best season in ages

This year's F1 has probably been one of the best seasons in ages.

At the very start of the year, the first race in Dubai was, quite frankly, dull, and there was a real risk that the season would turn out to be a stinker. But after that things really livened up and don't ever seem to have stopped being lively.

In years gone by it wasn't unusual for one team to emerge as being totally dominant. I can remember a lot of seasons - the Schumacher era in particular - when a single driver dominated, taking most every pole and winning most races. I remember a lot of seasons where the winner was decided a good three or four races before the end, and back then you didn't have as many races.

But this year, despite Red Bull having what most have acknowledge as being the best car, they haven't romped away with it. There have been problems of reliability, the rivalry of their two drivers and the fact that some cars seem to suit certain circuits better to make things more complicated than that. And then on top of that we've had all sorts of other stuff going on to add even more spice to the mix.

One thing I think was particularly interesting this year is that you had several drivers who clearly had a genuinely good chance of winning it. Often, you only get a couple of drivers and teams that stand a genuine chance, but this year there were several, with several others just on the margins waiting to swoop in if any weakness was shown.

The Brazilian Grand Prix just passed was pretty good. Brazil is one of those circuits where even the average races are interesting. I think this year's actual race probably goes down as average, although qualifying was definitely one of the best this year.

But that's the thing about this year - even when the race itself wasn't necessarily the best ever, it's still added to the overall enjoyment of the season. So the result on Sunday meant that Red Bull secured a well deserved constructors championship, but that the driver's title is far from over.

Button is now definitely out of it, and Hamilton has almost no chance, but Vettel is still in with an outside shot and of course Alonso and Webber are still very much in contention.

So it goes down to the wire, and there's only a week to find out the result, as Abu Dhabi is his Sunday.