Pirelli’s tyres held up for a change, meaning genuinely good racing through strategy, not cartoon-style degredation. The DRS is little use round here too, meaning it had little effect.

A beautiful move on Schumacher

DRS did play a role. But even so, passing into Sainte Dévote requires a massive pair, whether you have DRS or not. And that is just what Lewis Hamilton did. He pulled off a stunning move on Michael Schumacher that brilliantly caught the veteran off guard.

It was brave, but it was also perfectly judged. Both gave each other racing room. It was just the sort of passing that we want to see in F1.

Hamilton loses the plot against Massa and Maldonado

But sadly it went pear-shaped from there. It seems as though, after completing the move of the season, he seemed to believe he was invincible.

An over-ambitious move on Felipe Massa at the Lowes hairpin was a poor misjudgement. His drive-through penalty echoed that handed out to Paul di Resta who made a similar error.

Having damaged the Ferrari, Hamilton then opted to overtake Massa in the tunnel. It is not news that there is only one line through the dangerous and high-speed tunnel. Hamilton’s move forced the Brazilian onto the marbles and ultimately the barrier.

Then after the re-start, he attempted to repeat the move he made near the start on Schumacher. This time his target was Pastor Maldonado, but unfortunately this time target was meant in the literal sense. Hamilton barged straight into Maldonado, in the sort of move that only really belongs in a touring car race, if it even belongs there.

Post-race petulance

Hamilton’s excuse? It can be paraphrased: “Well, at least I was trying to race.”

I’m not buying that. There was plenty of excellent overtaking going on during the Monaco Grand Prix that didn’t involve punting others off. There were lots of examples of aggressive, but clean racing.

Hamilton managed it himself early on against Schumacher. But there was Schumacher’s move on Rosberg. Barrichello’s on Schumacher. Massa and Maldonado against Rosberg. Clean racing is possible, even at Monaco — no contact required. Check out the excellent highlights video at Axis of Oversteer to see them all.

But Hamilton couldn’t hold his hands up and admit that he had a bad race. He instead chose to question why he had been called to see the stewards at five out of the six races this season so far.

Here is a clue. Don’t cause three crashes in one race. Then you might not get hauled in front of the stewards. As it is, Hamilton is lucky not to have got the black flag for driving dangerously and ending the race of two other drivers.

Instead, Hamilton chose to “joke” that “maybe it’s because I’m black”.

A reminder of why Hamilton is so divisive

It’s too easy to blame the stewards. Worryingly, Hamilton seems to genuinely believe that he should be untouchable — that he can get away with whatever he wants.

Paul di Resta caused an accident, got penalised, and held his hands up after the race. He admitted that he made a rookie error, that he needs to learn from it and improve for next time.

For Lewis Hamilton? As Martin Brundle said in the BBC’s post-race F1 forum, the problem with Hamilton is that it’s always someone else’s fault. He has never been able to accept his mistakes, and he is always the first one to get straight on the radio and whine about non-existant instances of bad driving he has seen from other drivers.

All-in-all, this weekend has been a reminder of what made Lewis Hamilton such a divisive figure when he burst onto the scene in 2007. Back then his cockiness grated, but he was young and arrogant. In that sense, maybe it could be understood.

In more recent years, he seemed to have mellowed. He deserved to win his championship in 2008. Ever since he has done a good job at McLaren, and has managed to keep the lid on his post-race outbursts, even if he is quick to get on the radio to whine during the race.

But Monaco brought it all back to square one.

And it was such a fine start to the race as well. If he’d just left it there, his original, clean move on Schumacher would probably have ended up being my pass of the season. As it is, I have been left angered by the cockiness of a driver that really ought to know better by now.

Last week when I saw that a German website had written about this, I prepared a simple but telling graph looking at the form of Williams over the years. But I refrained from publishing it in case my conclusions were overly harsh.

But today the team’s technical director Sam Michael has come out and said for himself that the recent performance of Williams is not good enough.

What I would not be happy with doing would be not changing anything – even myself. Even if everyone said everything is perfect, I know it is not. So, I am not happy with the job that we have done as a group. I would review that anyway – including myself. I don’t exclude myself from any of that.

