I like the idea of this, but I don’t really feel motivated to read anyone else’s answers, because there are no justifications. So I’ll go into a bit of detail with my own.
Best driver: Fernando Alonso. I’m delighted that Lewis Hamilton won the race, but McLaren looked like they were the strongest team over all three days of the race weekend, while Alonso once again outperformed his car to secure a brilliant second place. He has done it so many times recently, and he wasn’t far away from taking a victory this time either.
Worst driver: Felipe Massa. While his team-mate emerged with huge credit, Massa managed to turn a fourth-placed finish into fifth, and was very nearly caught by Nico Rosberg, which would have dropped him to sixth. The main cause was a spin he had while under pressure by Mark Webber. It’s sad to see Massa in such poor form this season. I really found a lot of respect for him at Brazil 2008, but he seems to be in a slow and steady decline. As long as he is with Ferrari, it is a sign they are sacrificing any chance of winning the constructors championship in favour of keeping Alonso happy.
Best team: Force India. A double points finish is a great achievement for any team outside the “big four”, and Vijay Mallya’s team managed it with their two drivers on completely different strategies. Paul di Resta drove a very sensible, intelligent race, while Adrian Sutil just drove very fast and pushed Michael Schumacher for seventh.
Worst team: Renault. 13th and 16th – one of their worst performances of the year. Only Singapore sticks in the memory as worse. They really can’t seem to hold it together at tracks with lots of right-angled turns, and Bruno Senna has underperformed since taking over from Nick Heidfeld. Here’s a stat for you: Heidfeld finished eight races with his Renault and picked up 34 points along the way. Senna has finished seven and has got only two points. Heikki Kovalainen very nearly finished ahead of him in this race.
Best overtake: Nico Rosberg overtaking Michael Schumacher on lap one. That’s one of the only overtaking moves I can remember that wasn’t due to DRS (I posted in the DRS thread about how much I dislike the system, and how poor it was at this race). Good on Nico for taking the fight to his team-mate after losing out in India due to poor strategy.
Funniest moment: Were there any?
Most surprising result: Sebastian Vettel’s first DNF in over a year, especially because nobody has any idea what caused it.
Least surprising result: Mark Webber’s fourth place. He has been fourth three times in the last four races, and six times in the course of the whole season.
Special mention: Your favourite Beatle and mine, George McCartney.
Race rating: 4/10
Best BBC commentator/presenter: David Croft. I really hope he sticks with the BBC, one way or another, for next season, rather than going to Sky.
Worst BBC commentator/ presenter: Eddie Jordan. He can barely form a coherent sentence, and his chummy-jokey style stopped being funny in Bahrain 2010, for me.
Best commentary moment: David Coulthard described being driven around the track by Martin Brundle in a two-seater as “the second most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced”. Martin asked him what was the most terrifying, and he said “being driven around a track by you somewhere else!”
BBC coverage rating & World feed rating: no opinion.
