Hits & Misses Of F1 2009

This is the fun part! I enjoy this most…all of us enjoy playing critic so read on while I enjoyed writing mine!

So what worked this season?

-    Brawns – the brains of Ross Brawn certainly did. A technical master piece was his machine made at almost 1/5th of the budget of the top teams!

-    Red Bull – Adrian Newey is back in action! After many seasons of creating a near about perfect car which only didn’t perform – he did get the magic formula right! They did make life difficult for the Brawns

-    Spa – a return back to the classic old Spa Francorchamps showed what classic racing is all about. That Kimi and Sutil were at their entertaining best only added to the spectacle

-    Suzuka – likewise, the number of crashes in qualifying only showed that the new ones are no ways as challenging as the old racing circuits. Poor old Glock also showed that the older ones also aren’t as safe!

-    Slicks – a return to racing slicks! A very dumb effort to reduce cornering efforts it was. Glad to have the good ol’ rubber back!

-    Kamui Kobayashi – While one Jap driver Kazuki Nakajima only has been struggling to make a mark since last season another young Jap comes and grabs the Jap and F1 spotlight altogether. Only 2 GPs old – but he did show a lot of promise, right Jenson? Hoping Toyota's pulling out doesn't affect his 2010 plans!

What didn’t! 

-    Aero regulations – the confusion over the double diffuser only made life more miserable. The average fan was yet again left at the mercy of us ‘experts’ in helping simplify the complexity of F1! Why o Why!

-    Tyre Compounds – Its one thing to have different tyre compounds to suit different chassis builds – but its another to make the usage of both compounds during the race. The fuel strategy would often confuse and then they add tyre strategy to it! 

-    New tracks!! – all of them! Valencia was a bore! Singapore was dogged with controversy and Abu Dhabi was a farce! Yes, its for the Ring Master and the CVC to commercially exploit Formula1 and its platform, but taking the circus to these new markets should add to the racing charm – these only took it away

-    KERS – let’s face it! We all enjoyed the slingshooting Silver Arrows or Ferraris at the start. Shame that only 4 cars on the grid enjoyed the boost almost every race. Forget the millions spent in development, but I still can’t get over the ‘optional’ execution of KERS! 

-    Top 4 – the over hyped top 4 teams of last year – Ferrari, Mclaren, BMW and Renault all struggled since the start of the season. That they managed to pick up their lost pieces mid-season is a testament to their presence in Formula1. But a tad too late!

-    Luca Badoer / Fisico – Felipe Massa’s replacement were very highly rated Formula1 pilots. They only successfully managed to bring about the last grid slots or almost. An Italian disaster altogether!