For the 2010 World Champion, 2011 is looking much easier. Some drivers, like Kimi Räikkönen, lose their hunger after they become World Champion. Others are taken to a new level. When the best driver in the world becomes better, it’s truly scary.

But despite his World Champion status, some still argue that Sebastian Vettel somehow isn’t the best driver.

Mechanical advantage

After all, he has the best car — and that is indisputable. Who can say what Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton or Jenson Button might be able to achieve in that awesome Red Bull?

On the other hand, Vettel has the upper-hand over Mark Webber. Vettel’s advantage was marginal last year. But this year he is much more dominant. Comparatively, Mark Webber is struggling in the supposedly all-conquering Red Bull.

Ah, they say. Red Bull favour Sebastian Vettel. Webber must have a different car, says his manager Flavio Briatore. “Each time something happens, it happens to Mark.” That glosses over the kers issues that Vettel has constantly suffered from, along with Webber.

For most of his career, Webber has had more than his fair share of bad luck. That has continued this year. It is nothing more malicious than that.

Question mark over wheel-to-wheel combat

“Oh! But Vettel can’t overtake!” Oh really? I have long found this argument spurious.

Partisan Brits may still fume at his accident with Button in Spa, but in low-grip conditions it can happen to anyone. It was just bad luck that Button happened to be there at the time. All drivers lose control from time to time.

Jibes about the number of wins Vettel has taken from pole are unimpressive too. It is hardly a revelation that it is easier to win a race from pole position than any other place on the grid. But Vettel the idea that all of Vettel’s wins have been plain sailing affairs from pole is just wrong.

Those three crucial passes on his out lap in Spain ought to have put this to bed once and for all. Sebastian Vettel can overtake.

Defensive driving under pressure

Vettel can also soak up the pressure. Also in Spain, Vettel had to fend off a hard-charging Lewis Hamilton. Martin Brundle noted in the post-race analysis that Vettel was modifying his line according to how close Hamilton was to passing. He knew when he needed to defend, and he knew when not to. A masterclass of efficient driving.

Making the most of a bad strategy

In Monaco, Vettel demonstrated that he could make a bad strategy — even a strategy cock-up — work well. The race threatened to unravel during his disastrous pitstop when he ended up on ‘prime’ soft tyres, when a second set of ‘option’ super-softs was apparently in order. Apparently a radio jam caused the confusion.

That could have been disaster for Vettel. But instead, the strategy was modified brilliantly, and it caught strategy masters Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso off guard.

Button went for a three-stop strategy that probably worked in the simulations. Alonso went for a two-stopper. But Vettel held out on a one-stop strategy. It is almost unthinkable with this year’s Pirelli tyres, but Vettel lasted a mind-boggling 56 laps on soft tyres.

Of course, the red flag helped matters. Theoretically, Vettel would have run out of grip sooner or later — certainly before Alonso, who would in turn lose grip before Button. We can never know if that would have been the case.

But I was keeping an eye on the timing screen as the battle was intensifying, and Vettel was normally the second fastest man on track at any one time. His lap times were holding up remarkably well. There was no sign that Alonso or Button were on the verge of actually getting past.

The reality is that Vettel came out on top. Even though the circumstances with the red flag were unusual, the bottom line is that Vettel’s radical emergency strategy paid off as well as it possibly could have. He won the race.

How does Vettel compare to his rivals?

What else has Vettel got to prove? Well, who are the rivals for the mantle of “most complete driver in F1″?

Jenson Button is reliable and smart. But he doesn’t always have the fire in his belly, and consequently his awesome drives are mixed with anonymous tours.

Lewis Hamilton certainly has the fire in his belly, and his talent is awesomely supreme. But his enthusiasm often gets the better of him and he is prone to making massive errors in the heat of the moment.

Fernando Alonso is normally cited as being the “most complete” driver. There is no doubt that he is a formidable talent. And despite not having the equipment to win the Championship in recent years, Alonso remains a joy to watch. His qualifying lap in Spain is just one example of how Alonso passionately drives out of his skin.

But he has also begun to make a few too many mistakes. His errors in 2010 — at China, Monaco, Silverstone and Spa — are well documented.

Alonso remains fearsomely awesome. Just look at his starts in Spain and Monaco to see just one instance where Alonso excels.

But I am beginning to wonder if Sebastian Vettel is now the closest F1 has to the “complete package”. Whether he is or not, his youth alone should be a cause for concern among his rivals. Vettel is currently showing up drivers with masses more experience than him.

