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The defining moments of 2014 Formula One (Part 2)

Daniel Ricciardo is the best of the next generation. (Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool)
Expert
11th December, 2014
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This column’s summary of 2014 continues as we hurtle towards the dawn of the all-new (but likely not all that different) 2015 Formula One season.

Last week were defining moments 10 to 6. This week is the grand finale. The summit. The final five.

And no, double points will not be awarded to the winner.

5: Marussia scores its first points
It took four-and-a-half years but Marussia achieved what so many assumed it could not: it scored official FIA points. It scored two points, to be precise, and did so at that most Formula One-y of events, the Monaco Grand Prix.

Marussia F1 Team – formerly Virgin Racing and originally Manor Grand Prix – was one of four entries granted for the 2010 season to bolster grid numbers following the financial crisis-induced manufacturer exodus in the late 2000s.

Of those four, US F1 failed to materialise and HRT collapsed at the conclusion of 2012.

That two teams folded – one without contesting a race – and Marussia, along with Caterham, lived precarious existences was largely down to the budget cap, presented as regulation to F1 hopefuls, being torn up shortly after they started building their businesses.

Despite this, Marussia proved that a small team of bona fide racers could still challenge the established runners and live to tell the tale. It was unfortunate, however, that its owner had little interest in the team beyond propelling it to its first home race in Sochi this season, after which he pulled the plug.

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4: Daniel Ricciardo’s arrival
New winners, both driver and manufacturer, are the lifeblood of the sport, and few fit this description as aptly as Perth-born Daniel Ricciardo.

Daniel, contrary to popular belief among some of Australia’s bigger media outlets, did not debut this season. Though his two years at Toro Rosso (and six months at HRT) were relatively low-key, they were sufficient to convince Red Bull he deserved a chance against its junior-driver programme pin-up boy Sebastian Vettel. He rewarded them with three unlikely wins.

It was the fantastic home podium (later rescinded) in Round 1 – a feat that proved elusive to Mark Webber – that set the tone for the rest of the season, and though most assumed Vettel would recover his mojo in time, Ricciardo only improved.

His secret is simple: he has never stopped developing. He has, without exception, improved markedly each year he has raced and in each race he has competed. It is for this reason that he beat Jean-Eric Vergne to the full-time driver at RBR, that he outscored Vettel by 67 points this year, and that it is almost impossible to imagine a future in which Daniel Ricciardo isn’t a Formula One world champion.

3: Formula One in crisis: Caterham and Marussia collapse
“The time has long gone where we should have made the decision,” said Monisha Kaltenborn in April. The Sauber team principal had been singing the same tune for some time, yet few appeared to take her seriously. Her words came to pass shortly after the Russian Grand Prix, when both Caterham and Marussia were placed into administration.

The shredding of every version of meaningful cost control in the last five years has stacked the odds of financial viability heavily against the smaller teams, and particularly against Caterham and Marussia. Both outlived HRT and US F1 by virtue of having wealthy backers – Air Asia founder Tony Fernandes and Russian venture capitalist Andrey Cheglakov, respectively – but both owners grew tired of the stubborn lack of results that came with the putrid political environment and pulled the plug, five years after their teams started racing.

Bernie Ecclestone was asked by the BBC whether Formula One was in crisis. “Absolute nonsense,” he replied. “We’ve had a couple of teams in crisis”.

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Certainly the demise of Marussia and Caterham will have minimal impacts on Formula One’s bottom line, but when the sport has a turnover of almost $2 billion, the idea that it is unable to sustain 11 healthy teams is laughable. Despite the significance of these events to the sport’s future, the crisis has been allowed to roll on without meaningful change on the horizon.

2: #ForzaJules
The Formula One world was stopped in its tracks in the late afternoon of October 5 in Suzuka, Japan, when Jules Bianchi’s Marussia speared from the wet circuit and into the back of a recovery truck clearing away the stricken Sauber of Adrian Sutil.

The gravity of the situation was not immediately apparent, but the sport was soon united by shock upon learning that Bianchi, 25, was placed into a medically-induced coma in critical condition.

The Frenchman has since been released from Japanese medical care and into that of his home country. He remains unconscious.

Formula One and the FIA banded together to ensure no facet of the accident went undocumented, and a comprehensive report was recently returned to the World Motor Sport Council, making a number of recommendations to improve safety, many of which are in set to be implemented in 2015.

Suzuka presented a rare insight into the human side of the sport so often wrapped up in self-interest, and though the F1 world keeps turning, it does so with Jules and his recovery firmly in its thoughts.

1: “He said he did it on purpose”: The Belgian Grand Prix
And so we reach number one, and in a season coloured by the near total domination of Mercedes over everyone and everything else, could the defining moment of 2014 involve anyone else?

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The 2014 Belgian Grand Prix will go down in history as one of those races.

Though Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg’s relatively small moment of contact on lap two had catastrophic consequences for Hamilton’s race, its long-term effects proved most disastrous for Rosberg.

Up until that point the battle between Rosberg and Hamilton could be characterised by Nico’s unshakable mental energy pitted against Lewis’ unmatchable pace. Rosberg was playing the long game in an attempt to wear Hamilton down. Spa-Francorchamps was supposed to further destabilise Lewis, but it backfired spectacularly.

Mercedes almost immediately blamed Rosberg for the incident. Nay, it hung him out to dry. Both Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda publicly lambasted his behaviour as “totally unacceptable”, and Rosberg was later served a second time when Mercedes told the world it had disciplined its driver and had extracted a public apology.

Mercedes had presumably forgotten the definition of ‘team’ when it so completely broke Rosberg’s legitimacy. Championship: over.

It was the defining moment of a year that was itself defined by championship contested on the psychological battlefield. There was no greater mental battle than that preceded by the events in Belgium, and no win more significant than that handed to Hamilton in the aftermath; the Briton’s subsequent five consecutive, uncontested victories confirmed the moment’s magnitude.

Thus wraps up Formula One – and this column – for 2014. Next season: Vettel restarts his career with Ferrari, Fernando Alonso attempts to patch up old wounds with Ron Dennis, and Honda makes its return to the sport. Daniel Ricciardo will lead Red Bull Racing’s attempt to recapture the title, but will anyone be able to take the fight to Mercedes?

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Next year’s Formula One season should be a cracker, and it starts in Melbourne in just 89 days.

See you in 2015.

Follow Michael on Twitter as he questions his existence in the absence of Formula One: @MichaelLamonato

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