It was another bad race for Hamilton. Two more clumsy clashes were added on top of the controversial incidents in Monaco that are still fresh in the memory.

It is starting to look like a bad habit.

Montreal incidents weren’t so bad

But the thing is, I don’t think either of the incidents in Montreal were nearly as bad as what he got up to in Monaco.

Yes, the move up the inside of Mark Webber at the start was too optimistic. But in the dry it probably would have worked. If you look at Hamilton’s onboard camera shot, Hamilton looks like he is going to make it, but then understeers through a puddle.

It would be right to argue that Hamilton should have taken the conditions into account. So in that respect, it was a dodgy move on Hamilton’s part. But at least he didn’t just steam straight into Webber in stable conditions, as he did to Felipe Massa and Pastor Maldonado in Monaco.

As for the crash with Jenson Button, I think this was an unfortunate racing incident. Hamilton got such better drive than Button, that it is perfectly understandable that he had a go. Plus, the racing line along the pit straight at Montreal effectively goes from the extreme right to the extreme left, back to the right again.

No matter which way Hamilton went, he would have found himself getting squeezed eventually. It was just a bad deal that Button couldn’t see him in his mirrors due to a mixture of bad conditions and confusion. Again, Hamilton should have taken the conditions into account. But, again, at least it wasn’t as malicious as what went on in Monaco.

Why does Hamilton get himself in so much trouble?

It does strike me, though, that Hamilton is taking on far too many of these marginal overtaking attempts. Hamilton has always been a little bit like this, though he had seemed to calm down a bit. His excitable inexperience is no longer an excuse — this is his fifth F1 season. He has more than enough grands prix under his belt to know what’s what.

But what is making him go for all these half gaps? One theory is that he just has to push harder this year to beat Red Bull, and is becoming desperate as a result. Undoubtedly that is part of the problem. But Hamilton had a much worse start to the season in 2009 and he wasn’t quite as clumsy as this then.

Senna’s influence

All the hype surrounding Ayrton Senna, following the release of the successful eponymous film, has brought one Senna quote to the fore:

If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver.

Senna was known for his high-risk, sometimes dangerous moves. The key to Senna, though, was that he was often able to intimidate drivers into moving out of his way. Michael Schumacher also had this trait.

It is well known that Hamilton idolises Senna. When Hamilton goes for a half opportunity, you can imagine him repeating the Senna quote to himself in his head.

It’s more than just “going for a gap”

But overtaking is about so much more than simply driving round another car by going faster. You need to assess the situation; analyse what the opposing driver has at stake, work out what he is thinking and how much he will yield. It is effectively a 200mph game of chicken.

Senna and Schumacher managed to balance the scales of this game of chicken massively in their favour by building up a fearsome reputation. They were the hard-chargers who would impose themselves on their opponents through a mixture of speed and aggression. Perversely, this possibly made it easier for them to overtake.

Hamilton, on the other hand, is very quickly building himself the opposite reputation. He is becoming clumsy Lewis — probably about to cause another crash that will be all his fault.

Even in a situation where Hamilton may have the upper hand on track, he may begin to find overtaking more difficult. Hamilton’s reputation is such that even in a racing incident, he could well find himself being blamed for every clash he is involved in. This, in turn, could make his opponents more open to defending more aggressively.

Could it be that in his attempts to become this generation’s Senna, Lewis Hamilton has actually achieved the reverse?

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.

12. Hispania

Of the three new teams, Hispania have probably had the hardest job after taking over the Campos entry at the eleventh hour after it hit severe financial difficulties. Although their car is probably the slowest, it does not have the poorest reliability record, and as such the team currently sits ahead of Virgin in the Constructors’ Championship. Hispania have also acted quickly to sort out the problems with the Dallara chassis, and have hired big name designer Geoff Willis to sort out the mess for next season.

However, recent musical chairs involving their drivers have left a sour taste in the mouth. Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok are both well-liked drivers who have done an admirable job in hugely difficult circumstances, even though you might say neither is a potential future World Champion. Sakon Yamamoto is not liked very much, and is not terribly good as demonstrated in his previous two stints in F1. But the team appear to be desperate to get him into the car nevertheless. The process has been handled appallingly.

11. Virgin

On the track, Virgin is probably the least exciting of the new teams. Their reliability record is poor, and the speed is not particularly impressive, even if they occasionally manage to beat a Lotus every once in a while.

On the plus side, their controversial approach to design the car without the use of a wind tunnel has proved the doubters wrong, as the car has not been disastrously off the pace.

Both drivers have shown flashes of brilliance. But you sense that Timo Glock in particular would be capable of more if only he had decent equipment.

10. Lotus

Lotus have very quickly established themselves as the fastest of the new teams. But it has not all been plain sailing for them, and their reliability record needs improvement. I also wonder how much better they would be doing if they had two better race drivers than Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen, although the experienced line-up is probably ideal in a development sense.