I, as technical director, have chosen the technical team that works for me… They are all people that I have chosen to put in those positions, so if it doesn’t work then it is my responsibility.

This is refreshing honesty. It is no secret that Williams’s form has been disappointing in the last few years. But it has never been properly confronted.

In the light of Sam Michael’s comments, here is the graph. It tracks the Constructors’ Championship positions of Williams throughout its 32 years in Formula 1. Alongside the annual positions, I have added a five-year rolling average to allow us to see the longer term trends.

It is well-known that Williams has always been a highly successful grand prix team. The 1980s were a bit of a rollercoaster. The team mixed hugely successful years with a few more disappointing years. Overall, the trend has been for the team to hover around 3rd place on average.

Then came the mid-1990s, when Williams were truly dominant. This was the period where Adrian Newey was on board. It is almost impossible for the five-year trend to get any higher, as the team strung together an incredible seven consecutive top-two finishes.

It is no secret that Williams have never dominated in this way ever since Adrian Newey left in 1997. But looking at the trend, Williams continued to average around 3rd place in the Constructors’ Championship — if anything, still slightly better than the pre-Adrian Newey years. But in the middle of the 2000s, it begins to change for the worse — dramatically.

In fact, if you look at the trendline, with no other knowledge I think you could actually guess when Sam Michael became technical director. In case you haven’t spotted it, I have added a subtle hint that pinpoints the year.

This could well be a harsh assessment. Sam Michael seems to be well respected among his colleagues at Williams. But from the outside, it has long perplexed me why there hasn’t been more of a question mark over Sam Michael’s role.

The team has made many changes in recent years. They have switched engine manufacturers from BMW to Cosworth via Toyota. They have brought on board hugely experienced drivers (Alexander Wurz, Rubens Barrichello) along with promising rookies (Nico Rosberg, Nico Hülkenberg). And there have been lots of changes behind the scenes with the operation of the business. None of these changes have done the trick.

Now, with Williams enduring their worst start to an F1 season since their very first one in 1978, it is crunch time. They need to face up to their issues properly.

We know the problem is not money. After all, the team keeps telling us they have no money worries whatsoever!

Currently the team languishes in 10th place in the Constructors’ Championship, behind Lotus, a team that is not yet two years old. Indeed, in China, Pastor Maldonado was beaten fair and square by Heikki Kovalainen in the Lotus.

Amazingly, this position is up from the situation after Malaysia, when the team was also behind Virgin in the Constructors’ Championship. Virgin is another team looking carefully at its technical set-up, as Nick Wirth’s CFD-only approach fails to prove its worth.

Here, just for fun, is the graph of Williams’s Constructors’ Championship positions with their current 10th place for 2011 added.

During the Chinese Grand Prix we saw Jaime Alguersuari’s right rear wheel roll itself off the car soon after a pitstop. It flew off towards marshals, photographers and other bystanders, while Vitantonio Liuzzi took to the inside to avoiding being hit while he passed the stricken Toro Rosso.

Top F1 journalist Adam Cooper reported on Twitter that the wheel came dangerously to hitting him:

# Hoping to bump into @squire3 [Jaime Alguersuari] tonight after his STR wheel nearly killed me! Luckily he missed…

# I was behind an opening in the debris fence and hit on the next secition, about 2m away, head height. Bit scary…

# Here’s the wheel that Jaime Alguersuari @squire3 tried to kill me with! Scared the #### out of me… http://twitpic.com/4m224g

For me, loose wheels are easily the most dangerous thing in F1 today. When two marshals died in he space of a few races just over a decade ago, they were both as a result of flying wheels. Stronger wheel tethers were introduced after those incidents, but these do no good if the wheel is not properly attached to the car in the first place.

With the emphasis on tyre changes now at the very forefront of every race, it is no surprise that teams have been looking to save time in this area. Mercedes have been particularly inventive, developing a wheel nut that is attached to the wheel itself.

But there have been lot of wheels coming off since the start of 2010, clearly as a result of not having been attached properly in the first place. Robert Kubica’s wheel detached after a few laps of the Japanese Grand Prix.

