What a season hey?

The Brazilian Grand Prix has to have been one of the most exciting championship showdowns in recent memory, it was all still on the line at the last corner of the last Grand Prix after 18 Grand Prix spanning 8-9 months and 17 different countries. Formula One redeemed itself in Brazil after a season of controversy (or should I say poor stewardship), the boys put on a motor sport show that had people crying, praying, laughing and jumping up with excitement. There were no losers it seems in the steamy hot spot of the Interlagos lakes. Even with Massa missing the title I came away from the Brazilian Grand Prix a happy F1 fan.

Massa came home and drove a brilliant race and it seems he is peerless around Interlagos. He has blown the rest away three seasons in a row around the lakes, one of those as team mate to Michael Schumacher. He grew up a few hundred meters from the track, he was a gentleman in defeat. I hope he starts to get the credit he deserves from the F1 fraternity because he has out driven non other than the 2007 world champion (the apparently invincible Kimi Raikkonen) in the same car along the way. The fact that Kimi struggled to get to grips with the F2008 was well, really Kimi's fault, basically it was the same for Felipe.

With four or five corners to go I was feeling for Lewis Hamilton, Vettel was a couple of car lengths ahead of him and his first world championship but he could do nothing about it, Vettel was edging away and so was the crown, the fact that he kept his cool under such pressure was incredible, maybe the boy racer has started to grow up? Glock and mother nature intervened though and Hamilton slipped by i into a title winning 5th place. In Glock's defense it is extremely difficult to drive a race car on slick (grooved) tyres in wet conditions, the car (or kart) just does not want to turn into the corners and you end up going soooo slooowly on entry, first it's massive under steer and then when the fronts finally find some grip the back ends steps out into crazy over steer, it just wants to swap ends on you every micro second. I think we can clear Timo of playing championship God.

The driver of the season though is the other world champion in the field, Fernando Alonso. He had a very good back quarter of the season with two wins, one was lucky (the Singapore night race) that is for sure but he made it work for him and Renault, nobody expected the win and certainly didn't expect him to back it up a couple of weeks later at Fuji. Fernando was extremely solid all through the season and even cut back on the whinging. Good job done.

There were a trio of first time winners as well, Robert "Bob" Kubica took his and BMW's first win in Canada when all the big players stumbled, Kovalainen took his first win in Hungary but only after a dominant Massa had his Ferrari engine die with three laps to go. The other new winner Vettel did it with style, in drenching conditions he put his Red Bull clone on pole and just pulled away into an unassailable lead in the race again in drenching conditions. Heikki Kovalainen was supposed to win this one for McLaren (from second on the grid) but the Fin has not been that convincing this season. So all in all seven winners on the F1 trail this year - that hasn't happened in a long while. We had four last year.

England is happy too which is a rare things for the poms - take a look at the rugby league and dare I mention the cricket? Not so Martin however who had a brilliant NNF1 campaign, managing three teams in the top ten (and sometimes the top four or five) for just about the entire season but in the end Roz (a screaming and jumping Lewis fan) came through by 1 point.

So to 2009 and The new regulations for 2009 coming with slick tyres and a raft of other changes which will hopefully spice up the show even more. I don't expect a dramatic new change of the competitive order, McLaren and Ferrari have too much depth and experience to relinquish their stations at the front of F1 but BMW have built strongly each season, Renault started to look good at the end of the season and even Toyota started to look quite quick.
Honda seem optimistic (the only way is up, really!) but the general consensus is that they have the lead in the development of the KERS technology (Kinetic energy recovery system - which uses energy wasted from braking to boost power for each lap) . Williams also have been developing their new car and KERS technology from an early stage and are hoping to jump up the field in '09.

Whatever it should be a fantastic season with lots of new interest. Can Roz hold onto the NNF1 title, can Martin get the monkey off his back and win in 2009, will Alvin and Jon return to their completive form from '07? Aah the questions, the questions to be answered!

I must thank my two correspondent's for their sterling effort of one (1) article each for the season, Frank had one disturbing view it seems and the Rooster crowed just the once.

As ever thanks for playing NNF1 with me and friends and hope you will join us all next season. The GAME is open to influence from you, all positive and constructive input/ideas is/are welcomed so please email any idea's or links or anything you wish to be added to the site or how you would develop the game.

The NNF1 web site will continue to be updated over the off season and specially once images of the new cars start coming through in January/February. The site will also have another revamp in readiness for 2009.

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