The next target for Lotus is to start beating the established teams on a regular basis. But with Williams and Sauber both having made significant improvements recently, it is difficult to see how they can make much headway beyond battling with Toro Rosso. Whatever, next year will be important for Lotus — anything below ninth in the 2011 Constructors’ Championship would surely be a disappointment. But that just shows how far they have come already.

9. Williams

Although they have begun to make strides up the grid in the past few races, the fact remains that this has been another disastrous year for Williams. They have spent much of the season battling at the wrong end of the grid, counting Sauber and Toro Rosso among their rivals.

Perhaps the most worrying thing is that when you hear the likes of Patrick Head and Sam Michael try to explain the team’s performance over the past few years, they seem to be at a loss, except for vaguely talking about money being an issue. Williams lack answers.

Rubens Barrichello has been doing more or less the sort of job you would expect him to do. Meanwhile, promising rookie Nico Hülkenberg has not shown as much promise as you might have hoped. This has been coupled with a heavy dose of bad luck. I hope the second half of the season is better for Hülkenberg, of whom I am a fan.

8. Toro Rosso

I am finding it difficult to draw any firm conclusions about Toro Rosso yet. They have had some very poor showings indeed. But on the plus side, you must remember that this is their first year as a ‘proper’ constructor, designing their own chassis. On this basis, this season must be regarded as a success, even if they have not always been as quick as they may have liked.

Both Jaime Alguersuari and Sébastien Buemi are continuing to improve. Alguersuari has shown some real flashes of brilliance, and has impressed me a lot this season — particularly in a couple of battles with Michael Schumacher!

But with a more anonymous season, Buemi has been keeping his nose clean and has picked up the majority of the team’s points haul so far. That is mainly due to his assured performance at Canada, where he did well standing his ground as he briefly led the race as the pitstop phase was shaking itself out.

7. Sauber

After a promising winter testing season, the start of the actual season itself was deeply embarrassing for Sauber as they totally failed to convert pre-season promise into real race results. The car was not only frightfully slow, but it was also horrendously unreliable, making Sauber easily the worst of the established teams.

A question mark also hung over the choice of drivers, probably the riskiest on the grid. The decision to opt for Pedro de la Rosa, who had not raced since 2006, was bizarre — and I am a fan of de la Rosa! Meanwhile, Kamui Kobayashi was a man whose entire reputation was built on two races in odd circumstances.

The good news is that Sauber have turned the corner. de la Rosa is not making a fool of himself, and only needs more luck now in order to start scoring points. Meanwhile, Kobayashi looks set to become a points-scoring regular now. His performance in Valencia was absolutely superb, and he backed this up with another solid performance at Silverstone.

Sauber have also acted quickly to improve the car, making the decision to hire James Key early on as the car’s deficiencies became clear. The improvements he has made since joining the team can be seen vividly in the results.

It is therefore no surprise that the kneejerk calls to “learn from the Canada show” have come thick and fast. In my view that is dangerous.

First of all, as I have pointed out before, the focus on “the show” is vacuous, trite and antithetical to the idea of the sport. Of course F1 should be exciting. But what you can’t forget is that we love F1 already — because it already is exciting.

What we now risk — with this crazy obsession with “improving the show” — is future of F1 that is increasingly watered-down. F1 is becoming too convoluted due to bizarre rules that are tacked on bit-by-bit in a misguided and unnecessary attempt to engineer excitement. This is the stuff of bad game shows or WWF or Nascar. We are talking about F1, the greatest sport in the world. It doesn’t need this.

I am particularly disappointed in Mike Gascoyne’s bizarre call to attempt to somehow incorporate the conditions that occurred in Canada into the tyre rules:

If you were going to write the tyre rules for how you wanted races to be, they would be like Canada. You had changing strategies, overtaking and lots of excitement.

It was exactly what F1 needs, and it’s proved that the argument for one tyre being very marginable is very strong.

This surely overlooks the key reasons behind why the Canadian Grand Prix was such a great spectacle. First of all there is the fact that it is an incredible circuit that brings us great, edge-of-your-seat races time and again, regardless of what the current rules are. Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a great circuit. Full stop.

Moreover, one of the features of the circuit that has emerged as a major factor over and over again is the fact that it is hard on tyres. I vividly remember the 2006 Canadian Grand Prix, where the tyres were degrading in such an odd way that the circuit was absolutely covered in marbles. I seem to recall David Coulthard describing those conditions as the worst dry-weather conditions he had ever raced in.

Then there is the fact that this is the first time Formula 1 has visited Montreal with the current slick tyres, and with the current restrictions on the numbers of sets of tyres teams can use, and there you have your recipe for the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix.

Some of this cannot be replicated. Some of it already is. The rest is artificial interfering.

The call for the tyre supplier to provide the teams with increasingly marginal tyres goes against everything that F1 is supposed to be about — the best drivers using the best equipment. Artificially hobbling drivers is a fake approach to racing. More overtaking is meaningless if it isn’t real overtaking.

