F1 Fanatic

Every time a chasing car breezes past the one in front of it in the DRS zone is a little soul-destroying.
And the willful blindness of F1, the teams, and the FIA surrounding the Bahrain Grand prix was disgusting–the monolingual Spaniard that the FIA sent to be shepherded around by state officials to check out the state of affairs took the cake.

Every time a chasing car breezes past the one in front of it in the DRS zone is a little soul-destroying.

Every time a car breezes past the one in front of it in the DRS zone, it’s usually because the speed difference between the two of them was so great that the pass would have been made with or without DRS.

the splitting of Lewis and the Mclaren partnership. Best of luck to Jenson and Martin, they are definitely going to need it in the future.

If anybody is going to need luck, it’s Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton and McLaren breaking up. After the rumours of Hamilton going to Mercedes surfaced just before Monza, everything seemed to have quieted down by the time they got to Singapore, and ‘the word’ was that he would re-sign with McLaren soon. I was pretty shocked that he would leave a winning team, and despite all the positive spins that have been put on it (he should ‘leave home’, McLaren are always messing things up anyway, he can build a team around him now), my sense of dread that he will spend the prime of his career struggling for a midfield outfit will not be dispelled until Mercedes roll out a competitive car for 2013.

A related bad moment was the Singapore GP itself, and the following McLaren slump. Hamilton and McLaren were on a roll, and although he was still quite a few points behind Fernando going into the Grand Prix (still ahead of Vettel, though!), there was every chance that a win there would put him back into contention. Instead, a(nother) series of races with poor reliability and poor pace seem to result in the worst year for McLaren, in terms of points scored, since the start of the Hamilton-Button partnership.

@debaser91 . Ughh.. the 2009 season was nothing more than a Dominant car taking the championship home. Rubens was unlucky not to have taken that title… and that fact speaks volumes for the quality of drivers driving for Brawn that year. However, his championship winning season is another debate.

Lets look at 2012. Hamilton has lost close to 80-90 points this season due to no fault of his own (some early season team blunders, Singapore, Korea, Spa, Valencia, Abu Dhabi). If it wasn’t for those blunders he could have wrapped up the championship by now.
Now lets look at Button’s stellar 2012 season. He has lost close to 20-30 points (some due to small mechanical problems, and one big retirement in monza)

Now… lets look at their points tally if they didn’t have these unfortunate incidents – Lewis would be on 255 points approximately and would be fighting for the WDC win… and Button would be on 183 points fighting for 4th position with Mark Webber.

Honestly, Jenson doesn’t have an excuse for why he isn’t fighting for the championship this year. We have an equally lucky/unlucky Fernando in a significantly slower car fighting for the WDC. So why isn’t Jenson then???

Unless Mclaren have a car a second a lap faster than everyone else, Jenson will not deliver them a title. Even if they do have a car a second a lap faster than the competition, I would expect the other Mclaren driver to take it. The 2009 level of rule changes and grid order shuffle ups might never happen again… and I really doubt Jenson stands a chance of winning a WDC when drivers like Fernando, Sebastian, Lewis are still driving for top teams.

Besides the passing of Sid and De Villiota’s accident which everyone mentioned, more on the racisng sude, Lewis misfortunes were hearth breaking. His car letting him down last Sunday after such a dominant pole was just awful, even if it handed victory to Kimi (which I was happy for). I personally would have liked the championship to go to either him or Alonso (nothing against Vettel, just preference).

As many have previously said the passing of Sid Watkins and Maria de Villota losing her eye in that horrific crash were both some of the worst moments.

However the one I personally think was the worst was the mere fact there was a grand prix in Bahrain. I disgusting joke that everyone involved in the sport turned a blind eye to what was actually going on (and still is) in that country. Every single team and driver should be ashamed and embarrassed that they allowed that to happen and as a fan I certainly was.

@Todfod – I agree Hamilton is the superior driver, much faster and yes he should be miles ahead in the championship this season but your statement was still nonsense. Button was much better than Barrichello in 2009, and I am sick of people not giving him credit for what was a well deserved title, as though he won it by default. If it was really that easy then Vettel and Red Bull would have walked it in 2010, and Hamilton should have been out of sight by mid season this year.

The accident with de Villiota was a bit of a shocker. Other than that its always sad to see a happy union like McLaren and Hamilton have had breaking down, but I feel its been slowly breaking down all the way since its peak in 2007 (after all it also showed both the negatives of eachother, not just of Alonso).
Seeing Schumacher go without much more than a pole that could have been if not for his imprudence the race before and a couple of podiums, when the car might have offered more. But all of these are sporting moments and form an integral part of it.

For me the real low point of the season surely has to be our beloved sport “happily” going to a Bahrain everyone willing to pay a bit attention has to see was not fine.