Formula 1 Into the Void

Glossary

Into the Void

Lewis Hamilton 2007

2007

-With Michael Schumacher out of the picture, now familiar names were taking up the slack. The drivers were getting younger and younger, less and less money was coming in and technical regulations were an ever changing beast. Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen replaced Michael Schumacher. The FIA's regulations changed, once again. Bridgestone now supplied tires. The regulations also included limiting teams to 14 sets of dry tires per car over the race weekend, each driver using two different compounds in every race. Alonso went from Renault to McLaren and Juan Pablo Montoya left F1 completely, going to NASCAR of all places.

Fernando Alonso

Kimi Raikkonen

Juan Pablo Montoya

-This year also seen now familiar face Lewis Hamilton starting to race. He had been karting since age 13 and was taken on by McLaren. He made a fantastic impression on his debut race, overtaking his teammate Alonso outside the first corner at the season's opening GP in Australia. He seemed perfectly invincible to anything until the last two races of the season, where he spun out into the gravel. By this point, a serious rivalry was beginning to form between Alonso and Hamilton. Both went back and forth winning races. At the Japanese GP at the Fuji Speedway, Hamilton survived a near crash with Robert Kubica. During the last three laps, Kubica and Felipe Massa ran side by side, duking it out for 6th place while Alonso aquaplaned and crashed out on lap 41 out of 67. Ever since Prost, Piquet and Mansell at the 1986 Australian GP, three drivers had a shot at World Championship at the last race of the year. At Brazil's Interlagos track, Hamilton won with 107 points, with Alonso close behind at 103 and Raikkonen at 100.

2008

-Chaos erupted come 2008. The season started off with Hamilton, the first mixed race, biracial driver, becoming the victim of hideously ugly racist taunting during pre-season testing in Barcelona. The chaos surrounding F1 was made worse by showing FIA president Max Mosely in a Nazi-type S&M orgy with prostitutes. The 2008 season became one to remember. Felipe Massa spun out at the beginning of the Australian GP in Melbourne; he later clashed with David Coulthard. The Spanish GP seen him losing to Kimi Raikkonen, his teammate. 2008 also seen more new drivers entering the circuits. Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen joined up. Vettel was the youngest winner for F1, winning the Italian GP at just 21 years of age and in a Torro Rosso F1 car.

Lewis Hamilton

Robert Kubica

Heikki Kovalainen

Sebastian Vettel

-The Monaco GP, however, provided all the drama one would ever need. Hamilton hit a wall but survived with only a puncture wound. An early pit stop allowed Hamilton to capitalize on conditions in the race and thus, win from Massa. Adrian Sutil, driving for Force India, was running all too well until Kimi Raikkonen hit him and knocked him out of the race. Raikkonen was then hit by Hamilton at the Canadian GP in Montreal when rival Hamilton accidentally hit Raikkonen while stopped at the red control light by the pitlane exit. The Belgian GP at Spa-Francordchamps proved a nail-biting race when Hamilton crossing the finish line first. But it was proved he had an unfair advantage when he cut a chicane and steered his McLaren across a run-off area to avoid colliding with Raikkonen. He was awarded a 25 point penalty, dropping Hamilton to third place and elevating Massa to first place.

-The last race of the year was an even bigger nail biter than the Monaco GP. Hamilton managed to finish in fifth place, in wet conditions, at Brazil's Interlagos. He passed Tino Glock, who was struggling with dry tires in the torrential rain and Felipe Massa was in first place, having already crossed the line. This race turned Hamilton into a global sporting icon and inspired a new generation of F1 fans and so-called "petrolheads" in Britain. Felipe Massa was seething about his championship taken away at the last moment.