That is why Pirelli’s stated desire to “have a Canadian GP every race” sends a shiver down my spine. I was hoping that the switch of tyre supplier would be the perfect opportunity to ditch the current tyre regulations, which are currently a mess from a sporting standpoint. Instead, it looks like the tyre rules are only going to become worse.

But most of all there is the issue that the unpredictable will soon enough become predictable. The way events unfolded in Canada caught the teams off guard. But the second time something like that happens, they will be much better prepared. The third time they will begin to set a routine in place. After a handful more occasions, they will know the drill down pat. All the unpredictability will be gone.

This is what we saw with refuelling. At first it was an interesting novelty, and it added an interesting strategy element. But by the end of the refuelling era, it was adding nothing to the show. Armed with 15 years’ worth of data, and with the calculation powers of modern computers, the teams always knew what the optimum strategy was and employed it. The result was neutered racing, with the refuelling only adding an incentive for drivers to “overtake in the pitlane” and avoid on-track action.

The same would happen with tyres, as the teams gather data and become better prepared. They may say they want to improve the show. But they also want to win the race. It is a classic prisoners’ dilemma — and, just as with refuelling, the teams will always try to win the race before thinking about the show.

It is worth considering that the reason the Canadian Grand Prix was so exciting was that the teams pushed too hard and ended up painting themselves into a corner. The Bahrain Grand Prix was so boring because the teams were far too conservative, fearful of overstepping the mark with the tyres and ending up in exactly the scenario that unfolded in Canada. The teams want to have their cake and eat it.

F1 teams are constantly looking for the boundaries of performance, and sometimes they go beyond those boundaries. When they do, they learn the lessons and adapt their approach for next time. No set of rules can affect this fundamental nature of the way teams behave.

What we really should take away from the Canadian Grand Prix is the joy of watching a great race. This is the sort of thing that should be celebrated. But there were great races in the past, and great races are caused by a variety of factors that cannot be pinned down.

Even if they were pinned down, knowing the factors would be a surefire way of ensuring boring races for the rest of the sport’s future. What makes F1 exciting is its inherent unpredictability. Trying to engineer unpredictability is surely an oxymoron.

This does mean that sometimes we endure the odd mediocre race. But since we follow a sport and not a show, we are all happy with that — aren’t we?…

Here is the official lap chart for this year’s Belgian Grand Prix, as published by the FIA. Do you spot anything unusual about it?

Despite the fact that he was last of the classified runners, Badoer was only 102.1 seconds behind the race winner, Kimi Räikkönen. “Only?”, I hear you say. But he was still on the lead lap. In fact, the lap chart reveals that there was no lapped traffic for the entire race.

I wonder if this is a first. There are a few things that lead me to believe this is the case. First of all, it is commonly believed that Formula 1 cars have never been as close in terms of performance. Surely the amazing speed of the Force India in Belgium is testament to the idea that there are no longer backmarkers in F1 like there used to be.

Luca Badoer, the slowest man in qualifying, was around 2.5 seconds off the quickest time. Although in F1-2009 style this invites derision, even five years ago this would have been a creditable performance. Read a grid from the 1990s, and it is routine to see cars a dozen seconds or more off the pace.

Furthermore, Spa-Francorchamps also has the longest laptime of any circuit currently in use in F1, which in itself makes it less likely that cars will be lapped during the race. I have checked some previous Belgian Grands Prix to check, but all have had lapped cars, apart from this year’s. For this reason, it is also possible that some races at longer circuits used in history (notably the Nordschleife) may not have seen any lapped traffic, but with more reliability problems and poorer driving standards back then, I wouldn’t count on it.

(Update: I have checked all Formula 1 Grands Prix to have been held at the Nordschleife, and each race had classified runners not on the lead lap according to Wikipedia.)

Against that argument is the fact that since 2007, lapped cars have been able to join the lead lap behind the Safety Car. This makes it much less likely that there will be lapped cars at the end of the race — but there will still have been lapped cars during the race.

I asked on Twitter if this was the first time none of the classified runners had been lapped. Amazingly, Alianora La Canta set to work and used her awesome research skills to find out that the last time all the classified runners finished on the lead lap was at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix.

However, this was one instance where a Safety Car allowed lapped cars to join the lead lap. The official lap chart (PDF) reminds us that there was indeed lapped traffic during the race.

So it looks like I may be right in my hunch that Badoer is the only person ever to finish in last place, yet not have been lapped during the race. So does anyone know if Badoer’s achievement truly is a first? I would love to know.

As ever, Keith at F1 Fanatic provides us with a list of interesting facts about the race. I wonder if Badoer’s fast last place is one to add to that list.

It can’t be called a complete shock. It had become very fashionable in F1 circles to say something like, “I am sure one or two or all of BMW, Renault and Toyota will pull out of F1 this season.” But the rumours were particularly centred on Renault and Toyota, and BMW were probably widely considered to be the team out of those three with the most stable future.

That made BMW’s exit a shock. In a way, though, it is not a surprise. It was well known that when BMW bought the Sauber team back in 2005, they set themselves very ambitious targets that were to be met within a matter of a few years. This was the basis for the team’s famously methodical (although too-clinical-for-some) gradual, targets-based approach.