If Vettel is still learning, and he is already trouncing the opposition, it boggles the mind to imagine just how good he might become.

Another clumsy mistake from Vettel

That does not excuse what Sebastian Vettel did. I am a great admirer of Sebastian Vettel. But I am sorry to have to say that today he demonstrated just why he does not deserve to win the Drivers’ Championship this season.

Vettel’s speed is not in doubt. But in a wheel-to-wheel situation his judgement is left in question. This season he has made several unnecessary mistakes. His clash with Jenson Button is just the latest one, and it would not surprise me if there is at least one more this season.

It does seem to be Vettel’s greatest weakness. For a while he had a reputation for being a driver who was unable to overtake. He had shaken that off, but these scrapes that he is increasingly getting himself into are threatening to make this question return.

People talk about experience. David Coulthard certainly brought that up plenty of times during the BBC’s coverage. But experience has little to do with it. Lewis Hamilton was able to handle life at the front of the grid much earlier in his career without constantly putting his foot in it in this way. Yes, Hamilton made mistakes, and he still does. But he was not clumsy in the same way.

Meanwhile, the most experienced Formula 1 driver in history, Rubens Barrichello, also managed to lose control at the very same corner, steaming straight into Fernando Alonso with great force. That is not a reflection on Rubens Barrichello’s skill. With 300 races under his belt, no-one can question his skill or experience.

Accidents will happen

Instead, it underlines that accidents will happen in racing. Sometimes you come off well, sometimes you come off badly. F1 is a risky endeavour by its very nature. There is not a driver on the grid who can say he has never caused an accident. This is what happens when you are racing on the edge. It doesn’t matter how good you are or how much experience you have. In tough conditions, mistakes are made. That is racing.

That is why I have to question whether it was necessary for the stewards to punish Sebastian Vettel by making him serve a drive-through penalty. Yes, what Vettel did was a bit silly. It seems like he got mixed up in a car that was clearly faster than Jenson Button’s and didn’t know what to do when he suddenly found himself halfway up the McLaren’s gearbox.

Incidentally, if my reading of some of the post-race interviews is correct, it seems as though it was part of Jenson Button’s job to hold up the other cars to give Hamilton maximum advantage. Were team orders at play? Was Jenson Button deliberately holding up the pack? Notice how in his post-race interview with the BBC, Lewis Hamilton says, “he did everything he could to back us up and get the most points”.

Nonetheless, Sebastian Vettel got himself into a situation that he did not need to be in. The consequences were disastrous — for both Button and Vettel. The thing is, these incidents have killed Vettel’s title challenge. That in itself is the penalty a driver faces for poor driving standards.

Penalty-creep

Formula 1 is a sport, not a court. The problem is that the stewards often find themselves in a power trip and like to hand out penalties willy-nilly for increasingly minor indiscretions. Whether or not there is a former driver in the stewards’ room, this is the main problem with the stewarding system.

For years, I have been fearing that Formula 1 is in danger of banning racing. Instead of Formula One, the sport is in danger of becoming Formula None. As far as I see it, Sebastian Vettel was penalised today for attempting an overtaking manoeuvre. Yes, it was a manoeuvre that went wrong. But motor racing is inherently risky. If overtaking wasn’t difficult, it wouldn’t be exciting to watch.

These are drivers racing on the edge of what is possible with today’s machinery. In changeable conditions, Vettel got the balance wrong. But it was a judgement call that he had to make in a very short space of time.

A clumsy driver punishes himself enough

One of the beautiful things about motor racing is that it is all about balancing risk in real-time, in a very natural way. That is what we see every time there is a wheel-to-wheel battle. Everyone knows in this situation there is a chance that things might go wrong. Drivers are ready to face the consequences when things go wrong.

Sebastian Vettel’s real penalty was the natural one. His race was ruined by his mistake. With a damaged car, having to make a pitstop to change his front wing, the potential of a second place finish went up in smoke.

For some reason, the stewards decided to interfere in this natural justice system that is inherent in motor racing. Now when drivers see that they can be penalised for attempting an overtaking manoeuvre, they will soon enough stop attempting as it will no longer be worth the risk. The balance will have tipped too far in the opposite direction, and in an artificial manner.

And people wonder why there is not enough overtaking in F1?

A penalty should be handed out in the most extreme circumstances. I would say that Michael Schumacher’s barge in Hungary was a perfect example. That was a clear, premeditated move that was carried out over the course of a number of seconds. Vettel made a split-second move that suddenly went wrong. The intentions are different, and the seriousness of Vettel’s mistake is not in the same league.

