLaren’s silver livery, their press release today says that it will remain the same. Against expectations, McLaren have extended their engine deal with Mercedes to now last until 2015. But Daimler AG will be selling back the bit of McLaren that they own, and McLaren will become a Mercedes customer team rather than the pseudo-works team they had become.

As speculation increased over the past week or so, I began to wonder what colour scheme McLaren would adopt were they to part ways with Mercedes. Obviously that is a bit academic now, but it’s interesting to think about.

Nowadays most people think of McLaren as a silver (or, for the less charitable among us, grey) team. But it is probably more accurate to think of McLaren’s main colour as being red.

Red is the most prominent colour of the most evocative McLaren livery — the famous Marlboro scheme it ran in its 1980s heyday. Historically, McLaren ran with an orange livery.

The team describes the red colour that features in today’s livery as “Rocket Red”. It is not a scarlet or a Ferrari red. It is rather orangey, perhaps in a nod to the team’s history running in orange.

In recent years, McLaren have been known to run test cars in an orange livery from time to time. It would be really neat if McLaren toned down the “Rocket Red” a notch or two, and made its colour orange once again.

Or am I just being too romantic again? Maybe not. It is a good sign that McLaren Automotive use orange prominently in their marketing.

The French car company was considering whether to remain in the sport with its own team, switch to simply being an engine supplier or quit altogether.

Were Renault to pull out, it would conclude the removal of all of the major manufacturer teams in F1. Honda, BMW and Toyota have all gone in the past year. Renault are now seriously considering leaving.

In terms of manufacturer involvement, that would leave engine suppliers Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari. Both Mercedes and Ferrari are as close to being permanent fixtures as it comes in F1. Mercedes have been involved in F1 uninterrupted since 1993. With their increased involvement in Brawn, they look set to stick around. Ferrari have been in F1 since the beginning in 1950 and were they to leave it would be the end of F1. As such, you can more-or-less exclude both Mercedes and Ferrari from the list of manufacturers at risk of leaving F1.

I have to admit that I am wary of what Renault might do. I always suspected that Renault would be the first manufacturer to leave, certainly since Carlos Ghosn took over there. Now they are effectively the last one remaining. That is a surprise. Does it make it more likely for them to stay in the long run? Or is this the opportunity to join the queue of companies leaving the sport without looking a bit silly like Honda did?

There are more questions. Was Max Mosley right all along to push forward with his anti-manufacturer proposals? His justification was that manufacturers might leave with no warning, so it was wise to slash costs, freeze engines and neuter the sport in all sorts of ways. Now that manufacturers are leaving in droves, it looks like he may have been right.

The alternative possibility is that the changes he has forced through, along with the screeds of bad publicity it caused, have fundamentally made the sport less attractive. The manufacturers could well have preferred a breakaway than live with the FIA’s vision. But the FIA’s vision is what we’ve got. Ferrari certainly have their own views.

The thing is, manufacturers are always fickle. They always have been, and always will be. They will leave at the drop of a hat if it no longer forms part of their marketing strategy. Motorsport is not their core business. At the end of the day, if they won’t sell on Monday, why should they bother trying to win on Sunday?

But it was Max Mosley who originally moulded F1 into a sport dominated by manufacturers. He said that teams like Williams were not his vision of F1′s future. Now Williams is the model of the sort of team that will occupy around half of the grid next year.

In a sense, you can see this current phase as the F1 equivalent of a market correction. The bubble has burst. But while it seems painful now, this process paves the way for a more stable situation.

Throughout its history, Formula 1 has had a healthy mixture of manufacturer involvement and privateer passion. In recent years, the scales had tipped a bit too far towards the manufacturers, which drowned out the privateers to an almost dangerous extent.

F1 had become the plaything of manufacturers and multi-trillionaires. Let us not forget that alongside the likes of Honda and Toyota, businessmen such as Dietrich Mateschitz and Vijay Mallya — who have more money than they know what to do with — have bankrolled F1 teams to success. You will notice that, ignoring the ‘For Sale’ sign outside Toro Rosso (which isn’t very prominent), these teams have remained in F1, unlike the manufacturers.