So while it may seem a bit of an over-reaction for BMW to pull out so suddenly, it’s worth remembering that this was the year when they were supposed to be fighting for the championship (or regular wins, as the target appeared to become more recently). Instead they have one of the slowest cars in the field. Worse still, unlike with Honda in 2008, BMW fully expected to be fighting for the championship. They thought they had a great car.

Instead, 2009 has been a complete disaster for them. They put too much faith in their kers, a device which they thought would give them an advantage but proved to be anything but. Over the winter they were the only team favouring kers, but it turns out that Mercedes have a much better one while BMW’s is so useless that they will never use it again.

Now it seems as though the teams have agreed among themselves not to use kers for next season. Such technologies appeared to be a major motivation for BMW’s involvement in Formula 1. It was certainly an aspect they played up in their marketing.

Unfortunately, the way the FIA introduced kers to Formula 1 was a complete botch-job. Kers has been left with a seriously bad reputation, even though McLaren-Mercedes have now managed to make it work for them. Whatever happens to kers in the short term, it will be around for the long term. That was certainly the view of Williams Technical Director Sam Michael when he spoke to bloggers last week.

Perhaps as a result of focusing on kers, BMW’s F1.09 car is not up to the job. It must count as one of the biggest disappointments of the season. Even though Ferrari and McLaren also started the season poorly, those teams have fought their way back to the front. Meanwhile, BMW only seem to have fallen further away from the front as the season has progressed.

During the Hungarian GP weekend, Mario Theissen claimed that BMW had found the cause of the problems that had struck their car and that they would soon see an improvement in performance. The BBC’s commentators, Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle, were both sceptical as they commented on BMW during the race. Legard said that if they think they’ve got a handle on the problem, they’ve got the wrong handle. Meanwhile, Brundle said that BMW’s statements about their performance sounded like PR-speak.

It is highly unlike BMW, and especially Mario Theissen, to make positive statements if they cannot back it up with evidence. Yet that was what they appeared to do when they said they knew what their problems were, while still qualifying 16th and 19th in a grid of twenty cars.

It wasn’t the only uncharacteristic behaviour from BMW over the weekend. Robert Kubica’s team radio transmissions on Friday have become famous for exhibiting the Pole’s grumpy and fussy attitude. He constantly complains about his car, even when it is setting fast times. Yet during practice in Hungary he actually sounded happy about his car. It was very unusual indeed.

Could it be that the BMW Sauber F1 team knew what was coming? Perhaps their statements about how good their car was becoming were a last-ditch attempt to convince the bosses that an improvement in fortunes was imminent. Obviously it convinced no-one.

Nevertheless, the BMW board deny that their exit from F1 is a kneejerk reaction to this season’s poor performances, with Klaus Draeger saying it was nothing to do with “our current performance or the general economic situation.” But it was obviously on his mind, as he saw fit to mention that, “It only took us three years to establish ourselves as a top team with the BMW Sauber F1 Team. Unfortunately, we were unable to meet expectations in the current season.”

It would be odd, however, for BMW to pull out on the basis of one disappointing season. BMW’s first season on 2006 was a solid start, and with the first car to be fully developed under BMW’s management they firmly established themselves as “best of the rest” behind Ferrari and McLaren. They remained so in 2008, bagging an impressive win in Canada along the way. Before the BMW partnership, Sauber were never so competitive.

Obviously, the fact that the FIA is asking all teams to commit to Formula 1 until 2012 by signing the Concorde Agreement imminently was a crunch moment. We have all seen how a year, or even a few months, is a very long time in the volatile worlds of both F1 politics and the car manufacturing industry. It should be no surprise that, without a crystal ball, a company should be unwilling to make promises it is unsure it will be able to make. You almost sense that this was a deliberate ploy by the FIA to get a high-profile scalp, a theory made all the more likely by the FIA’s highly undignified “I-told-you-so” press release.

As has been widely noted, BMW’s press release is itself written largely in corporate jargon that seeks to hide the real reasons for BMW’s exit. My reading is that they would rather focus on motor sports where they can develop technology, particularly technology which is more road relevant. The political issues surrounding kers will therefore have not helped persuade BMW to stay.

It is not as though BMW wants to distance itself from the FIA either. It has pledged to stay in WTCC, which is an even worse example of FIA mismanagement.

But clearly talk of cost cutting or budget capping or resource restriction, whatever it’s called these days, is not the vision of F1 BMW had for the future. It was prepared to negotiate until the end. But come crunch time, with the Concorde Agreement sitting on the table waiting for the signature, BMW obviously found that the settlement was not what they wanted.

It goes without saying that I deeply hope that Felipe Massa makes a full recovery, and that it won’t be too long before he is racing again.

I was shaking during qualifying as news of what had happened to Massa had emerged. I don’t think I have ever felt that bad in all the time I have been watching Formula 1 since 1995, although Robert Kubica’s accident at Montreal in 2007 came close to that feeling.