Racing should be allowed. If it is not, the sport will be dead. But yet again, F1 finds itself curiously punishing someone for trying to race. Sebastian Vettel punished himself enough.

This year’s was provided by Michael Schumacher. His already infamous move to push Rubens Barrichello towards the pit wall while both were travelling at top speeds was one of the most vicious I have ever seen. I was yelling while it was happening.

I think I will forever vividly remember watching the onboard shot from Rubens Barrichello’s car live. I was cheering him on as he lined up to overtake Michael Schumacher. Then I was horrified when I realised what Schumacher was doing.

Not that it is much of a surprise. It is well known that Michael Schumacher is capable more than anyone else of pulling a dirty move out of his lowest drawer. His famous tainted legacy: Why does driver who is so good — a seven time World Champion no less — feel the need to pull off these extreme moves.

In a way, what he did to Barrichello in Hungary this year was worse than anything we have seen from him before. When he crashed into Damon Hill in 1994 it was to win the championship. When he crashed into Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 it was a last-ditch attempt to win the championship. When he parked his car at Rascasse in 2006 he was a championship contender. This? A futile fight for 10th position in a nothing year for him.

By now everyone knows that 2010 has not been the comeback Michael Schumacher was hoping for. In his recent interviews he has stated that he is only interested in winning championships. Scrapping away in the midfield is not interesting to him. He doesn’t like racing; he is only interested in winning.

I have always felt that his wheel-to-wheel abilities are actually quite poor. Schumacher’s speed cannot be in doubt — when he is out in front. But when he is on the back foot, he switches into panic mode. All of his most notorious moves have been snap decisions that he has made in a moment when he has suddenly been put under pressure. He is a quick driver. Unfortunately this means he often makes a move before he has engaged his brain.

This is what we have seen this year. Not just in Hungary, but also in Canada. He noticeably struggled in Montreal. He had a scrappy race and made a few panic moves, including a chop across Felipe Massa.

Unfortunately, an uncompetitive Michael Schumacher is no less ruthless. If anything, he is worse when he is on the back foot. Is it really the done thing to desperately try to push someone into the pit wall for the sake of one point?

One perspective is that this is good, hard racing. I also liked the viewpoint put forward by Axis of Oversteer — that this is the manifestation of genuine bad blood between two drivers. Schumacher and Barrichello have a lot of history, and it’s easy to imagine that this was all in the minds of both drivers.

But full credit to Rubens Barrichello for completing the move. He showed great bravery on the track, and immense integrity off the track. Barrichello’s behaviour after the race was exemplary. Meanwhile, Michael Schumacher complained that Barrichello is a whiner.

It is said that at Spa in 1998, Michael Schumacher stormed up to David Coulthard and accused him of “trying to fucking kill me”. I think Barrichello had cause to do a lot more than merely “whine”.

Michael Schumacher knows that in order to be successful you have to be ruthless, and at times aggressive. He is by no means the only aggressive driver on the grid. Mark Webber stands out. In fact, Webber was involved in quite a similar incident at Fuji in 2008 with Felipe Massa. But in this instance, Webber’s move across the track was made much earlier, much more gradually, and he did not push Massa nearly as far.

As such, Webber is respected as an aggressive driver, but also one who speaks about on-track safety with authority. As major player in the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, Mark Webber has made it his business to care about safety. This is the beauty of Mark Webber — he pushes it, but he knows exactly where the limit is, then stops. The problem Schumacher has is that he doesn’t know where the line is drawn.

Michael Schumacher is a hugely successful driver that many look up to as a role model. I would hate to think that he finds these sorts of dangerous manoeuvres acceptable. I am surprised that he did not receive a disqualification. He should also have received at least a one race ban. I bet if, say, Vitaly Petrov tried the same thing, he’d be sitting out the next few races.

The next race is in Belgium — where Schumacher’s fans turn out in force. The race after that is Monza, where the fans have quite a few fond memories of Schumacher as well. I would hate to think it is the case, but you would almost think the powers-that-be had one eye on the purse strings and the PR value of having Schumacher continuing racing — even though he is a known danger.

FOM feed the world

Nowadays, the “world feed” carried by every broadcaster for almost every race is produced by FOM, run by Bernie Ecclestone. (The only exceptions at the moment are the Monaco and Japanese Grands Prix, where the world feed is produced by Télé Monte Carlo and Fuji Television respectively.) This is generally a very good thing.