2009

-Another year of nail-biting excitement came as 2009 arose. This year saw teams rise from obscurity, World Champions from left field, back to front starting grids. These were created by three session "knock out" qualifying, which was introduced in 2006. There were new penalties for the grid, assessing them based on replacing car parts required to last a certain number of races, in season testing banned, the removal of Max Mosely as FIA president, two scandals and a nearly career ending accident. The so-called "Diffusergate" scandal came when Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn bought the remaining stock in Honda after the famed Japanese company withdrew from the F1 racing. He renamed the team after himself and outfitted the cars with Mercedes chassis and, thanks to reading the year's new regulations, outfitted the cars with rear "double diffuser" that worked incredibly well. It resulted in Brawn winning two of the initial races and even some constructor's awards. It was also the year that two Englishmen - Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton - won back to back World Champions

Giancarlo Fischella's car

Romain Grosjean's car

-FIA revised the regulations once again and re-introduced slick tires, KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems) were made optional, aerodynamic changes were made to improve overtaking and reduce bodywork such as wings, bargeboards and more. For the first time in F1 history, heavy rain in Malaysia forced a race to be abandoned. Renault racing was investigated by officials for allegations of fixing the results of the 2008 GP in Singapore after charges were brought forth by Nelson Piquet, Jr. He was fired in July, after revealing he'd been told to crash deliberately in order to give Fernando Alonso the safety car intervention, that also helped him win.

-A massive freak accident almost cost a driver their eye. Felipe Massa almost lost an eye in qualifying at Hungary when he was knocked unconscious in a freak accident involving a spring detaching from the rear suspension of Rubens Barrichello's car striking Felipe in the head. It happened at one of the fastest turns at Hungaroring. At the British GP at Silverstone, Jenson Button found serious competition for his title aspirations. Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel was starting to win more and more races. The Brawn race cars started experiencing issues of loss of speed when track temperatures cooled too much.

-Towards the end of the season, drivers were winning titles all over. Sebastian Vettel won the finale at Abu Dhabi's Yas Marina circuit. Jenson Button won the race at Brazil's Interlagos. Team Lotus, long thought to be out of commission, had been reborn from the ashes and were using yellow and British racing green as their colors. They reappeared at the season's opening race in Bahrain. Meanwhile, teams were changing names and drivers. Manor racing became Virgin F1, Campos Meta became Hispania Racing. Jenson Button joined McLaren racing. Ross Brawn had sold his team to Mercedes Benz and recruited Michael Schumacher for a return to the F1 world after three years. Karun Chandhok joined the Force India F1 team. The FIA once again edited the rules. The drivers were forced to use 11 sets of tires over a race weekend. Narrow front tires were mandated. Tire covers and rim heaters banned. KERS banned for a time. As for introductions, F-Ducts, aka "blown rear wing" were introduced by McLaren to increase speed. Unfortunately, F-Ducts resulted in ugly cars with high spines running the length of the car.

Karun Chandhok

-The 2010 refueling ban led to the introduction of fast pit stops. And last but not least, a new scoring system was introduced. The top ten classified finishers were awarded on a 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 basis. When Schumacher had started racing, many of the current competitors were only babies or small children. Now those same competitors wanted a shot at racing Schumacher, including Lewis Hamilton. But, being 41 in the world of F1 racing, that's almost considered grandfather status compared to the younger drivers. He was consistently beaten time and time again, even by his own teammate Nico Rosberg.

2010

-There were no hints of a dominant driver for this year. There were glimpses of talent, but no dominant driver. Fernando Alonso won the race after Sebastian Vettel's engine suffered a malfunction. Jenson Button won in Australia for the second year in a row, with Vettel winning in Malaysia. Button also became the first driver to win more than one race with victory in China, with Weber leading in back to back victories in Spain and Monaco. Weber was also in nearly first place when Vettel attempted a controversial pass on the 40th lap resulting in both Red Bull cars crashing. Vettel retired but Webber recovered to finish in third place behind Hamilton and Button. Hamilton would mirror Weber's talents and win back to back races in Canada

Jenson Button

-This all resulted in nasty gossip that suggested Sebastian Vettel was mistake-prone, that his young age resulted in driver immaturity. In reality, Vettel started the season out on the front line for five races, one after the other. He managed to drive with his RB6 car almost without brakes to 3rd place at the Spanish GP at Catalunya. But above all of that, he turned into a championship racer as time went on. At the Korean GP, Vettel managed to win, even after a blown engine. 2010 was the year in which Vettel had won the World Championship, leading to an insane celebration in the Team Red Bull garage.