I said last week following the death of Henry Surtees that the greatest risk that faces racing drivers is not having a heavy impact with a wall, but being hit by a wheel. This week we must extend that to debris in general. The spring that fell off Rubens Barrichello’s car is said to have weighed around a kilogram, not the sort of thing you want to be approaching at upwards of 160mph. Meanwhile, his car’s heavy impact with the tyre barrier does not appear to have caused or exacerbated any serious injury.

Martin Brundle has rightly pointed out that the term “freak accident” is inappropriate in motorsport. When you are travelling at speeds regularly approaching 200mph, there is only so much you can ever do to make it safe.

But there is no doubting that Felipe Massa was extraordinarily unlucky. The part that failed on the Brawn had never failed before. The spring then bounced around for four seconds, before just happening to be in exactly the right position to hit Massa’s helmet. You couldn’t aim it like that if you tried. Had Massa arrived a second earlier or later, or been a few inches further to the right, we probably would never have known about the spring flying around on the track.

That this should have happened just six days after the death of Henry Surtees adds further to the sense of tragedy. When you have one tragic accident it might be easy to dismiss it as a freak one-off, but to have two similar incidents in close succession rings alarm bells. Rubens Barrichello has compared this week to Imola 1994.

There will be a renewed look at safety, which I sense has taken a back seat since cost cutting became the more fashionable cause. Many are asking, is it time for Formula 1 to consider closed cockpits? The debate has been started by Ross Brawn, F1 Fanatic and Checkpoint 10. But there are no easy answers. This weekend during an IndyCar race we saw a perfect demonstration of the extra dangers that a closed cockpit may create, when Tony Kanaan’s car caught fire following a refuelling problem.

Going back to Felipe Massa, ever since the second he hit the tyre barrier the reports that have come out have been conflicting and confusing. Thankfully, the latest news appears to be positive. Let us hope that Massa will make a full and speedy recovery.

Forza Felipe.

But the top five is really, really tough to get right. I keep on changing my mind, juggling the positions even as I write this post. Really, the number 1 position could be justified for all of these drivers. To put one of them fifth feels just wrong. But that is what I have to do.

5. Sebastian Vettel (11; 12)

I was very tempted to place Vettel higher than this, perhaps even in 2nd place. In the end, I think the young German still has more to prove before he can be that high. But there can be little doubt that Vettel will climb up these rankings next year.

In many ways, Sebastian Vettel’s first full season is just as impressive as Lewis Hamilton’s. After all, the Toro Rosso, while clearly a handy car in the right circumstances, is no McLaren. Mind you, it was an inauspicious start to the season, which saw him retire from four races on the trot, mostly as a result of accidents. But when the new Toro Rosso chassis started racing, things started to improve. Before long the car was well and truly in the groove, and Vettel rose to the occasion and performed magnificently on occasion.

The highlight was, of course, his unbelievable victory at the Italian Grand Prix. When he grabbed pole position in torrential conditions, it was a clear signal of his talent. But he floored the world by almost flawlessly taking practically a pole-to-flag victory in conditions that were far from easy.

Monza was a high watermark for the promising youngster, and it has to be said there were a few occasions where he didn’t shine nearly so brightly. But consistency will come with experience, and it is surely a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’, Sebastian Vettel finds himself in with a shout of winning the Championship one day. Whether he will achieve that in next year’s Red Bull car is debatable, but there is no doubt that they have a major star on their hands.

4. Felipe Massa (5; 5)

I can scarcely believe that I have had to place a title contender in 4th position. What makes this all the more flabbergasting is the fact that Massa has undoubtedly raised his game, stepped up to the plate and shown that he is capable of performing at the sharp end of the grid more or less throughout the season. Few drivers can have improved their reputation so much in such a short period of time.

After a rather shaky start to the season that raised questions about the Brazilian’s ability to drive without traction control, Massa withstood the pressure and ultimately passed the test as convincingly as he could have.

Strong results at Bahrain, Spain and Turkey were perhaps not expected, but they did little to dissolve the widespread scepticism about his driving abilities. What impressed were his good drives at Monaco, France and Canada, where he pulled off one of the most amazing overtaking manoeuvres I have ever seen — an audacious double-move on Rubens Barrichello and Heikki Kovalainen.

The British Grand Prix was a major disappointment, with a decidedly sluggish pace at the back of the field complemented with no fewer than six spins. This cast doubts on Massa’s abilities in the wet, not helped by another mediocre result in damp Monza. However, in fairness, it appears as though the Ferrari was a particularly poor car for rainy conditions, as Räikkönen wasn’t exactly a star in the wet this year either. Aside from those wet races, Massa’s only other poor results came as a result of Ferrari foul-ups in Hungary and Singapore that cost him a sackful of points.

Massa was a true star of this season. He may not have had a perfect season, but no-one can really say that. His behaviour after the Brazilian Grand Prix was worth a championship in itself, and it is a shame that I am unable to place him higher than 4th.