Until a few years ago, races were covered by local broadcasters, meaning that the quality of the coverage could vary quite wildly from race to race. I always remember the Japanese Grand Prix being particularly bad because so much time was spent on board with a below-average Japanese driver trundling around doing very little.

This situation was not helped by the fact that the quality of this standard feed was deliberately stunted while Bernie Ecclestone attempted to launch a premium digital television service, F1 Digital+. “Bernievision”, as it was called, was a very good product.

There were lots of innovations that improved the quality of the coverage, including some smart systems that could detect when an overtaking manoeuvre or a crash was about to happen. You can see this in action here, when the coverage automatically cuts to the on-board camera of Jacques Villeneuve just before he crashes into Ralf Schumacher during the 2001 Australian Grand Prix.

Unfortunately, the main problem with F1 Digital+ was that it was ahead of its time. The adventure began in 1996, at an impossibly early stage of the development of interactive television. There were teething problems in the early days, including an incredible clanger at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, where the “superior” product managed to completely miss the biggest crash in F1 history! But they learned over time and there were innovations aplenty. With the broadcasters struggling to make any money with it, the service was closed down in 2002.

Since then, the technology on which F1 Digital+ was based has been used on the standard world feed, which FOM have gradually taken over from the host broadcasters. This has brought about a noticeable improvement in the quality of coverage since 2004. Broadly, the pictures have been better. Incidents have been caught live more regularly, and replays have been shown quickly. The information displayed on the on-screen graphics has also improved considerably.

But after reaching a peak in quality three or four years ago, FOM’s coverage has stagnated. Many times, innovations have been brought to the coverage, only to be used sparingly, and eventually disappear.

For instance, whatever happened to the tyre temperature indicators that were used once or twice a few years ago? Why do we no longer often see the graphics comparing the telemetry of two drivers racing side-by-side? What has happened to the thermal images?

Why don’t FOM buy some of those awesome super slo-mo cameras instead of just using the ones in Germany? Why is line comparison only ever used during practice, and even then not very often? Why isn’t more use made of the graphics that show the position of drivers on a map of the circuit?

The poor usability of FOM’s new graphics

Things are not totally stagnant at FOM though. At Bahrain, they unleashed a new set of graphics. It has to be said straight away that they are very good looking, and with a few tweaks will work very well. However, at the moment there are some major flaws with them.

The font appears to be a version of DIN. This is a bold, clear and readable font.

However, FOM have made a mistake by choosing to display the drivers’ names in all uppercase. It is known that all-uppercase is more difficult to read. Often readers look at the shape of words rather than the individual letters. This is much more difficult when capital letters are all the same height and many are roughly square-shaped. It is thought that it may even increase the amount of time spent reading by as much as 20 per cent.

Then there is the odd slanting of the lower-third graphics. I see what they are trying to do, by echoing the slant of the Formula 1 logo. But while it looks stylish, it is pretty painful if you want to actually try and read it!

As you can see, unlike a normal table, the text is not aligned to allow for easy comparison of figures down the column. Instead, you have to read down and to the left. Slanting is one thing, but if you are going to slant one way, slant towards the right! We read from left to right. Effectively reading from right to left (and then switching back to left to right to actually read the information!) is completely counter-intuitive. I know Bernie Ecclestone is keen to take Formula 1 to new markets in Asia, but making us read from right to left really is going a step too far!

The graphics also animate on rather extravagantly. This is particularly irritating with the graphics that update as each driver crosses the line. Each driver’s name and time now takes a while to animate on. But when cars are passing through so quickly, this is vital reading time lost. The new graphics really are a bad case of style over substance.

There was also a large outcry over the fact that the ‘tower’ graphics — which display a list of positions down the left hand side of the screen — appear to have been done away with. Although the tower made a couple of appearances during the race, it really is much more useful during qualifying, where positions change much more rapidly.

During the commentary, Jonathan Legard mentioned that the BBC had received plenty of complaints about the disappearance of the tower, although the content of the world feed is beyond the BBC’s control. For commentators to start bemoaning the poor quality of the world feed once again shows how much of a backward step FOM have taken lately.

On the plus side, there were a couple of interesting new additions as a result of the renewed emphasis on the speed of pitstops. The pitstop time graphic now shows the length of time spent in the pitlane as well as the amount of time spent stationary. However, the stationary time displays only after the driver has exited the pitlane. Why not reveal this first?