Mercedes also had a few wheel failures last year. Among these was the truly scary moment in Hungary when Nico Rosberg’s wheel came off the pitlane, causing all sorts of havoc as it bounced and rolled around while several dozen mechanics were busy working.

It is high time this was nipped in the bud. I am sure the teams would take more care in their pitstops if a real penalty was applied. This isn’t a sporting issue. It is a safety issue, and any teams that are not attaching wheels securely enough should face a ban.

Flying wheels are not just putting drivers at risk. They are putting marshalls and mechanics at risk. But worst of all they are putting spectators at risk.

Renault were suspended in 2009 after Fernando Alonso’s wheel came off in Hungary that year. However, the suspension was lifted. That was fine. Then, it was a one-off incident — in the refueling era there is little to suggest that Renault were cutting corners.

But today, the loose wheel problem is truly endemic. It must be stopped.

I remember Martin Brundle once describing how the fact that he was the oldest driver in the 1996 season caught up with him and began to define him as a driver. Despite having a reasonable season, by the following year he had switched to his new career in broadcasting.

Meanwhile, David Coulthard’s final season in F1 was littered with clumsy accidents. Didn’t his first corner coming-together in the final race of 2008 just sum up his season?

Now it looks like it might be Rubens Barrichello’s turn to have a rusty final season. Certainly, his Australian Grand Prix weekend was about as error-strewn as it gets these days.

There was an off during Practice 2. A further spin in Qualifying 2 ended his session early, cementing 17th slot on the grid.

Then on lap one of the race he went off at turn 4. Some time later, he steamed into Nico Rosberg at the same corner. It looked suspciously like a ridiculously optimistic overtaking move that was only ever going to go wrong. But Barrichello later blamed his tyres. This sounds like a tall tale to me.

Rubens Barrichello is not the oldest driver on the grid this year. That accolade falls to Michael Schumacher, who is probably seen by most as a separate case. Schumacher faces his own kind of pressure — the over-the-hill seven times champion who should have stayed in retirement while his reputation was still in tact.

Beyond that, Barrichello is the stand-out old guy in F1. He certainly has the longevity and experience in F1 that no-one else has. He has started a truly staggering 300 grands prix. That is an astonishing 36% of all Formula 1 grands prix that have ever been held! But the experience doesn’t seem to be doing him much good at the moment.

I hope it doesn’t turn out to be the case. It’s impossible not to have a soft spot for the Brazilian. But I fear already that he may be having his “Coulthard year”.

You can read part 1 of my mid-season rankings, where I assess the bottom half of the grid.

6. Force India

Force India have come along way in the past couple of years. From being perennial tail-enders, they are now solid midfield runners and can regularly expect to beat the likes of Williams, BMW Sauber and Toro Rosso. Vijay Mallya has succeeded where Alex Schnaider and Spyker failed.

A question mark remains over the driver lineup. I still find Adrian Sutil rather unimpressive. In his fourth season, surely we should be seeing more. And Vitantonio Liuzzi, while showing flashes of excellence, has generally failed to live up to expectations.

Force India also need to be careful that their progress up the grid does not come to a shuddering halt, with a mass exodus of their technical team having occurred this year. James Key has moved to assist in Sauber’s resurrection, while Mike Gascoyne has poached some of his ex-Force India colleagues to join him at Lotus. Looking at the five teams that are ahead of Force India in the Constructors’ Championship, it is difficult to see how they can make much more progress.

5. Mercedes

It hasn’t quite gone to plan for Mercedes. Seemingly fed up with McLaren, the manufacturer opted to buy the Brawn team that was so stunningly successful last season. Then, in a crass marketing stunt, they signed Michael Schumacher with much fanfare. Well, it’s all been a bit of a damp squib.

The car has not met up to expectations, and I have heard rumours that Ross Brawn is not too happy with the way Mercedes run the show (who knows if there is truth in that though).

For my money, Mercedes must have the worst driver line-up with the possible exception of Sauber. Nico Rosberg is relatively well rated. But let us face it — we all know there is still a question mark as to how good he really is. Meanwhile, it was clear to me from the very start that Michael Schumacher would be rusty, and his performances has fully justified my view.