3. Lewis Hamilton (3; 3)

Well, Lewis Hamilton did it. He won the Drivers’ Championship in only his second year, becoming the youngest ever World Champion. I wouldn’t doubt he deserved it. Overall, Hamilton did a great job this season, and a much more mature, conservative, restrained approach eventually helped deliver the goods — even though it almost looked like it was too conservative until the final corner!

However, a flawless year it was not. A number of lapses in concentration cost Hamilton dearly a few times during the season. There was the infamous crash with Fernando Alonso in Bahrain, when Hamilton got spooked as a result of being in the midfield. He was the main protagonist in the pitlane pile-up in Montreal, when he lost concentration and failed to notice a red light — an almost unforgivable error. Meanwhile, a highly erratic performance at Fuji raised question marks about the Brit’s ability to stay cool under pressure.

However, ultimately Hamilton was able to come up with the goods, and for that you have to take your hat off to him. A particularly strong point of the season was a dominant couple of races at Silverstone and Hockenheim. His drive at the British Grand Prix was among the most dominant I have seen since I started watching F1 in the mid-1990s. Meanwhile, his fightback from a compromised position in Germany as a result of a terrible strategy decision by McLaren was, dare I say it, Schumacher-esque. I wouldn’t say Hamilton is the rounded driver that Schumacher was, but with time that could well come.

2. Robert Kubica (1; 9)

Other drivers may have attracted spectators’ attention with glitzier, showier performances. Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel all shone in flamboyant ways. But Robert Kubica arguably did the most solid job of all the drivers in the entire grid.

Most of the other drivers on the grid also had a tendency to make mistakes. 2008 will be remembered for a lot of things, but flawless drives will not be one of them. However, Robert Kubica made very few mistakes throughout the season. Indeed, I cannot think of any real driver errors by Kubica, except for a spin in treacherous conditions at Silverstone.

In the process, he took a stunning — if slightly lucky — win at Montreal. And despite the fact that the BMW Sauber car clearly fell behind other cars in terms of development as the season went on, the Pole continued to punch above his weight. Most notably, Kubica started the Japanese Grand Prix extremely strongly until Fernando Alonso in the superior Renault car took him during the first round of pitstops.

Of course, at the end of the season the challenge of contending for the Championship proved too much for the Kubica-BMW combination. Fingers will always be pointed at the team’s decision to stop development of the car in order to focus on the 2009 effort. Only time will tell whether that was the right decision or not. But in the meantime, Kubica had a clutch of extremely strong results, but just one win. And even though he was always near the top, he never felt like a real Championship contender.

1. Fernando Alonso (8; 2)

I have long believed that Fernando Alonso is the best driver on the grid since Michael Schumacher retired. Beforehand, I may have been in a minority. People would have been more likely to cite Kimi Räikkönen or, latterly, Lewis Hamilton. However, I believe that the events of 2008 vindicate my belief, despite the fact that in terms of results 2008 was actually comparatively poor for the Spaniard.

The Renault car was clearly pretty poor when the season began. And as it became clear that Renault’s engine was falling behind in terms of development, things became even worse. It was difficult to see where improvement was going to come, and Alonso hit a mid-season slump. This was encapsulated by the fact that his team mate Nelsinho Piquet managed to grab an excellent 2nd place at Hockenheim. At that point, Alonso’s best result had been 4th at an attrition-hit Australian GP.

However, that very race was the turning point of Alonso’s season. From then on, he never finished lower than 4th, with the exception of the European Grand Prix at Valencia where Kazuki Nakajima put paid to his race before he had even completed a lap. In the last eight races of the season, Alonso scored more points than anyone else.

The Renault resurgence was completed with back-to-back wins in Singapore and Fuji. The Singapore victory did have an element of luck to it, but was no less remarkable for it. This was a sign that Renault and Alonso were back on the map. When it was followed up by a fluke-free victory in Fuji, we knew it was for real.

Alonso’s resurgence can partly be put down to Renault’s turnaround. Amazingly, Alonso seems to have avoided Renault’s worst season of recent years, 2007. Dare I say it, Renault are perhaps six tenths faster than last season. But even though the car has improved, Alonso has almost always retained his authority over his team mate Nelsinho Piquet. Alonso beat his “junior” team mate in all 18 qualifying sessions. No other driver on the grid can say that.

What a travesty that Alonso has missed out on the World Championship for two seasons in a row. The new regulations will mix things up a lot, but who is to say that Renault will be particularly disadvantaged? I think Alonso is overdue another title.

As before, the first number in brackets refers to their position in my mid-season rankings, and the second number is their position in last year’s end-of-season ranking.

11. Heikki Kovalainen (9; 6)

I have found myself becoming increasingly disillusioned with Heikki Kovalainen. Not so long ago he looked like a star of the future. Now I think Kovalainen simply does not know how to win a race. His one and only victory came in Hungary — but he did not deserve it, having inherited P1 as a result of Felipe Massa’s engine expiry.