They also get the thumbs up for finally switching the lap counter so that it counts up rather than down. I generally like the new graphics, but they have some major flaws just now. With a bit of tweaking, it will look great and work well. But I do wonder what FOM were thinking of when they made some of these decisions.

Too much action was missed

But, of course, the design of the graphics is small beer compared with the actual pictures themselves — and it is here that I think FOM are particularly letting themselves down just now. A few years ago I was amazed at how much action they caught live. Today, I find myself with difficult believing how little action they catch — and how few replays they show.

For instance, what actually happened to Karun Chandhok? We know he binned it, but how? All FOM showed us was his slightly smashed-up car. A replay of the event was never shown. Did their cameras completely miss it?

Moreover, the BBC’s post-race ‘forum’ showed several replays from the on-board channels that brought to light much more action than FOM showed us. Nico Hülkenberg’s first lap was rather eventful, but FOM showed very little of it.

Another on-board shot, not shown on the world feed, revealed how Felipe Massa squeezed Lewis Hamilton early on in the lap. This was totally missed by FOM, and caught all viewers, and even apparently the pundits, by surprise when the BBC showed it later.

And why were viewers never given the full story of the mêlée caused in the midfield as a result of Mark Webber’s blue smoke on lap 1? And, for that matter, why was so little attention paid to the recoveries by Adrian Sutil and Robert Kubica, who made their way back up through the field following that lap 1 incident?

I have to admit that I am baffled. The race was allegedly “boring”, so there was plenty of time to show replays of interesting incidents, but clearly the opportunity was passed up. Why?

The whole style of FOM’s product has become rather stale, clinical and formulaic as well. While a few years ago the feed contained interesting shots of the cars and the circuit. Now there is a greater emphasis on wide shots of the venue. While these shots are attractive, they do not showcase the race.

The coverage of last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is a prime example. There were so many wide shots that it was often difficult to pick out the cars. It felt like most of the time was spent looking at the giant sparkly hotel that looks a bit like a rude sex toy rather than the race itself. And the final lap lunge by Jenson Button on Mark Webber was missed by the cameras!

You can see the moment on this video, at 2:30. Also watch out for when the cars out out of shot when Robert Kubica is battling with Sébastien Buemi at around 1:40, so we don’t properly see what Kubica really did.

It is worth noting that the FIA obviously thought that FOM had done such a good job of producing an uber-slick but ultra-dull feed that they awarded the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix an award for the best television coverage. I thought it stuck out as a particularly poor performance from FOM. It was another triumph of style over substance. I guess they were trying to trumpet this new grand prix, when it was widely recognised to be an underwhelming circuit that produced a rather dull race.

When will HD finally come?

I feel as though FOM have almost given up on improving the television product. F1 is supposed to be the most technologically advanced sport in the world, yet it is still not even broadcast in HD. It is probably the last major sport in the world to only offer an SD feed, and before you know it 3D will have come along by the time F1 goes HD.

Fuji Television are prepared to produce an HD feed for the Japanese Grand Prix (although this is only shown in Japan). I also noticed people praising the Japanese GP coverage for its interesting shots and pretty solid coverage. But Fuji were once universally recognised as one of the worst of the host broadcasters back in the bad old days.

Fuji really have upped their game in the past couple of years. It is notable that we can actually now compare Fuji with FOM and say that Fuji may actually be better. Certainly, Fuji provide a welcome breath of fresh air to F1 coverage when every other race is presented using the formulaic approach that has increasingly been taken by FOM.

Screengrabs nicked from stefmeister. If you are as much of a geek as me about both Formula 1 and television presentation, I highly recommend the F1 coverage thread on Digital Spy.

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.

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.

Then when the other teams caught up, it looked like Red Bull had the pound seats. But in fact the whole thing unravelled for Red Bull and we instead saw a run of six different drivers winning six different races. That hasn’t happened since 1985.

Throughout that period, Button had underperformed. And despite maintaining his Houdini-like grip on the Championship lead, he appeared on the back foot. He faced questions over how he was handling the pressure of fighting for the Championship, and lost his cool when asked a direct question about it by Ed Gorman of The Times.

He turned up at Monza apparently reinvigorated. It is said that he changed his approach. Instead of worrying about defending the Championship, he was thinking of it was a five race championship in which he had a 16 point head-start. His tail is now up again, and this weekend he was part of a great Brawn revival.