They are a bit more like privateers in the traditional sense. They don’t want to sell cars, though they may want to sell drinks. But in a way they are in F1 because they are attracted to it as a sport, just as people like Frank Williams and Ken Tyrrell were. Manufacturers just do it because they feel like they should.

Next year there might be too few manufacturers. For there to be just three companies supplying engines would be a situation almost as unsustainable as what has happened up to this year. Cosworth may be crossing their fingers though. Their business model might work if they supply more teams.

But I can see Renault playing a happy role as an engine supplier, even if the Renault F1 team is put up for sale. I am certain that there would be a lot of interest from serious people wanting to buy the team. Despite the turmoil of this year’s scandal, and the fact that the team has gone off the boil for the past few years, this is a team that has the facilities and the capabilities to win World Championships.

I would be upset to see Renault leave the sport. I have a bit of a soft spot for them. Toyota were cold and clinical, on top of being comically bad considering their budgets.

Honda were always a bit of a fairweather presence. They took over BAR more-or-less because there was no-one else to do it after tobacco companies left the sport. Then they set up Super Aguri because they were scared to sack Takuma Sato properly. While many were attracted to Super Aguri for their pluck and while struggling at the back in difficult circumstances, it should never be forgotten that Super Aguri was always a crass and expensive publicity stunt.

Renault, though, have real heritage. They have a history in the shape of their involvement in the sport in the 1970s and 1980s. And the current incarnation of the team has been notably successful, mostly for being the one team that has been able to put up a sustained fight against Ferrari in this decade by beating the Scuderia two years in a row.

Here’s hoping that Renault don’t decide to depart. I am especially hopeful for Robert Kubica, a hugely talented driver who after being put through the wringer at BMW this year does not need this again. But, unlike the other teams, I have a feeling that the future of the Enstone-based squad will be perfectly safe no matter who owns it.

Toyota are the third major manufacturer to leave F1 in just twelve months, and now rumours furiously swirl around Renault as well. But, as you may have gathered from the tone of my last article about Toyota, I find it too difficult to get upset about them leaving.

Today, Toyota company president Akio Toyoda apologised for Toyota’s inability to win a race in its eight season long campaign. It was noted that Toyota probably needed a win in order to secure their future in F1. Had a Toyota taken a chequered flag this year, may they have been given a reprieve?

I was intrigued also by Akio Toyoda’s words: “I offer my deepest apologies to Toyota’s many fans.” Which Toyota fans? I have never met one. They have been easily the least attractive team for their entire existence. Their policy of designing their car by committee was wholly unsuited to F1, and their strategy of employing mediocre drivers was not at all endearing.

How ironic that the cold and calculating Toyota F1 project should show some emotion when it is carrying out its most calculating move yet, to place the jobs of all of its workers under immediate threat. Akio Toyoda was tearful while mentioning the workers during the announcement of the company’s withdrawal.

You have to feel sorry for the staff at the team’s base in Cologne. While any F1 team finding itself in trouble is bad news for that team’s workers, those based in Britain are insulated somewhat by the fact that there are always a few other teams just down the road.

Those who have families in Germany will not find it so easy to turn to another team in motorsport to help them pay their mortgage. The closest conceivable option for those wanting to remain in F1 is the Hinwil, Switzerland-based team formerly known as BMW Sauber. But of course the future of that team is also on a knife-edge. They probably have all the staff they need anyway.

Many are also sympathising with Kamui Kobayashi, the rookie Toyota protégé who had a spirited two races at the tail end of the 2009 season. Alan Henry even went as far as to say that Kobayashi is, “the very best Japanese driver I have ever seen.”

Steady on there! Yes, Kobayashi was very impressive in his two F1 races. But he was, after all, racing for his career. He didn’t have the funds to do yet another GP2 season, and he was lucky to get his F1 break. But if he didn’t succeed in his stint, he was going back to work in a sushi restaurant.

As such, Kobayashi was highly-motivated, and took the risks he needed to take to stand out. Would he be like this in normal circumstances? It is impossible to tell. But his GP2 form was not exactly exciting. And let us not forget that he arguably caused a big accident when he moved across on Kazuki Nakajima at Interlagos.

