thank you, come again

So, it's all over.

The 2010 Formula 1 season has finished, with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this last Sunday. And the winner was Sebastian Vettel, who also managed to take something of a surprise World Championship title with it.

I say something of a shock, because Vettel was pretty much an outside bet. In order to take the title, going into the race he had to win, with Alonso and Webber getting poor results. In qualifying Alonso ended up third and Webber a poor fifth. That meant it seemed really likely Alonso would take the title.

But, on the very first lap Michael Schumacher spun and ended up in a bit of a scary accident where one of the Force India's ran up the side of his car. This meant there was a long safety car period and some of the lower down drivers took the opportunity to pit.

Once the race was back under way, Webber came in for tyres after a few laps, because his seemed to be going off and Ferrari covered his decision. But, and here's where things get a complicated, Vettel stayed out and so did Hamilton and Button.

The reason this is complicated was because Alonso and Webber ended up behind Petrov, who had come in for tyres with the safety car. However, Vettel, Hamilton and Button's tyres either weren't that bad or they came back to them, so those three stayed out for ages.

When Hamilton did eventually pit, he ended up behind Kubica who, because he was outside of the top ten, was on the harder compound of tyres and so didn't come in for ages. Vettel was able to time his pit stop so he came out in front of Hamilton. Mclaren tried a similar trick with Button, but it didn't work and he ended up behind Hamilton.

So why were these important? Well, Abu Dhabi kinda typifies the modern bread of circuit, which is to say that overtaking is almost impossible. I mean, you basically ended up with Hamilton and Alonso trapped behind Kubica and Petrov. They were both in Renaults, which have basically been proven to be an inferior car - indeed, the word is that there's been no development of the car for ages.

Of course, the fact that Renault engines are in the Red Bulls inspired some conspiracy theories, but these are clearly rubbish as the Renault car is Renault in name only - the team was bought out last year. No, the problem is that at certain circuits, the combination of the track layout and the almost complete reliance on down force generated by aerodynamics (the wings) means overtaking become impossible.

So you end up with this situation that some circuits are great, with actual chances of overtaking, but others there's no overtaking at all. That means that, as this last Sunday, you're reliant on tactics and other aspects to bring any sort of interest to the race itself.

I mean, if this race had happened earlier in the season, it would have been dull city. The fact that it decided the world championship was all that made it interesting.

So while we've had the best season in ages, we've still had some frankly dull races. Let's hope that some of the changes to the rules proposed for future years - turbos, allowing the use of ground effect and some of the things like KERS make all of the actual races good ones.

Which is to take nothing away from Vettel - well done that man.