It would have been much better for both Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher if a more sensible driver was chosen. Schumacher could have kept his dignity in retirement; Rosberg could have learnt from a genuinely solid and reliable barometer. Someone like Nick Heidfeld, perhaps. Or, you know, Jenson Button or Rubens Barrichello…

4. Ferrari

It has similarly come apart for Ferrari. Although they showed promise at the start of the season, with a win in Bahrain (even if they didn’t quite have the outright pace). But since then the story has been one of a slow but steady decline as the season has progressed, as Ferrari have failed to keep up the pace of development, and as the Championship has increasingly focussed on Red Bull and McLaren whose cars are far superior.

The drivers have to take their fair share of the blame too. Fernando Alonso has been making many more mistakes than usual, and he is not as enjoyable to watch as he used to be. A worrying development for the person I consider to be the best driver of the past decade. Meanwhile, after a relatively bright start in Bahrain, Felipe Massa has seemed off-colour for most of the season.

3. Renault

They may be fifth in the Constructors’ Championship, and, yes, they have the fifth fastest car. But I have elevated Renault in my rankings because it is an astonishing comeback.

It is incredible to think that just a month ago, the Renault F1 Team was mired in the quite unsavoury scandal that became known as ‘crashgate’. Having lost its sponsors and its star driver in addition to its team principal and technical director, you would expect 2010 to be a rebuilding year for Renault.

But the rebuild was swift. The team has rebranded to focus on its racing heritage, feeling less like the team that descended from Benetton. It has a steady new boss in the shape of Eric Boullier, who I think is doing a fantastic job. And its new star driver, Robert Kubica, looks set to become the team’s long-term centrepiece.

Kubica is doing really well just now and seems happy — by his standards at least! Vitaly Petrov is a fair bit off his pace, but he has not disgraced himself in my view. It should be remembered that Petrov is the only rookie among even the midfield teams, never mind front-running teams — so he should be given a bit of room to breathe and develop.

2. Red Bull

Red Bull should be number 1 on this list. This ought to be their year. They came out this season with easily the fastest car. Their car is still easily the fastest car. They have two of the best drivers on the grid.

Unfortunately, the last little bit — professionalism, cohesion, restraint — that takes all these ingredients and turns an operation into a championship winning Formula 1 team is missing. If it isn’t some kind of reliability problem, it is a strategy goof, or the mother of all mismanagements.

Just now, Red Bull remind me of where McLaren were at a few years ago. Unable to control team mates. Bizarre strategy calls. Constantly walking into traps that they set up for themselves. Somehow conspiring to hoof it over the bar in the face of an open goal.

The statistics illustrate it well. Out of ten races, Red Bull have had nine pole positions, but have had just five wins. They lag behind McLaren in both championships. For a team that has what is probably comfortably the quickest car, Red Bull have managed to immensely stuff it up so far.

1. McLaren

McLaren have not been without their troubles this season. At the start of the season, it was clear that their car was not as quick as they would have liked. But the way they are dealing with it is the opposite to Red Bull, and that signals to me that they have learnt a lot from their difficult period in the mid-2000s.

As with Ferrari, they were scuppered by poor tactics during qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix, severely compromising their race. Yet they still salvaged a fair points haul. Jenson Button did the same again at Silverstone a couple of weeks ago. Even when it goes wrong, McLaren sort it and get it right. McLaren is now more agile and astute in its strategy calls than it was two or three years ago.

Martin Whitmarsh has done an outstanding job to plug the few gaps in McLaren’s abilities that Ron Dennis left behind. Now McLaren are a formidable force that should never be underestimated.

McLaren’s pace of development alone makes them stand head and shoulders above the rest. The high-profile failure of their new blown diffuser at Silverstone is only really notable because it is so unusual for a new McLaren part to go wrong. Other teams have this sort of difficulty all the time. Witness the various botched attempts to adopt the F-duct, another part of the McLaren package that makes it the best of 2010 so far.

Then there are the drivers, who are both on song. Despite various figures constantly trying to goad them into a bloody deathmatch, they appear to get on like a house on fire.