Now Toyota have left F1, thereby leaving Kobayashi without a drive. Now he is a hero; a martyr. I am not terribly sure that status is deserved. Nonetheless, I hope he doesn’t have to put his sushi preparation skills to use for a while yet.

Toyota’s sharp exit from F1 does perhaps explain their odd behaviour surrounding drivers towards the tail end of this season. Timo Glock suffered from mysterious illnesses and injuries which paved the way for Kobayashi to get a drive.

Perhaps Glock was asked nicely to stand aside for two races so that the team could give Kobayashi a “sorry” present. “Sorry for not finding that seat in F1 for you after all your years of hard work in our young driver programme. Here are a couple of consolation races.”

Perhaps the biggest point to chew over is what this means for motorsport in Japan. Axis of Oversteer notes:

Toyota and Honda left F1 as has Bridgestone. Kawasaki dropped out of MotoGP. Suzuki and Subaru quit the WRC and Mitsubishi has called off its Dakar efforts.

I find it unimaginable that Japan might not be represented at all in F1. For there to be an exodus across top-line motorsport is seriously worrying. Here is hoping that it is just a blip as the Japanese motor industry goes through a particularly tough time.

First of all, the sole tyre supplier, Bridgestone, has announced that it will quit F1 at the end of 2011 when its current contract ends. This came as a shock. With the spotlight on car manufacturers, it doesn’t seem to have entered anyone’s mind that a company such as Bridgestone, which has been so incredibly loyal to the sport, would consider upping sticks.

I can remember a time when Bridgestone were not in F1, but only just. When I started watching Formula 1 in the mid-1990s, Goodyear was the sole tyre supplier. But Bridgestone entered in 1997, beginning the “tyre war”. When Goodyear left soon afterwards, it was not long until Michelin came in to begin an even fiercer tyre war.

I wasn’t a big fan of the tyre war. Mostly, one tyre was a major advantage over the other, so we were essentially left with two championships — a Bridgestone championship and a Michelin championship. Considering Bridgestone practically tailor-made their tyres to suit Ferrari, this essentially made Ferrari a shoo-in for the championship every year. That was until the 2005 regulations — which banned mid-race tyre changes — handed the advantage to Michelin in a big way.

2005 was the year when the tyre war well and truly jumped the shark. In the quest for the competitive edge, both companies had made their tyres softer and softer. The resurfaced banking at Indianapolis bit, Michelins exploded all over the shop and we were left with a farcical race in which only the six Bridgestone-shod cars competed.

On the back of the problems, the FIA decided that a sole company should supply the tyres for all the teams. The problem with this was that it had the potential to severely reduce the amount of exposure that tyre company got. With no tyre war to talk about, people might not talk about tyres. For this reason, Michelin refused to have any further part in F1.

The upshot was that Bridgestone and the FIA colluded to concoct the maddest new rules and gimmicks in order to contrive some interest in the tyres. One has to paint green lines all over the tyre in a crass attempt to pretend they care about the environment. Of course, the green on the tyres clashes with teams’ liveries, making the scheme not only nonsensical, but also damn ugly.

Teams are also forced to use a sub-optimal tyre compound at some point during the race. While this may have superficially “spiced up” the action, it is artificial. Drivers are critical of it, and Fernando Alonso even said that he would rather race with wet tyres on a dry circuit.

Moreover, there is a sense that Bridgestone may have deliberately made their tyres behave strangely in an attempt to get drivers and teams discussing tyres with the media. Nick Heidfeld has said that the tyres could be “ten times better”. Joe Saward expanded:

The Bridgestones react differently on each car and finding the tricks that make them work is not easy. Some drivers can do it at some tracks and not at others. Even World Championship challenger Jenson Button has struggled with this…

Bridgestone seems to have concluded that it is better to have people talking about the tyres rather than not talking about them – even if a lot of the references are negative.

I rejoiced when it was announced that a “control” tyre was to be brought in. But it has brought the wrong sort of control. I am not too sure that the current dark behaviour is an improvement over the honest competition of the tyre war.

If you have reached the stage where your marketing strategy is to have people make negative comments about your product, it probably is time to call it a day.

