abu dhabi

It's been a weird F1 season this year.

At the start of the year everyone said McLaren's car was clearly the best.  Red Bull were badly affected by the rule change, as they were getting maximum benefit from exhaust blown diffusers.  Ferrari had taken some big risks, but they hadn't quite worked and the car was believed to be horribly difficult to drive.

However, McLaren failed to capitalise on their advantage.  They had a lot of finger trouble (particularly in pit stops) and some mechanical reliability problems.  But Lewis was relatively consistent and they hung in there.

Red Bull weren't winning everything in sight, but they continued their phenomenal reliability and were still in touch.  Ferrari had Alonso and Alonso was able to compensate for the car's problems and was also consistent.

And with the rule's stability the mid-field teams were now up there challenging for podium positions and the back-field teams were all doing quite well.  Mercedes had a brilliant idea, but it turned out it wasn't quite so brilliant.

Races that are usually terrible have actually been good (Valencia was great; this last weekend's Abu Dhabi GP was also really good, though more on that in a minute).

So as we came into the second part of the season all this seemed to mean that Alonso, with phenomenal reliability, his clear talent and some tweaks to help correct the car seemed like winning the championship.

But then he was taken out of two races in incidents and Red Bull have Adrian Newey and it's always dangerous to count him out, so they seemed to have taken a huge step forward and Vettel returned to race dominating form.

This weekend Red Bull had the opportunity to clench the constructor’s championship and also stretch their lead in the driver's championship.  But then it all kicked off - Lewis was on fire and took pole, Vettel had practice issues and was only third.  But during qualifying he was asked to stop out on track and FIA scrutiny revealed too little fuel in the tank, so he was demoted to the back.

But Red Bull decided to tweak the car, meaning he started in the pit lane - as bad as things can get bar not actually starting.  And yet he finished third!

It can be quite puzzling when that happens - a clear example being Button at the wet Canada when he was stone-dead last and went on to win.  The thing is, though, you have to remember that during most races they try to nurse the engine and gearbox as the regulations punish them if they have to change/use too many.

Well, if you're starting from the pit lane and it's nearly the end of the season you are going to take a different view: let's crank the engine up, hang the gearbox and tweak the car for overtaking, rather than leading.  Of course they may pay a price for that later, but once you've won the championships it doesn't matter, does it?

Of course he was helped quite a lot by two safety cars and for some reason this year Abu Dhabi, which famously had the race where Vettel won because Alonso couldn't overtake Petrov, was jam-packed with overtaking.  And good overtaking - not easy drive pasts due to DRS, though clearly the DRS was helping the overtakes.

Still, from a championship point of view it would have been better if Vettel had been further behind Alonso.  The gap is closed, but Alonso is still 10 points behind with only two races left.