Fernando Alonso in the Box Seat, But the 2010 Formula One Battle Rages On

There has never been a closer Formula One season than 2010. As we head into the last race there are still four drivers who have a mathematical chance of winning the driver’s championships, with first placed Fernando Alonso leading fourth-placed Lewis Hamilton by 24 points, with Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel in between down eight and 15 points down respectively.

Just in case anyone believes that this is a artifact as a result of the generous new points system, if we applied last year’s points system, we would still have a four-way battle with Alonso on 99 points, Webber 96, Vettel 94 and Hamilton on 92. Going back to the old-old points system (10-6-4-3-2-1) would see Hamilton drop out of contention, but still a three way battle.

Abu Dhabi will be fascinating. Last year Red Bull took out the race in a one-two finish with Vettel and Webber, but that was only after Hamilton was forced to retire from the lead with suspected brake problems. Alonso, then in a Renault, and Ferrari were both well off the pace.

But that was last year. This year, the permutations are combinations are enough to give a statistician a nosebleed and set their trouser trinkets into furious motion.

Most of the outcomes see Alonso winning, but if he were to fail outright and Red Bull pull off a Vettel-Webber one-two, we could see the two drivers tied for first and Vettel winning on a count back.

Hamilton is the wild card. While his chances of winning the championship are, let’s be honest, thin to the point of anorexia, he is in a terrific position to influence the outcome of championship. If he again qualifies fastest, as he did last year, all of Red Bull and Ferrari’s calculations will need to be redone.

If he takes pole and leads the race, he will—barring the Ferrari blowing up or crashing and everything else going to plan—effectively gift the championship to Alonso. Given the personal animus between Hamilton and Alonso that stems back to their time together at McLaren in 2007, this would be an absolutely unpalatable outcome for Hamilton and his team.

What they will do about that is a delicious mystery that we can only hope to see unravel.

The 2010 season then, will not only come down to the last race, but it will conceivably come down the last few laps of the last race.

Vettel has already indicated that he will do what is necessary to ensure that the team takes out the driver’s championship, hinting that he will yield to Webber if necessary. The FIA turns a blind eye to team orders when the championship is on the line. Whether Hamilton would also yield is what makes this race such an exciting prospect.

Of course, should Alonso win the championship—and if he finishes first or second, everyone else’s plans are irrelevant—then all talk will focus on Ferrari’s embarrassing enforcement of team orders at Hockenheim.

There will be claims that they should have received a harsher penalty, but the fact remains that they have brought Alonso back from a 47 point deficit half-way through the season, to the point where he is a clear favourite to take out the championship.

That takes some doing.

Ferrari have proven, time and again, that they will do whatever it takes to win the championship. If that means sacrificing the dignity of one of their drivers, then so be it. If they win the championship on Sunday, that will vindicate their decisions.

If Red Bull had sent out the message to Vettel in the closing stages of the Brazilian Grand Prix, “Sebastian, Mark is faster than you, do you understand?” we would have had one point separating first and second in the championship and it would have been a drag race to the finish. That’s if Vettel’s radio didn’t mysteriously malfunction.

But, true to their word, RBR did not intervene in what happened on the track. We can only speculate as to what would have happened were the positions reversed.

Christian Horner, Helmut Marko and Dietrich Mateschitz can sleep comfortably knowing that they have fought hard and played by the rules. They have taken out the constructor’s championship by a comfortable margin and that, in itself, is a creditable achievement.

But, if Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari starts 2011 with the number one on its nose, it will have been an opportunity lost for RBR, and they come along far too rarely to give them away so easily.

Maybe then, they will learn that pragmatism always trumps idealism in Formula One. This is not the Olympics; winning is everything!