Kovalainen may well complain that the McLaren team has focussed all of its efforts on Lewis Hamilton, particularly when it came to fuel loads in qualifying. That is true. But even taking this into account, I can’t help feeling that Kovalainen has been a major disappointment this season. In what was arguably the fastest car on the grid, Kovalainen finished just 7th in the Drivers Championship, behind both Ferraris, both BMWs and a Reanult. You can’t lie all of that at the door of having one or two laps extra fuel on board during qualifying.

Most of all, I feel that Kovalainen simply does not have that extra drive that it takes to win a race. I struggle to think of many moments during the season when I was particularly impressed with him. Indeed, I can think of a number of blunders — among them the moment during the Australian GP when he gifted Fernando Alonso a position by accidentally hitting the pitlane speed limiter at the start of the main straight. And he was totally hoodwinked by better drivers at least twice during the season. Double-overtakes initiated by Massa in Canada and Heidfeld at Silverstone particularly stick in my mind.

10. Jarno Trulli (7; 17)

This time last year I had almost totally written off Jarno Trulli. Having achieved little throughout his F1 career, he appeared consigned to midfield anonymity, with his greatest legacy to the sport remaining the dreaded Trulli Train.

However, I have to say that I have been quite impressed with Trulli this season. He appears to have made a mini-resurgence. Although he will never be able to count himself among the very best drivers on the grid, he has scored a number of impressive results this season.

A lot of this may be down to the improved Toyota car. But even so, I think there have been a number of times this season when Trulli has excelled, particularly when he finished 3rd at the French Grand Prix.

9. Mark Webber (4; 10)

The first half of the season in particular was a very strong one for Mark Webber. The Australian has been hit by far more than his fair share of bad luck throughout his career, but at the start of this season, with a competitive Red Bull car underneath him, it finally looked like things were going his way. From Malaysia through to Monaco, Webber scored five points finishes in a row, a career record.

Unfortunately, mid-way through the season his Renault-powered Red Bull car lost much of its advantage and the second half of the season returned far less, with just a handful of 8th place finishes. At least he can say he totally outclassed his team mate David Coulthard this season.

8. Timo Glock (16; -)

After a slightly underwhelming start to the season, Timo Glock finally began to fulfil his promise more towards the end. The first sign of life came with a 4th place finish in Canada, a very strong result at a tricky circuit.

A huge crash at Hockenheim was a worrying moment, but from then on Glock has finished in the points more often than he hasn’t. A second place at Hungary, immediately after the German GP, was a particular high point. And his 4th place finish at Singapore is certainly not to be sniffed at either.

Glock appears this high on my list mostly as a result of the second half of his season. After his abortive first shot at F1 at the struggling Jordan team way back in 2004 — when, to be frank, he wasn’t ready — Glock has had a second spell as a rookie. Now the 2007 GP2 Champion looks set to have a creditable career in motor racing’s top flight.

7. Kimi Räikkönen (2; 1)

Kimi Räikkönen’s oddly scruffy season has been widely-commented on. The season started off reasonably strongly, with four podiums in the first five races, including two wins. From that point onwards, though, it all came unstuck thanks to a combination of horrendously bad luck and unusually unfocused driving.

The first warning sign came with a dire performance during the Monaco Grand Prix, culminating in a hugely unpopular crash into Adrian Sutil. Then came a run of bad luck. He was taken out of the Canadian Grand Prix after Lewis Hamilton crashed into him in the pitlane. Then an unusual exhaust failure put paid to his hopes for a win in France. In the following race in Britain, his Ferrari struggled in the wet conditions. At Valencia he left the pitlane with the fuel hose still attached. As if that wasn’t enough, his engine blew a few laps later.

Amid this run of bad luck, the Finn lacked focus, appearing to lose his motivation. The only stand-out performance was in Belgium, and he even ended that race by crashing. A number of needless mistakes ensured that World Champion was in no shape to defend his title.

6. Nick Heidfeld (6; 4)

Unquestionably, Nick Heidfeld struggled this season in comparison to his BMW team mate. The German did particularly poorly in qualifying, with the finger of blame pointed at the difficult of getting heat into the tyres. To Heidfeld’s immense credit, he worked hard on fixing this problem and things very much began to look up in the second half of the season.

Even so, when you look at Heidfeld’s results, even at the start of the season they are extremely impressive. Four 2nd place finishes and a clutch of strong points finishes ensured that Heidfeld finished a creditable 6th in the Drivers’ Championship. The only reason Heidfeld’s season felt underwhelming was because his team mate was even better…

Now, normally such an announcement wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. Ever since I started watching Formula 1 in the mid-1990s, I have watched teams and manufacturers come and go on a regular basis.

I saw Renault withdraw from the sport as engine supplier to Williams and Benetton in 1997, only to return as a fully-fledged constructor when they bought the Benetton team just a few years later in 2000. Ford came to the party when they bought the Stewart team in 1999, only to leave the sport entirely a few years later in 2004. Peugeot left the sport in a huff at their own lack of success in 2000, having only joined the circus in 1994.