I have to confess that I didn’t predict Brawn doing well at Monza. After all, at Spa-Francorchaps, a circuit with similar characteristics, Brawn were stuck firmly in the midfield. But I guess the hard braking zones, coupled with the awesome power of the Mercedes engine, played straight into their hands.

It was a disciplined approach from Brawn, who shunned headline-grabbing table-topping throughout the weekend. They instead went for a one-stop strategy, which left them occupying row 3 of the grid, but played into their hands massively during the race.

The only problem for Jenson Button was the fact that it was Rubens Barrichello who won the race. But despite having his best race since Turkey, Button has only lost two points from his lead — which is more-or-less the same sort of drop he has had from most of the past six races.

At the same time, Red Bull had yet another disastrous weekend. Mark Webber’s race was over after a first-lap tangle with Robert Kubica through the tight Roggia chicane. Meanwhile, Vettel lacked pace and could only score one point. The chance of a Red Bull driver winning the Championship has significantly diminished. Vettel has a 26 point deficit with only four races to go.

However, the most noteworthy part of the race was probably when Lewis Hamilton crashed on the final lap while he was running in third. The odd thing about it is that there is no immediately apparent reason for the crash. It seems that Hamilton just pushed a bit too hard. He was certainly pushing very hard all race, but you have to wonder why he thought he had a chance of catching Button with so little of the race remaining.

Some people like the fact that Hamilton is an aggressive driver, and I agree that it is more fun to watch than a more conservative driver who might settle for third. But this kind of needless mistake is something that Hamilton is particularly prone to, and it is what, for me, stops him from being a truly great driver. He needs the maturity to realise when is the right time to be aggressive rather than the simple “always push hard” approach.

You look at a race weekend like this and it is no surprise that Mercedes appears to want to back Brawn rather than McLaren in future. The Mercedes engine was clearly the class of the field, and McLaren had the perfect opportunity to make it work for them.

Fuel-corrected, Heikki Kovalainen was fast enough to be on pole position. But he had a horrendous first lap, getting swallowed up by car after car, and losing four places when he really should have gained places because of his kers. Looking at his strategy, many tipped Kovalainen to win. But he looked very average during the race and could only finish 6th.

It further cements my view that Kovalainen is a driver who is simply unable to win. His one career victory was inherited after Massa’s engine blew. Fair enough, but he can’t race his way to the front. His underwhelming performance at Monza this year is very reminiscent of last year’s Italian Grand Prix. That was another one that Kovalainen should have won, but he was unable to challenge Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso.

Oh, McLaren. If they’re not getting themselves embroiled in political scandals as a result of their overly complicated interpretations of the rules, they are messing up their strategy or making some awful error in the pitlane. As for their drivers, one is too aggressive for his own good and makes high-profile mistakes, while the other one is too slow to ever be in a position to make mistakes.

It’s interesting to compare McLaren’s driver line-up with Brawn’s. The Brawn pair have both been written off in the past, yet this year they are the class of the field. Meanwhile, McLaren’s highly-rated drivers of moderate experience end up looking like the Chuckle Brothers in comparison. It seems like Mercedes’s shift in focus towards Brawn can’t come soon enough.

The other Mercedes-powered team, Force India, continued its good form from Spa-Francorchamps. I suppose on reflection Force India may have cause to be disappointed. On the back of Fisichella’s scintillating performance in Belgium, Sutil’s 4th place looks relatively subdued. Meanwhile, Liuzzi’s retirement with transmission failure while he was looking set for a solid result must count as a missed opportunity.

Mind you, how impressive was Liuzzi this weekend? Liuzzi is a star of the future of the past, having once been tipped for a drive at Ferrari while he impressed the world in F3000. But he ended up getting swallowed and spat out by the Red Bull driver development juggernaut, where he was messed about by the management.

But it should be remembered that Liuzzi held his own against Sebastian Vettel while at Toro Rosso. The talent is there but has been wasted over the years. His performance at Monza surely cements his future at Force India or perhaps even a better team.

At least Badoer did not have a former team for him to compare. But Fisichella must have particularly mixed feelings as he struggles in his Ferrari while his former team Force India threatens to have the very fastest car in the pack.

A strong Force India showing at Monza was always on the cards. On the back of an excellent performance at Spa-Francorchamps, where Fisichella got pole position and finished 2nd, it was clear that Force India’s car was handy in a low downforce environment.