Witness the difference between the McLaren team mates and their Red Bull counterparts at Turkey. McLaren’s drivers had a misunderstanding, but instead of blabbing to the media or making silly hand gestures, the drivers sorted it out with a quick chat after the race. Very professional. Lewis Hamilton’s and Jenson Button’s approach is a very healthy approach to racing all round.

That is what makes them championship winners, and today’s championship leaders. That is why McLaren are still the best team, even when they don’t necessarily have the best car.

Unfortunately, as often happens in Formula 1, the on-track events have been overshadowed by the inept management of the sport behind the scenes. The stewarding in Valencia was a complete shambles, making a mockery of the sport.

As if the shambolic nature of the stewarding wasn’t enough, the issue has been compounded by Ferrari’s over-the-top reaction. Yes, they have a point. They were hard done by. The FIA systems should have worked better. But, in the words of a former Scottish First Minister, it was more of a cock-up than a conspiracy.

It is unusual for Ferrari to jump up and down and complain about unfair treatment at the hands of the FIA. This is the team that brought us farcical events like Austria 2002 and the “manufactured dead heat” at Indianapolis the same year — yet now they complain about manipulated race results. Never mind, I suppose eight years have passed…

The stewarding problem wasn’t solved after all

Of course, one of the biggest changes in the way the sport is run this year (apart from the change of FIA President) has been the introduction of an ex-driver to advise the stewards. At first it seemed to be working — the stewards were staying quiet, keeping out of matters they didn’t need to be involved in, and generally doing a good job.

Unfortunately, it must just have been a run of good luck, because the past few races have seen a return to the bad old days of shambolic stewarding and controversial conclusions. They still need to be doing a better job.

Getting the involvement of former drivers is a welcome move. But it is only a sticking plaster when the problems with the way the sport is run are so deep. For the time being, the drivers are a piece of decorative tinsel.

It is unfortunate for them that, due to their high profile, the spotlight is unfairly focussed on the drivers. We have often seen, during the race coverage produced by FOM, pictures of the driver in the stewards’ room. In Valencia it was Heinz-Harald Frentzen. But no-one is interested in the other three stewards.

That is a shame because it would be useful to know more. I happened to recognise the name of one of the other stewards at Valencia. Radovan Novak was the controversial person who, in 2008, claimed that McLaren were “responsible” for the Max Mosley sex scandal.

Mr Novak was also reported to have spoken against the prospect of Jean Todt becoming FIA President. On paper, he doesn’t seem like the sort of person who might like to be part of a Jean Todt-led conspiracy in favour of McLaren. Then again, maybe things change easily when the new boss enters his office.

The real problem: The rules are too complex

Mike Gascoyne hit the nail bang on the head:

I think since we started changing the safety car rules, every time you change something you get all these scenarios thrown up, and I think it is just that.

Charlie [Whiting, FIA race director] is trying to do the job as he sees it, calls it as he sees it, and he has as difficult a job as everyone. I think it is just one of those things.

The real issue is that the rules of Formula 1 are too complex. As such, the regulations are filled with loopholes within grey areas. This makes the sport difficult to follow and impossible to fairly officiate.

In recent years, the Safety Car rules have become particularly complex. The FIA has struggled to get this quite right, with the result being ad-hoc changes tacked on to amendments. It reminds me a lot of the constant tinkering the FIA made to the qualifying format in the mid-noughties until it finally settled on the current knockout system.

Already this year, following the farcical finish to the Monaco Grand Prix, a badly written rule has been hastily re-written. It looks like more clarifications will have to come after nine drivers were ended up unintentionally breaking the letter of the law after the Safety Car was deployed towards the end of the lap for many drivers.

On this week’s Radio 5 Live Chequered Flag podcast, Lewis Hamilton described the confusion that the current Safety Car rules create. You can hear it from around 9:40 in:

When the Safety Car comes out, you get all these beeps in your ear, and you get all this different information on your dashboard and lights flashing at you. And you’ve got to have a certain time between the Safety Car 1 line and the Safety Car 2 line. Then between the two Safety Car lines you can go fast. It’s just all so confusing.

