Sebastian the Great and other Formula One lessons

2014 may not have been a classic season of Formula 1, but it served up enough interesting treats to leave us salivating for Albert Park in 15 short weeks.

So what do we now know, that we didn’t when the season began?

Sebastian is very very good
Suddenly, Sebastian Vettel has managed to win more championships then Ayrton Senna, more races in a row then Michael Schumacher, more wins then Jim Clark or Jackie Stewart, more poles then Alain Prost and score more points then Juan Manuel Fangio.

How on earth has this happened? From mid-season every race seemed to followed the same pattern of Vettel setting off from pole and coasting into the distance.

It is time for F1 fans, especially those in the Mark Webber fan club (like myself), to acknowledge how magnificent a driver we have in front of us.

Mike Lawrence in Pitpass pointed out not since Senna have we seen a driver who can pull out a lap in ‘qually’ and then gain two or three seconds in the first 10km of the race with a heavy load of fuel and cool tyres.

We could be witnessing one of the all time greats in front of our eyes.

We should have listened to Pirelli
The season began with a variety of winners with Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian and even Nico Rosberg taking victories.

Then at the British Grand Prix there were a large number of tyre failures and the drivers and teams erupted, blaming Pirelli for bringing dud tyres.

‘We have to nurse the tyres,’ they bleated. ‘We can’t push every lap,’ they moaned.

Pirelli reacted by being far less aggressive in their rubber compounds and in the 11 races that followed, Vettel won 10 of them.

But as bored as we all were watching the races, at least the drivers got to push harder.

Here’s a suggestion, try managing your tyres like every other driver in every other era of F1 has managed to do.

The dynamic performance of Pirelli tyres injected a huge amount of excitement into F1 viewing over the last few years, toning them down ruined the competition this season.

Stocks are up for Grosjean, Hulkenberg and Ricciardo!
The biggest change of fortune for this year was for young Frenchman Romain Grosjean.

12 months ago he was demoralised after repeated first corner incidents and became incredibly cautious. Yet this year saw him finish with a string of podiums and arguably the closest Vettel had to an on track rival.

He will lead Lotus next season a lead driver.

Nico Hulkenburg was simply astonishing, driving the wheels of his Sauber and showing all the signs of a star, not in the making, but for the here and now.

If he drives another season in a mid season car, which is highly likely at the time of writing, it is a ridiculous waste.

Daniel Riccardo wasn’t spectacular, but arguably was the biggest non-Sebastian winner of the year as he did enough to replace Mark Webber.

He gets to drive an Adrian Newey car in 2014, something everyone on the grid wants. Here’s hoping he takes the fight to Vettel with as much vigour as Mark Webber did and with more success.

Stocks are down for Perez, Maldonaldo, and Di Resta
It seems that no-one ‘really’ rates Jenson Button as super talent, so when Sergio Perez found himself thoroughly cleaned up by the likeable Brit, his brief window in a top team slammed shut.

This is unfair, as Button was good enough to outscore Lewis Hamilton in their time together, but it is tough at the top and Sergio is back to the midfield.

In 2012, Pastor Maldonaldo shocked everyone and won the Spanish Grand Prix, not through luck, but through outstanding driving.

Sadly, that was clearly an anomaly and he showed a real ugly side this year, a petulant, aggressive, inconsistent pilot who has replaced Grosjean as the driver most likely to cause an incident.

He will be endured on the grid until his Venezuelan oil dollars dry up.

Which is better than what awaits Paul Di Resta, whose lethargic results will see him unlikely to race again, a huge turnaround from a man angling for a top seat just a few short years ago.

Throw the form guide out for 2014
Every few years the FIA gets a rush of blood. Normally, the only changes they make from season to season are of the ‘5mm decrease in front Damper maximum flexion’ variety.

Next year, every team will have ten times as much KERS, a completely different looking, much heavier car, less fuel and a brand new V6 turbo engine to replace their trusted V8.

Unfortunately for us as fans, it is highly likely that at Melbourne, some genius will have come up with something that will see their car two seconds a lap faster than the rest of the field.

For the sake of variety, let’s all pray it isn’t Adrian Newey!

Alonso could turn the grid upside down
As the season progressed, Fernando Alonso grieved as yet another opportunity to win a title passed.

First he denied it, then raged against it, sulked about it and finally accepted it. However, you can be sure that if his Ferrari is not a winner in 2014 he will not race with them in 2015, regardless of contract niceties.

His time at Ferrari has just not been good enough, with Championship Finishes of second, second again, fourth and then second this year.

Fernando is now 32, at the top of his game and driving as well as he ever has, but he is closer to the end of his career than the start and his window to win titles is closing.

There isn’t a team on the grid not called Red Bull that wouldn’t turf their incumbents if they could get Fernando behind their car, so watch this space.

Mark Webber – The Gerhard Berger of our time
And finally farewell to Mark Webber!

A fine career comes to an end for a dashing race winner, super fast qualifier and driver who, at the right time and place, could have been a champion.

But, like Gerhard Berger before him, he found himself a foot away from the pinnacle but shadowed by greatness.

In typical Australian style, Mark Webber fought Vettel his entire time together and never gave an inch, unlike Berger, who shrugged his shoulders, settled for second and became Senna’s closest friend.

Hopefully Mark Webber won’t be missed at all when Daniel Riccardo starts in pole position and leads lights to flag at Albert Park in just 105 short days!