Force India were particularly bullish in the run-up to this race too. Knowing they may have had an advantage for Spa and Monza, Force India booked one of the few straight-line tests that are allowed per year for this week in order to maximise their advantage. It also gave their new race driver, Vitantonio Liuzzi, a chance to familiarise himself with the car (albeit not on a racetrack).

Liuzzi will probably be driving the very same car that Fisichella excelled in at Spa. It is little surprise that he has hit the ground running, qualifying a solid 7th for his first race since 2007. I have long felt that Liuzzi wasn’t given a proper chance in F1, and it delights me to see that he may now get a prolonged spell at a stable team. There have been strong rumours for a while that Liuzzi had a 2010 race contract with Force India in the bag already.

Meanwhile, Fisichella’s former team mate Adrian Sutil has his tail up, and appears to be adapting well to becoming Force India’s de facto team leader. He was probably fast enough to get pole position today but a mistake on his quick lap put paid to that notion. Nonetheless, Sutil must fancy his chances for a great result in the race, despite the fact that he is surrounded by kers-equipped cars on the grid.

Meanwhile, Fisichella, having chosen to move to Ferrari, is struggling to adapt to his new car and qualified 14th on the grid. He must be scratching his head a bit over the fact that his old car is seven places in front, and his former team mate is a massive 12 places in front. Fisichella says he is far from unhappy, and even takes pride from the fact that he helped develop that Force India to become a front-runner.

You certainly can’t blame him for deciding to move to Ferrari. Which would he prefer — a good result, or the chance to say he’s driven for Ferrari. He has three career wins already. Balancing the chance of getting a fourth victory in a Force India, or getting a moderate result for Ferrari, you can see even then why he might prefer the latter option.

What his performance so far this weekend shows you don’t have to have been out of racing for ten years to struggle to get to grips with the Ferrari F60. Yes, Badoer’s performances were not great, but I felt very sorry for him being expected to perform straight away in a car that is said to be difficult to drive.

Giancarlo Fisichella’s performance has not been quite as bad as Badoer’s. But given that he is fully race-fresh and fit, you would expect that. Fisichella will probably have expected to do better than this. It has been a slightly lacklustre weekend. He was 20th in both Friday Practice 2 and Saturday Practice. On Saturday he further underlined his difficulties by crashing at the Parabolica. Indeed, I found myself wondering what oh-so-hilarious nicknames the journalists might like to come up with now that a different Ferrari is struggling at the back.

Following Badoer’s struggles in Valencia, Ted Kravitz revealed that the F60 may be a particularly tricky car to master. The driver is required to do lots of hands-on switch-flicking and knob-twisting throughout the lap.

This is also Fisichella’s explanation for why switching to a Ferrari has not brought an immediate improvement in his pace as a driver.

It’s a different car so there is different reaction going into the corners. You work much more with the steering wheel and the switches compared to Force India. With Force India I was just concentrating on the driving, here I am quite busy.

As for his crash during Saturday Practice, that is said to be due to Fisichella adapting to the behaviour of the car under braking while it is harvesting its energy for kers. Kers was another worry that Fisichella did not have to deal with at Force India, but it is fundamental to the performance of the F60.

These insights about the Ferrari F60 remind me of the received wisdom about Ducati’s MotoGP bike. There are many parallels between Ferrari and Ducati, and this appears to be another one. The Ducati has long been famous for making previously-good riders look poor. Only Casey Stoner appears able to extract the full potential from it, while other Ducati riders tend to struggle to find any pace at all. The suggestion is that the Ducati is a very difficult bike to ride and that only Stoner has tamed it. Perhaps Felipe Massa had a similar magic with the Ferrari. (In yet another parallel, both Stoner and Massa are currently not racing in order to convalesce.)

The experience of watching drivers attempt to get to grips with a tricky car under the intense spotlight of a race weekend, rather than the relative privacy of a test session, has at least put a few myths to bed. Certainly, the idea that results are more down to the car than the driver was given a boost when Jenson Button seemed unable to stop winning at the beginning of this season. But it was dealt a blow when Luca Badoer stepped into the Ferrari, and finished last in Belgium when his team mate won.

Now we see Fisichella with his hands full and we are presented with a yet more complex picture. A driver needs to grow into his car. He needs to learn how to drive it and gain in confidence with it. It is also true that a car needs to suit a particular driver’s style. Arguably Badoer wasn’t given enough time to adapt, and Fisichella will need more leeway too. Here’s hoping the tifosi have patience with him if he is unable to score a good result during the race.