In Valencia, the stewards had to make sure they made the right decision. But this meant taking the time to find the evidence and come to a decision in the proper way, which lessened the impact of the penalty. Exactly the same thing happened quite memorably to Nico Rosberg during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

While it’s understandable that the stewards would want to get their decision right, Formula 1 now needs to look urgently at ways of making these decisions more quickly and more efficiently. Formula 1 is a sport with a lot of technology at its finger tips.

There are lots of cameras (the FIA has access to more than we ever see on television), and GPS data, team radio recordings, telemetry and timing systems. Not all of this can be analysed on the spot, but a lot of it can. This ought to be utilised much more.

The words “will be investigated after the race” — which used to be almost unheard of but is now a regular occurrence — should only be used in extreme circumstances. Television viewers and fans at the racetrack need to have confidence that what they have seen play out on the track is the real result.

Most of all, there needs to be a mass simplification of the F1 rules in order to avoid as much this as much as possible. F1 is a complex sport, and it is clearly not easy to regulate. But action needs to be taken, because right now the FIA rule book is more useful as a doorstop than a way to effectively run a motor race.

I also recommend the following posts on this topic:

• Will Buxton: Is Formula 1 bringing itself into disrepute?
• F1 Fanatic: FIA must learn from Valencia shambles

Today, Williams can’t beat Ferrari, so I am rather indifferent about them. But at a time where the majority of the grid is made up of manufacturers — of cars and drinks — even I can see that there is something romantic about Williams. I think it would be good to see them at the front again.

But if I was a fan of the team, I would probably have well and truly lost patience by now. Every year the team says, “just wait — next year we’ll be back”. They spend all winter making positive noises. And then when it comes to the big day itself? They are even slower than they were before.

One of the most successful teams in history

When they last won a Constructors’ Championship in 1997, Williams had won more of them than Ferrari. The record was staggering — nine Constructors’ and seven Drivers’ Championships in just 20 seasons. It was an utterly fearsome record.

At that stage, Williams had won races in all but two of its seasons — its very first in 1978, and a brief drought in 1988 when the team had to make do with inferior Judd engines after Honda jumped ship to McLaren. Even then, Nigel Mansell managed to wring a couple of second place finishes out of it, which is more than can be said for what came after 1997.

Once again, Williams was left in the lurch after the departure of the front-running engine manufacturer — this time Renault. To make matters worse, chief designer Adrian Newey left Williams to join McLaren. 1998 was a year of continuity for Williams, in all the wrong ways — using what were effectively year-old Renault engines and what some said was the 1997 chassis adapted for 1998 regulations.

In 1999 the team faced further difficulties with Alex Zanardi struggling to adapt to F1 after a successful time in ChampCars. While the wins dried up, this difficult spell was thankfully short lived, as in 2000 Williams forged a new partnership with BMW.

2000 was a learning year for all concerned, but successes came between 2001 and 2003, when Williams returned to winning ways. Williams were even strong title contenders in 2003, with four victories and nine podiums, Williams were a strong player in a tight three-way battle for the championship. As unlikely as it seems today, Juan Pablo Montoya was almost a World Champion!

The slide from the top

Unfortunately, things started to go pear-shaped again in 2004. A radical “walrus nose” concept brought little in the way of performance, and a more conventional design was brought out midway through the season. Montoya managed to win the final race in Brazil, but this race remains the team’s last taste of success.

Almost every year since then has seemingly seen Williams slip back a bit further, with the successes of the old days becoming an ever more distant memory. In the past five years, the team has had just four podium finishes. (Barring success in Turkey, that number will reduce to three this weekend!)

The brightest spot has been 2007, when a consistent set of results from Nico Rosberg helped the team bag a commendable fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship (although that was after McLaren’s disqualification from the Championship). Apart from that, Williams have become a fixture at the back of the midfield — if you can call 8th out of 10 teams the “midfield”.

Arrogant enough to believe their own excuses

All the while, the excuses came, and fans were reassured: “next year is our year”. And next year comes and everything is all the same. Even if they trick people into thinking they’re fast by topping Friday Practice times, as Williams did in the first half of last season, people soon become wise to the fact that the car is not truly capable of it.

