Finger on the Button (Suzuka Circuit)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Suzuka Circuit
Date:	08/10/09 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good track

Disadvantages: Boring race

Owner Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
Operator Mobilityland Corporation
Circuit Length 5.807 km (3.609 mi)
Turns 17
Lap Record 1:31.540 (Kimi Räikkönen, McLaren, 2005)

SO what an extraordinary F1 season we have had so far, some very unfashionable guys up at the front of the grid and in the points, the big teams finally getting their game together but too late to catch them. It also looks like Great Britain will get successive back-to-back world champions with Jensen Button just 6 points away from the big prize. If he finishes third or better in Dubai on Sunday the 14th of October he will be crown champion. If Sebastian Vettel, who won brilliantly in Japan last weekend, finishes lower than second and Barrichello finishes lower than fourth, his two rivals, or he out scores team mate Barrichello by four points he will also be champion. But I'm sure it will go to the last race in Brazil as we know how Bernie Ecclestone loves to engineer a final race decider.

Some convenient yellow flag penalties in qualifying for Susuzka would make sure Button wouldn't clinch the title in Japan as the top four contenders were pushed down the grid seven places after driving at top speed with wreckage on the track, desperate to bag a quick time but ignoring the yellows. The Renault of Fernando Alonso also seemed to speed through the debris but not sanctioned, all very ironic if you think what Grand Prixs biggest story has been lately.

Your first thought when you saw that smash on youtube is there's no way that Nelson Piquet Junior would deliberately crash his car at 150mph into a wall on team orders. But later data and a confession clarified just that and the team owner Flavio Briatori was kicked out of F1 for good and his team head engineer banned for five years. Piquet, rather bizarrely, got off lightly, as did the Renault team with just a two year suspended sentence. If Piquet's crash had been less controlled in Singapore last year the wreckage could have killed a marshall or two, a fellow driver, or even people in the crowd if a wheel or debris bounced over the fence. It was a crazy thing to do and once Piquet was fuelled up for just 12 laps expecting a safety car after 12 laps to help his team mate he should have made the call then to grass up his boss and not risk the crash. Or he could have done a Schumacher and been a little more subtle with his mechanical failure. It was a rather big impact. You do wonder if Briatore will now pass the fit and proper owners test in the championship with Queens Park rangers, another one of his toys.

Alonso, of course, is out of the firing line and joining Ferrari next year, the dream drive for any driver.

The race in Suzuka was a dull affair, the unique figure of eight track not producing much action as the German Vettel won from start to finish, the next Schumacher already upon us, although a far more lively chap than the lugubrious Michael. The track has the famous 130R turn, compared to Spa`s Eau Rouge as Grand Prix most exciting corner, a flat our job of over 140 meters. It was here that the young Alonso overtook Schumacher's Ferrari on the outside, one of F1 racings great overtakes of all time. Its also the track that has seen many famous first corner world championship deciders, be it Senna and Prost crashing there or the pole sitter not being overtaken once he leads through there.

Button spluttered home in 8th, no wins since June 7th in the Turkish GP when the Brawn diffusers were giving them a huge advantage. Barrichello has won twice recently, a Brawn one-two in Monza In September keeping Button ahead enough. This championship will be the first for a long time not to come down to team orders. In fact Button will be the worst World Champion for me since Damon Hill in 97, two very average drivers when they clinched the trophy. Wouldn't it be great if it did come down to the last race in Barrichellos native Brazil at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

In F1 a very good driver in an average car will often lose to an average driver in a good car - good looking guys tend to get the better cars for commercial reasons. The diffuser seems to have won Button the title although Lewis Hamilton blew a 17 point lead with three races to go not two years ago so I'm not counting my chickens. Team Brawn requires just one point to be constructors champions. The last time a virgin team won the championships was in the 1960s.

The highlight of the race was 19-year-old Jaime Alguersuari who managed to take out a whole sponsors sign in spectacular style on lap 48, his experience not showing, and a Ferrari and a McLaren coming out of the pits and both on the KERS boost system, meaning they couldn't stop for the first corner. Sadly races are too evenly matched this year and that has reduced the amount of overtakes we all thought would cause more.

-The result-
1 Germany Sebastian Vettel 15 Red Bull-Renault
2 Italy Jarno Trulli 9 Toyota
3 Great Britain Lewis Hamilton 1 McLaren-Mercedes

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formul a_one/8288249.stm

We have four new teams entering for the 2010 championship, Campos Grand Prix, Manor Grand Prix, US F1 and Lotus F1.

-The World Championship standings-

1 GB J Button 85
2 Brz R Barrichello 71
3 Ger S Vettel 69
------------------------------------
4 Aus M Webber 51.5
5 Fin K Raikkonen 45
6 GB L Hamilton 43
7 Ger N Rosberg 34.5
8 Ita J Trulli 30.5

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2007/9/672 9.html

Summary: Needs to be the last race of the season