Räikkönen confuses people a lot of the time with his apparent indifference. Often he simply does not seem to be bothered. But he always goes well at Spa. Indeed, he is the only current driver to have won there. His record includes a remarkable fight to the front from 10th on the grid in what was an otherwise barren 2004 season for him.

There are some parallels between that victory and this year’s one. Like McLaren in 2004, this year Ferrari began the season with uncompetitive machinery, but have developed the car into a winner for Belgium. This victory ends a 25 race drought for Räikkönen; the 2004 victory ended an even longer one.

In a lot of ways, Räikkönen’s victory was among the least surprising things to happen during an extraordinary weekend. The Finn usually gives a good performance in Belgium, but despite winning the race he was overshadowed by Giancarlo Fisichella, a man who would have been sacked at the end of last year if I had any say in such matters.

Question marks remain over a victory margin which perhaps ought to have been longer than one second. Then some say he wouldn’t have won were it not for kers — this is probably true. Others say that he gained an advantage by running wide and taking the run-off at La Source on lap 1.

However, David Coulthard says that Räikkönen will have gained no advantage from running wide, a fact which is apparently corroborated by the fact that Button took a similar line and lost places. It’s more likely that Räikkönen gained those spots by deploying his kers, the exit of La Source being the ideal spot to unleash that kers energy on lap 1 rather than the start itself. See Axis of Oversteer for a good debate on this matter.

Even so, the plaudits are going to Giancarlo Fisichella for his stunning drive to second place in the Force India. Is it a coincidence that he should up his game so much when there is a sniff of getting a Ferrari drive? I don’t think I have ever been so impressed by Fisichella, who I have always seen as a mid-grid sort of guy who only just about deserves his continued presence in F1.

Some of the upsurge can be put down to the car, which the team also expects to do well at Monza. In the sister Force India car, Adrian Sutil looked especially good through Raidillon, giving him an enormous advantage through the Kemmel straight, capitalising too on the grunt of the Mercedes engine, no doubt the best in F1. This led to him making a few impressive overtaking manoeuvres, though sadly for him it came to nothing and ended up in 11th.

Force India weren’t the only backmarkers to rise in Spa though. BMW, for the first time since Australia, looked quick. Both drivers scored points, and indeed Kubica did well to finish fourth despite picking up a substantial amount of damage in the lap 1 mêlée at Les Combes.

Lap 1 was an eventful lap all round, with Fernando Alonso’s race effectively ending at the start. But we were not to find that out until his first pitstop, when the Renault mechanics were unable to satisfactorily change his left front tyre. Renault didn’t want another controversy involving badly fitted wheels, so he toured into the pits to retire. A clever replay from FOM revealed that Alonso’s wheel was actually damaged in a turn 1 collision with Sutil at the start.

It is yet more bad luck for Alonso. Renault will not like the fact that in the Constructors’ Championship they are now behind BMW, a team which has been lamentably poor for most of the season. With the announcement that the FIA is investigating the unusual circumstances behind their victory in the Singapore Grand Prix, all-in-all it’s been a pretty torrid time for Renault. The move to the red car cannot come too soon for Alonso.

As for the sharp end of the championship, yet again three of the major Championship contenders failed to score a good result. This time, Vettel was the only one of the four challengers to have a good race. This makes Red Bull’s decision over whether it should start favouring one driver over the other yet trickier. Vettel now leads Webber in the Championship. But he still faces a massive 19 point deficit with only five races remaining.

Vettel actually had a strong race. In his analysis of the race, rubbergoat reveals that, when you consider competitive laps only, Vettel had the fastest average lap time of all the drivers. But he was hindered in the vital first stint due to being heavy on fuel.

Jenson Button had a DNF as he crashed out in that Les Combes pile-up. It is his first DNF of the season, making his sixth bad race in a row. Yet again, he has gotten away with it relatively unscathed. Another disastrous race, another two point dent in his lead which remains at 16 points. His main challenger is Rubens Barrichello who, with all due respect to the Brazilian, is not the most threatening of his three main challengers — not least because he is in the same team.

This has been a most strange season. Jenson Button couldn’t stop winning in the first half of the season. Now he can do nothing to help himself win. But his Championship chances remain high because the last six races have had six different winners. In stark contrast to the early Brawn dominance, you just don’t know who is going to be strong at a race and I would be a mug if I tried to predict what would happen in Monza. I daren’t even predict which car this week’s second placed man will be driving — I don’t want a wrap on the knuckles like Ian Phillips!