Before, there was always a positive spin to put on the situation. In 2009, Williams were bad — but at least Renault were worse and BMW weren’t much better. In 2008 people were more concerned with the alarming lack of pace in the Honda. 2006 was regarded as a tough deal for Williams, struggling with apparently sluggish and unreliable Cosworth engines.

It’s difficult to sugar-coat this year’s results in the same way. Although seventh doesn’t sound too bad, in effect the only teams that are behind them are either new (in the case of Virgin, Hispania and Lotus), facing hugely difficult political and financial constraints (Sauber) or have designed their own car for the first time (Toro Rosso). The shocker is that Williams are even being compared to teams like this.

Meanwhile, Force India look a great deal more convincing, and Renault have again leapfrogged Williams and look like potential challengers to the top four teams. Indeed, Toro Rosso even look like they can realistically challenge Williams on the racetrack, particularly with a couple of feisty young drivers who are stepping up to the plate in style, particularly in the case of Jaime Alguersuari. Meanwhile, in China Nico Hülkenberg finished behind the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen.

It seems as though Williams allowed arrogance to get the better of them. It was always someone else’s fault. But increasingly, Williams have been made to eat humble pie.

Williams lay the blame for their early-2000s dip at the door of BMW. This ended in an acrimonious split in 2005, by which time each party had become convinced that the other side was not pulling its weight. But BMW did a pretty good job when they joined forces with Sauber, the disappointment of 2009 notwithstanding. Meanwhile, Williams became inert — a permanent fixture of the midfield.

Of course, if it wasn’t the engine’s fault, it was the drivers’ fault. I was very interested to see Frank Williams admitting that, in the light of Mark Webber’s recent successes, the team was too hasty to lay the blame at the door of its driver for their average spell in 2005 and 2006.

When we had him obviously our car was a disappointment and we felt he was part of the problem. He probably wasn’t actually, with hindsight. The major point was that the car had problems.

Is there a way back?

I think the Williams of today is a great deal less arrogant than the Williams of four or five years ago. But now the damage has been done. Is there a way back to the top for this proud team? 13 years on from its last Championship success, it’s difficult to see.

Already, there are rumours that Williams are unhappy with Cosworth (just like in 2006). Rumours are linking them to a partnership with Renault. Williams were linked to Renault last year too, and Frank Williams confessed that the prospect of “Williams Renault”, a reminder of the team’s most dominant period in the 1990s, was exciting.

Other rumours link Williams to a partnership with Porsche, with whom they have collaborated on kers. But the problems run deeper than the matter of their engine supply, as surely the lessons of the BMW split show.

Despite all of its history and past successes, Williams have tried and failed to recover for too long now. Sadly, it seems as though this year Williams have to make do with racing against the likes of Sauber, a zombie team that is on emergency life support, and Lotus, a team that didn’t even exist a few months ago.

I hope they can make it. I was privileged enough to be invited to the Williams factory and museum last year. The museum is a wonderful place, brimful of some of the most successful grand prix cars there have ever been. The team only goes back just over 30 years, but it is such a huge part of Formula 1′s history. It would be such a shame if Williams were stuck at the back of the grid forever.

That’s despite the fact that the grand prix wasn’t actually all that bad. Sure, it wasn’t a sizzler. But hardly the end of F1 as we know it. I reckon there were at least a dozen races in 2009 that played out in a similar way. In fact, this Bahrain Grand Prix had much more overtaking than the average race in 2009, even including the mad wet races.

There can not be a set of “fans” that complain more about the sport they follow. And yet, bizarrely, year after year, they carry on watching for some reason. Who’s the sucker here? It sure ain’t me.

Too much hype

The problem was that, as usual, F1 journalists went into overdrive with the pre-season hype. Time and time again we were told that 2010 was set to be the most exciting in years, although not much in the way of evidence was ever provided in support of this.

We were supposed to be excited because of the return of Michael Schumacher. But as I pointed out months ago, he was always bound to be off the pace, and so it proved to be. There will be no eighth world championship. Unless lots of sixth place finishes really get you going, there will be little in the way of excitement round here.