I learnt quickly, therefore, that manufacturers’ interest in F1 is almost always transient. For every Mercedes that appears fully committed, there are a handful of Renaults and Hondas who will enter and exit the sport according to the wind direction.

Honda’s announcement was shocking partly because of its suddenness. The speed with which the decision was taken is made clear when you read James Allen’s account. There is also the fact that at the start of this year Honda owned not one but two F1 teams. Now they have dramatically trimmed right back to zero, and will not even offer an engine supply to any teams next season.

There is also the fact that Honda were massive spenders in F1. This appeared to signify a magnificent commitment to the sport, despite the relative lack of success. But the flipside of this is that it made Honda an absolute laughing stock within the sport.

The huge amount of money the Honda F1 team spent also made it more vulnerable to the red pen of the bosses. No other manufacturer will save as much money by axing their F1 team. It may be true that Honda’s withdrawal is for political reasons, as former BAR-Honda driver Jacques Villeneuve posits. But it is Honda’s huge costs, coupled with the utter lack of success, that made it vulnerable to such political manoeuvring.

As such, the withdrawal of Honda is not such a shock when you think about it, even though I wouldn’t have predicted it. Moreover, Honda is not a fixture of Formula 1 like Ferrari, or even Mercedes. The current incarnation of the Honda F1 project only got the nod in 1998, and even then it was quickly reigned in to become a mere engine supply deal with BAR. Honda bought the team when tobacco sponsorship left the sport just a few years ago. Despite having run a team in the 1960s, and the huge success of the corporation as an engine supplier in the 1980s, an F1 institution it is not.

What makes people worried, though, is the economic climate in which this news has come. Whereas Ford found a buyer for Jaguar Racing easily enough in Red Bull in 2003, buyers for Honda will be thin on the ground due to the lack of credit that will be available to interested parties.

Next season’s Formula 1 calendar has already lost two races — Canada and France — and China and both German circuits currently in use have recently warned that they may not hold races for much longer. Again, it all comes down to money, with circuit owners being unable or unwilling to pay Bernie Ecclestone’s fast-increasing costs of staging a grand prix at the same time as attendances are tumbling.

Meanwhile, car sales are in freefall on a global scale, with a number of large car manufacturers seemingly in serious financial danger unless drastic action is taken. In the backdrop of these events, participation in motorsports looks like an extravagance. Even if the old “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” mantra holds true in normal times, right now western consumers are tightening their belts meaning that any increase in sales may be too small to be justifiable.

As such, Honda’s withdrawal is seen as just another sign that Formula 1 faces a crisis. We have a slimmed-down calendar that relies increasingly on flyaway races away from the sport’s European heartland to help pay CVC’s bills, and no races in the vitally important North American market for the first time in five decades.

Now there is a slimmed-down grid of just 18 cars — a number that is getting smaller. When you consider that the 2008 season was originally destined to contain 24 entries, F1 has essentially lost a quarter of its teams in a matter of months. Formula 1 is beginning to look like a shadow of its former self.

Now the question everyone is asking is, “who is next?” Initially the finger pointed at Toyota. Many pointed out that Toyota are only really in F1 because Honda were there. Toyota are also, like Honda, huge spenders with little to show for it.

But Toyota quickly put the lid on the speculation by issuing a statement that appeared to affirm their commitment to F1 — although, as James Allen pointed out, the word “currently” in front of “committed” looks like a carefully worded way to give them an easy exit should things take a turn for the worse. After all, if Honda’s decision was so sudden, why would a decision from Toyota not be?

BMW and Mercedes-Benz have both also affirmed their commitment to F1. But one manufacturer has spoken with a deafening silence.

I always suspected that the first manufacturer to go would be Renault. Its CEO, Carlos Ghosn, is said to be sceptical of motorsport participation, and there has been a question mark over the team’s future ever since he joined Renault in 2005. Besides which, Renault’s history in F1 has shown that it will come and go as it pleases.

Even though some news websites have reported that Renault is committed to F1, I have seen no quotes which the other manufacturers have been happy enough to provide. Was the media palmed off with a stock answer from a Renault spokesperson?

Meanwhile, rumours circulate around Red Bull. Dietrich Mateschitz recently re-bought Gerhard Berger’s 50% stake in Toro Rosso, but many think he did this so that he could sell it more easily. But with billions to play with and no car sales to drop off a cliff, I see little reason why he would pull the plug on both teams.

Williams has been perceived to be in a vulnerable position for a few years now. It is the last brave privateer team that is in it not to sell cars and not to sell drinks, but purely for the love of racing. It has been hit hard, but it doesn’t have to be seen to be reducing costs for political reasons like the manufacturers have to. Ironically, Williams may be safer than some of the manufacturers now.

We will just have to wait and see. It’s clear that Formula 1 is currently undergoing a massive change. Could the ground be being laid for a return to a privateer era? If so, you won’t find me complaining too much, no matter how painful the current events are in the medium-term.