In many ways, Bridgestone get a huge amount of brand exposure through their involvement in F1. As noted in this week’s Formula1Blog.com podcast, you simply cannot watch a Grand Prix without learning that Bridgestone supply the tyres. Yet, after thirteen seasons (fifteen by the time they leave), the marginal returns to their investment must surely have diminished to almost zero. And As Keith at F1 Fanatic has pointed out, their costs are set to soar as they now have to supply twelve or thirteen teams rather than ten.

Nonetheless, it is a shock and a surprise that Bridgestone, a company that has stuck with F1 through thick and thin since 1997, has so abruptly pulled the plug. Now the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone will have a big headache trying to find someone to take Bridgestone’s place. With bridges burned with Goodyear and Michelin, and Pirelli uninterested, options seem thin on the ground.

Historically, Williams has been a team that has been all too happy to dispense with even their best drivers. The fact that they held on to Nico Rosberg for four seasons is possibly a sign that they have learnt their lesson — that exchanging World Champions for the likes of Heinz-Harald Frentzen or Ralf Schumacher is not a championship-winning approach.

Nevertheless, Joe Saward has speculated that Williams are not too jazzed about Nico Rosberg, which is why they have no problems letting him go (presumably to Brawn). This is strange if you ask me, because 2009 has been the season when I was finally convinced that Nico Rosberg has some talent. In my mid-season review I ranked Rosberg in 5th, and I doubt he’ll be much lower in my end-of-season rankings.

But the decision to partner their protégé Nico Hülkenberg, who Williams have been grooming for the past few years, with Rubens Barrichello looks like a very mature move. I would say that this partnership is possibly stronger than any they have had since the mid-1990s.

For a few years now, Nico Hülkenberg has been a youngster to watch. He exploded into the international motorsport scene when he dominated the 2006–2007 A1GP season. He attended all but one event for A1 Team Germany and scored 14 podiums out of 20 starts, effectively clinching the title for Germany. (I wonder if he ever received his prize money for that season…)

He then spent two seasons in Formula 3 Euroseries. He finished 3rd in his first season. But although he clinched the title in his second attempt, I would have argued that he did not need another F3 season to justify a presence in GP2.

When he finally made the step to GP2, he impressively won the title at his first attempt. In the process, he beat several more experienced drivers including two who have already made the move to F1 — Romain Grosjean and Kamui Kobayashi.

We have seen too many times that success in lower formulae is no guarantee of success in F1. No Formula 3000 Champion ever went on to become an F1 champion (although Lewis Hamilton did become a GP2 Champion on his way to F1). I do, however, feel that Hülkenberg is a seriously exciting talent.

By pairing him up with Rubens Barrichello, Williams have ensured that he will have every opportunity to succeed. In essence, they have given this hugely promising rookie the best mentor in the world in the shape of the most experienced F1 driver of all time, Rubens Barrichello.

It is no secret that Jenson Button owed a lot to Barrichello’s set-up data this season. The Brazilian’s experience makes him an expert at setting up the car. He can now pass his wisdom on to a true rookie — one who will surely truly appreciate the help.

I am sure it is help that Barrichello will be more than happy to provide. He is clearly a nice guy. And in the knowledge that he is in his final year or two of F1, helping cultivate a new talent may well appeal to him. It is, after all, what his former team-mate Michael Schumacher did with Felipe Massa.

Even though he has a tendency to fade away during races, Trulli is very quick over one lap and brings with him a wealth of experience that very few alternative drivers would be able to offer. He has also had a couple of highly impressive results this year, including an convincing 2nd place in Japan. But, fair enough, he’s a poor racer, so I could understand Toyota ditching Trulli in favour of another experienced driver or an exciting young talent.

But to, at the same time, appear to be absolutely desperate to also get rid of Timo Glock seems absolutely bonkers to me. Glock’s real talent remains to be seen. He has never won a race, and he tends to qualify poorly — but often races extraordinarily well. In this sense, he is almost a mirror-image of Trulli.

It is worth remembering, though, that Glock is still relatively young and therefore has a lot of potential to improve. I thought his 2nd place finish in Singapore was a hugely promising sign, in addition to some other impressive performances this season.

