F1 Fanatic

As part of the F1 Fanatic 2011 season review I want to know what your favourite and least favourite moments of the 2011 season were.

Name them and explain what was great or terrible about them below. A selection of the best comments will be used in the finished articles.

Here’s last year’s articles:

The four best moments of a thrilling 2010
No prizes for guessing the worst moment of 2010

Best moment: watching Vettel pip Button to the Japanese pole, and win the title later that weekend
Worst moment: watching Webber get a poor run out of the hairpin and still glide by Schumacher using DRS in Canada

Best moments of the season:
1) The new features on F1F. I’m a big fan of these. The best thing about them was that they came totally unexpected.
2) Hamilton’s resurgence in Abu Dhabi. After so many disappointments and some painful mistakes, it was great to watch Lewis withstand the constant pressure by Alonso and drive under the lights to one of his greatest Grand Prix victories.

Worst moment of the season:
The Turkish GP, which got totally destroyed by the new rules. At some moments I couldn’t understand what’s happening. There was so much going on yet it all felt so artificial.

Best moments of the season:
*Jenson Button passing Sebastien Vettel on the last lap in Canada.
*Lewis Hamilton winning in Abu Dhabi after a tough season.
*Seeing Petrov and Heidfeld on the podium.
*Attending the British Grand Prix – I went in 2010, but the atmosphere this time round, in Becketts, was stunning, particularly when Button passed Massa and Hamilton passed Alonso within a couple of laps.
*The celebrations in Japan after JB won the race.

Worst Moments:
*Realising the championship was already over when Vettel won in Valencia.
*Turkish Grand Prix – as mentioned above, so much overtaking, so little excitement. “Catching is one thing in Formula 1, passing is another” – the FIA need to bear in mind that this should be the case when they choose their DRS zones next season.
*Safety Car staying out in Canada until it was almost dry enough for intermediates.
*Schumacher missing out on a deserved podium in Canada – thanks again, DRS.
*All of the times I thought “finally, Hamilton/Button on pole instead of a Red Bull”, only for Vettel to pull it out once again, although I’m not knocking the guy, its just nice to see different drivers on pole.
*Hamilton and Massa. Although it was often quite entertaining, feuds like that are no good for the sport and the racing.

Best moment: sorry to follow the trend, but it has to be Button’s last-gasp victory in Montreal. The only moment of the season that made me shout out in delight, much to the surprise of my girlfriend, who was in the same room but not watching, and was probably getting a bit frustrated at how long it had gone on for already :)

Worst moment: I know it’s not actually part of the sport, but the one thing that sticks out in my mind is the BBC’s announcement that they will only be showing “Formula Half” next season. Whether or not they really had to make such a deal, the way they handled publicising it was pitiful. There was one article on BBC Sport explaining it, which attracted thousands of comments, many containing legitimate points or questions, which were all ignored. Then nothing is said about it for months until the final race of the season, when their on-screen coverage boasts of “every race on the BBC” next year, and when pretty much the same article is wheeled out on their website once more. It makes me pretty cross. But if you want a worst sporting moment, I think it must have been the realisation after about eight races that the championship was already over, with the best part of an overly long season still ahead and not much to look forward to.

I’ll start off with the worst moments because my best moments wouldn’t make sense chronologically.

Worst Moments
DRS – Not really a fan of it, lost its purity a bit.
The rule changes – Too many of them, need some consistency.
And of course the BBC/Sky F1 deal that reduced me to tears that Friday morning of the Hungarian GP.

Best Moments
Watching the Canadian GP, such an awesome race. My girlfriend’s first race she watched.
The Webber/Hamilton battle in Korea that lasted half a lap, absolutely fun to watch.
Schumacher’s drive in Canada was superb, deserved more than 4th place there but I began cheering him on in 2011, a unusually nice surprise.

But the best moment for me…

I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to watch F1 this year after the disgusting new TV deal, but my favourite driver Kimi Raikkonen returning to F1 has actually given me a reason to watch F1 2012 next season.

@Kingshark

Vettel spins on the final lap of Bahrain.

You sure about that? :)

The best moment for me was Hamilton passing Vettel in China. The worst was probably the times that battles which had the potential to be great, were spoiled by DRS.