I think the new teams were also supposed to add a new dimension of excitement. They certainly have increased the level of interest in the back of the field — and a good thing that is too. But quite what else we should have expected as a result of their participation is a head-scratcher for me.

I seem to remember journalists banging on about the all-British inter-team rivalry at McLaren this year as well. That has also turned out to be a bit of a damp squib (so far). But it is not exactly a problem with F1 if one of them has so comprehensively outclassed the other already. Is Lewis Hamilton supposed to drop anchor just in order to increase the excitement here?

I sent the hypothetical question out there on Twitter — Can anyone remember the last time journalists didn’t say that the coming F1 season was due to be “the most exciting ever”? Alianora suggested 2004, which is a good thought. Although it was on the back of a really rather good 2003 season (tyre-rules-rigged-in-favour-of-Ferrari-scandal aside), and there was a lot of interest surrounding the radical Williams “walrus nose” (another damp squib).

The forgotten good news stories

No wonder people were upset. Not many races could have lived up to these expectations. What was, in truth, an average race (nothing more, nothing less) has been cited by hordes as definitive evidence that F1 is dying.

But I struggle to understand what people were expecting. Indeed, I have been quite surprised at the sheer number of interesting angles on the Bahrain Grand Prix that appear to have been largely overlooked.

• Fernando Alonso’s winning début — Okay, so this one has been covered extensively, but it is worth underlining. Alonso joins the select group of drivers to win on their Ferrari début — and he set a fastest lap over a second quicker than anyone else to boot. Forget the comeback of Michael Schumacher — Alonso showed his critics that he is the best, and with ease.
• Felipe Massa’s comeback — In his first race since his horrific crash in Hungary last year, Massa put in an admirable performance and finished second.
• The speed of Red Bull and Vettel — Despite the Ferrari 1-2, Red Bull have shown that last year wasn’t a blip, and they are serious contenders this year.
• Nico Rosberg outclassing Michael Schumacher — This one doesn’t fit in with the “Schumacher is the saviour of F1″ narrative, but even so I’m surprised more people aren’t hailing Rosberg’s success after what must have been a rather difficult winter for him.
• McLaren’s sneaky and massively clever pit stop strategy — McLaren appear to have exploited an under-advertised new rule that introduces a 55 metre zone round every pit box, designed to stop unsafe releases. My brother reckons McLaren are exploiting this to their advantage by bringing their cars in on the same lap as rivals that are just the right amount ahead of them, just to delay the release of that car. Genius (both McLaren and my brother!).
• Force India becoming the best of the rest — Most will have expected Williams to be the fifth team, but Force India look like they hold that position quite comfortably just now.
• A steady performance from Russia’s first ever F1 driver — Vitaly Petrov did a solid job in his first ever F1 race, running in a very respectable 11th place until a suspension failure. Petrov’s GP2 career was a slow burner, but his F1 career has got off to a bright start.
• Lotus beating Toro Rosso — This one has been covered extensively too, but it’s still worth highlighting again. Lotus — who have only had five months to design and build their car — have already emerged as the strongest of the new teams. They look to be around equal with Virgin in terms of pace, but definitely have the more reliable car — and even beat a Toro Rosso. Lotus are also bound to improve more than the other teams. At this rate, I’d be surprised if they don’t score a point this season.
• Virgin’s CFD-only gamble not backfiring — The question as to whether avoiding the use of a wind tunnel would be fatal to Virgin’s hopes has been put to bed. The car sets a decent pace, and the biggest problem is in fact reliability.
• Hispania’s miracle breakthrough — After a horrific winter, Hispania turned up at Bahrain having never tested, and did a hugely admirable job. Special mention should go to Karun Chandhok who did a great job in qualifying despite not even taken part in any practice!
• The less said about Sauber the better — although it’s still an interesting story.

It looks to me as though there is plenty for F1 fans to sink their teeth into just now, if only they tried. It is just that there was so much hype about the wrong things that the wood has been lost for all the trees.

But it can be improved

However, like most people I would prefer Formula 1 to have more wheel-to-wheel action. The signs at Sakhir were not particularly encouraging. I will reveal my thoughts on what’s what when it comes to on-the-track action in my next article.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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