In the final part of our review of the F1 season, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull Racing all fight back, with the latter pushing the once all-conquering Brawn all the way to the title.
Belgium
The Belgium Grand Prix hoved into view and sure enough Kimi Räikkönen awoke from his slumbers to win the race. Kimi’s record at Spa accepts no middle ground: in seven attempts he’s won four and failed to finish the other three. Rather more surprising was Giancarlo Fisichella’s entirely merited pole for Force India. Without the beastly KERS bolted on to the Ferrari, Fisi would probably have won his fourth Grand Prix, instead he had to settle for 44 laps staring at Kimi’s gearbox. That isn’t a euphemism.
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Italy
Things appeared to look up for Fisi in the run-up to Monza when he got his dream job as a deputy for Massa at Ferrari. The dream didn’t last long, Fisichella soon realising that Luca Badoer was probably quite a good driver and that it was the beastly Ferrari that was at fault. Kimi and Felipe had two months of winter testing and a dozen races to wrestle it into submission, Fisi had four hours. Oh dear. Meanwhile, after seeing the second half of his season develop into a cliffhanger that would have had given Flash Gordon nightmares, Button benefited from a massive Lewis Hamilton accident on the last lap of the race to score a very useful second behind Barrichello. Button was now just 14 ahead of Barrichello and 26 clear of Vettel.
Singapore
Romain Grosjean, Nelson Piquet’s replacement at Renault displayed a previously unsuspected genius for comic timing, by crashing his car at the exact same spot as Junior had done 12 months before. Bob Bell, promoted to team principal after the banishment of Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He opted for the former. The assembled media merely gave Grosjean a round of applause. The race went to Hamilton, thanks in part to Rosberg and Vettel both receiving drive-through penalties for pitlane infringements. McLaren, who earlier in the year couldn’t catch a cold, were back.
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Japan
Red Bull hadn’t been able to buy a decent result over the past few races and when Webber crashed out in practice, needed a new chassis and incurred a 10-pace grid penalty, that looked like continuing. Vettel though had other ideas and after a chaotic qualifying session in which most of the grid seemed to want to test the solidity of Suzuka’s walls, the German wound up on pole. He made it stick in the race, taking a dominant victory which put him back into title contention, just 16 points behind Button with two races to go. He’d have to win them both but Red Bull were the form team.
Brazil
Interlagos managed to condense everything that’s dramatic about F1 into one crazy opening lap. We had a fire, a fight, crashes and a safety car. It also had more overtaking than the rest of the year put together – a pattern that continued through the race. This was F1 gone mental. The set-up was brilliant: thanks to a monsoon in qualifying, the grid was all wrong, everyone had different strategies and no one knew whether the sun was going to shine. It did, and it shone brightest on Webber. He started second, followed pole-sitter Barrichello carefully through the first stint, and then accelerated into the distance when the Brazilian pulled into the pits. He never looked back and won his second race of the year. Elsewhere, Button had a race of championship-winning stature; dragging himself up through the field, with Vettel hot on his heels but never able to quite catch up. Like one of those metaphor things.
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Abu Dhabi
A glittering palace of motorsport, a stunning new temple of speed carved out of the harshest of environments and… it hosted a friendly. Still, it was a very good natured friendly and with Red Bull dominating with another one-two and Button finally making it back to the podium in third to celebrate his title. Everybody was happy. Except BMW, who were leaving, Bridgestone, who were also leaving, and Kamui Kobayashi, who after a drive of superb maturity and bravery looked set for a Toyota berth in 2010, if they weren’t leaving. An up and down season in which fairytales were proved to occasionally come true, ended on as downbeat a note as it had begun – with a painful exit.
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Keep up with Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso.
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