Yet, Toyota appear to be totally nonchalant about his potential, even on the back of that result in Singapore. Ever since then, they have contrived to replace him with Kamui Kobayashi, a Japanese Toyota protégé but an unknown quantity. He supposedly had a cold in Japan, so was replaced during Friday Practice at Suzuka. But no-one saw that Glock had much of a sniffle.

Then, since his qualifying crash the following day, he has been forced to sit out as a result of “cracked vertebrae”. But eyebrows are raised as Glock happily walks around the place. Phantom colds and injuries — it is almost as though Toyota’s doctor has been slipped a tenner to fabricate reasons for Glock to sit out the rest of the season.

Of course, Glock’s impact was mighty hefty, so he could well be injured and sitting out as a precaution. But it is very convenient that it should open the door for precisely what Toyota appear to have wanted, which was to put Kobayashi in the car ASAP.

Toyota have been in a strange position during this year’s Silly Season. They have been positioning themselves rather oddly. Experienced journalists are reading between the lines and saying that it’s because they will not be in F1 next year, despite having committed until 2012 by signing the Concorde Agreement. This is further underlined by the fact that Williams’s engine deal with Toyota has been terminated a year early.

Joe Saward has an excellent post today analysing the situation. Toyota leaving F1 is the worst-case scenario. The best-case scenario seems to be having a reduced budget next season. Since at least September, there has been talk of the Toyota F1 team having a massively slashed budget for next season.

For a number of months, Toyota boss John Howett has been talking down the chances of Jarno Trulli racing for the team next season. The claim is that Trulli is asking for too much money.

Why a team that is so low on money would go on to court Kimi Räikkönen of all people remains to be explained. Räikkönen has openly scoffed at the offer, by ruling out every team bar McLaren as a destination for next season. Quite right too. Räikkönen would be better off driving a bus than driving a Toyota F1 car.

No doubt Räikkönen is a better driver than Jarno Trulli or Timo Glock. Despite question marks over his motivation, at least Räikkönen has proved that he can do it. But let us face it — Toyota are living in a dream world if they think they can attract a driver of Kimi’s calibre for a cut-down price.

I was flabbergasted to read what John Howett had to say about his current drivers, who I think have done a good enough job this season:

We like Timo very much, he did a great job, but still we have a car that is more regularly capable of being on the podium and much closer to the top this year. We are not delivering, and there are things beyond the team and the chassis itself.

It is not difficult to decode Howett’s message. Don’t blame the car, blame the drivers. That is despite the fact that Toyota — in their eight seasons in Formula 1 — have never even looked close to having a car capable of winning an F1 race.

I also think that it is a bit rich of Toyota to complain about its drivers. They have always behaved a bit strangely when it came to their drivers. This is the team that did away with the promising partnership of Mika Salo and Allan McNish after just one season, for no good reason. This is the team whose most sophisticated driver choice was to hire a boy called Ralf then parade around the place saying “Schumacher drives for us!”, which at least pleased the marketing men.

Jarno Trulli is rightly miffed about John Howett’s stance.

Now I don’t know whether Toyota really wants to retain me or not. And with someone trying to denigrate me through the press… I’ve read many incorrect things about me. I haven’t spoken with the team about my contract for at least two months. So, either someone is playing dirty or maybe this person has been misquoted. But I keep calm and good.

Meanwhile, while Timo Glock has been lying in his “sick bed”, negotiations with Toyota for a drive next season are said to have completely collapsed.

So what are Toyota playing at? Do they seriously believe that replacing known quantities such as Trulli and Glock with the likes of Kobayashi, Nakajima or Sutil will pave the way for a more successful future? If so, I am sure they are the only ones in the world who believe it.

If Joe Saward is right, and this is all a final desperate attempt for the Toyota F1 employees to keep the gravy train running, they are surely only ensuring a bigger death a year or two down the line.

If Toyota leave, good riddance I say. Throughout their entire existence, I have found them to be easily the least likeable team on the grid by a long shot. Their behaviour this season has only further underlined my impression that Toyota is an entity that has no place in F1 and wouldn’t succeed in a million years.