Weird F1 season
Weird season, this year for F1 was.
But not for Ferrari and Schumacher-haters. (My wife loves the Ferrari team and Reubens
Barrichelo but hates Michael.) Many think
that this year has been the best F1 season in years. Yesterday, Renault bagged the constructor’s
championship. A couple of weeks back, Renault’s
Fernando Alonso became the youngest F1 World Champion.
I agree that it is good some new faces are
being touted as the next Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumy. Heck, they may even have cult followings like
Jacques Villanueve (a French-Canadian relative? Not!).
But some would have agreed with me this is
really a weird season.
Last year, it was a given than a Ferrari
driver would be at the podium. Every other
team was trying their best to prevent Schumy from copping his seventh
title. But at the middle of the season,
everyone was ready to admit he will have it, with the help of his
long-suffering partner Reubens.
So what did the F1 bigwigs do? Change the rules, they did. They made the teams use the same engines for
two races and the tires for the entire race, including time trials. I firmly believe these rule changes were made
to cripple the formidable Ferrari formula—change engines every race and tires up
to three or four times in a race.
I am willing to admit that Renault,
Maclaren-Mercedes, BMW-Williams. Toyota and BAR-Honda made huge leaps in engine
development. Still, I kinda think that
Ferrari got the raw end of the deal.
As a result, the only Ferrari one-two win
this season is the bizarre American Grand Prix in Indianapolis where only four Bridgestone-shod
teams participated. That’s right. An F1 race with only four teams running.
To make matters worse, Barrichelo announced mid-season
that he’s driving for BAR Honda next season, breaking up a team up that is as
legendary as Jordan-Pippen and Malone-Stockton, even Paras-Magsanoc in
basketball.
I did not like this season nor do I look
forward to next year. I still prefer the
“fastest engine/tire/team/driver” formula. That, for me, is Formula 1.
