When F1 is good, it is very good!

For the third year in a row, the Brazilian F1 Grand Prix saw the world title being decided at the Sao Paolo circuit. Just as Kimi Raikkonen (in 2007) and Lewis Hamilton last year sealed their first F1 World Driver’s crowns at Interlagos, the 2009 Drivers’ title went to Brit Jenson Button who finally decided to put some tiger in his tank and motor hard and strong to seal the championship he had dominated in the first half of the season and then nursed it well by cruising in the second half. Of course knowing how fickle the sport it, credit has to be given to Jenson at the way he saw the bigger picture and wanted to win the war rather than all the 17-18 battles that marked up this year’s F1 World Championship. And Jenson should know. Prior to his electrifying start to the 2009 season, he had won but one Grand Prix, the 2007 Hungarian GP, a fortuitous win at that when rain helped him luck out to the chequered flag first for his maiden GP victory. While Grand Prix wins are hard to come by (its another matter when you are Renault and have a willing driver wanting to check out the crash worthiness of retaining walls all in the hope of being generous to team-mates), a solitary World Championship is even more difficult and maybe at times Jenson was playing it far too conservatively. Heck it was almost a repeat of the last GP of 2008 when Lewis Hamilton played so cautiously that he almost got blown off for the crown for the second year running. But this time Jenson and his think tank re-evaluated all what he had done right at the beginning of the year and decided to get back to the intuitive driver that everyone knew him to be. No longer wanting to be ultra conservative, Jenson’s Brazilian drive was pure tempered samba, precise and never a wheel askew even when he made those kamikaze moves while diving into the first corner to carve past rivals who had qualified ahead of him. This steely drive with that true grit approach of a champion was a purists’ delight even if it meant the masses were deprived of a fight going right to the wire as it happened for the past two seasons. So a resurrected-from-the-dead team with a new name, a new engine but the same human power got the job done on its first attempt is pure music to enthusiasts who like nothing better than for someone just like Brawn to come up and shake the status quo. Maybe it would be Force India’s turn next season, who knows! However this isn’t exactly what I meant when I wrote the title to this piece. If ever one wanted to see F1 in the best way possible, we had that for a measly ten minutes on the Saturday before the Brazilian GP. It was in Q3, the last flat out qualifying session for the top ten slots and you had not two or three of the title contenders slogging it out for pole, but nine of the ten who had got into Q3 putting on a dazzling display of driving as each of them went head to head against the rest and the clock and the track to try and get the best grid positions for the big race a day later. Barring Fernando Alonso, the sight and aggression, not to mention the pluck and the finesse of the likes of Rubens Barrichello, Mark Webber, Kimi Raikkonen, Adrian Sutil, Jarno Trulli, Sebastian Buemi, Nico Rosberg, Roberto Kubica and Kazuki Nakajima as they decimated the lap times even before one could gather it all in. This was truly F1 at its best in 2009 and I sincerely hope that with the newer no-refuelling rules for next year, maybe we will have a return back to the classic art of speed with controlled aggression in 2010. Maybe it is then that the smooth fluid styles of a certain Jenson Button would come into even more sharper focus! For sure Brawn and brains do seem to Button up quite well as champions!