-Sebastian Vettel then became the youngest driver in F1 history to win the World Drivers' Championship as the sun set on Abu Dhabi's Yas Marina circuit.

Sebastian Vettel

2011

-As the years went on, each race season brought its own set of highs and lows. The 2011 season certainly was no different. It was almost said to be the season of Red Bull and Vettel. Despite making mistakes in the past, with his erratic driving, Vettel had calmed as he got older and his driving had calmed down. He even managed to master the new technical system the cars were using. FIA, once again, introduced a new set of rules. This time introducing moveable DRS (drag reduction system) rear wing, which would reduce airflow resistance and thus, let the car move faster. Like everything, politics and controversy go hand in hand and just had to find their way into Formula One. Lewis Hamilton had been, more or less, branded an F1 bad boy, crashing five times with Felipe Massa of Ferrari racing in addition to setting a record number of race penalties. The new DRS system made overtaking too easy, leaving most who were watching to wonder if the sport was devolving into gimmicks to make the sport more exciting. At the British GP, different teams seemed to operate under different rules. The Bahrain GP was cancelled after the spring Arab uprising. The Malaysian Team Lotus and French Lotus Renault duked it out in the UK High Court for the right to the Lotus brand name.

2012

-With the new season, came new changes. Team Lotus changed its name to Caterham. Renault was renamed Lotus. Virgin Racing was renamed Marussia in addition to driver reshuffles. Vitaly Petrov and Bruno Senna were replaced on the new Lotus F1 team by Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean. The FIA rules were changed to enforce a ban on blown diffusers, enforcing strict constraints on position of exhaust tailpipe. And even an "engine map" was required by FIA officials to map any changes in the engine's software. The FIA also banned reactive ride-height, which was an automatic system to balance the floor of the car and the actual track. Because of this, most of the cars had an ugly platypus-like nose design. Of course, the new FIA regulations hit some teams harder than others. The new exhaust regulations hit Team Red Bull like a freight train. It was not until the Bahrain GP that Vettel had really started to succeed, despite taking second place between Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

-At 25 years of age, Vettel became the youngest F1 triple champion and it looked like Team Red Bull was unstoppable. At the Spanish GP at Valencia, driver Fernando Alonso was reduced to tears of patriotic joy as he won first place from 11th place on the grid. At the Abu Dhabi GP, Lewis Hamilton should have won the race, but McLaren's technical issues caused a loss. The 2012 season seemed fraught with drama, controversy and more. Almost like a soap opera in the F1 world. David Coulthard did a post race interview on the podium. Driver Kimi Raikkonen saying "people have been giving me s---" after he won for the first time in three years from Alonso. An even better moment came when Raikkonen said to his pit wall crew over his team radio "Leave me alone; I know what I'm doing".

2012 Abu Dhabi GP

-Accidents, shunts and more added to the drama of F1. Even the great Michael Schumacher was not invincible to the risk of a wet track, at places like Hockenheim. The scariest incident involved Romain Grosjean doing an over-cocky move at the beginning of the Belgian GP. He made an over-zealous move at the La Source turn and the resulting crash destroyed four cars and was the beginning of the end for Alonso's mission for the title. Alonso had missed the airborne Lotus going over his helmet by mere inches after getting airtime off the Ferrari's back tires. As if it wasn't already bad enough that Sebastian Vettel had called Grosjean an idiot over his team radio, Vettel also stirred up controversy by overtaking Jenson Button and knocking him off the road for second place at Hockenheim and earning a time penalty after the race that took the German driver to fifth place. He even called Lewis Hamilton "stupid" for un-lapping himself from the Red Bull car earlier in the race.

2012 Belgian GP

-It was said the facts speak for themselves. youngest pole setter, youngest race winner, youngest World Champion, youngest double and triple champion, it goes on. What is there left to say? Vettel's stats put him firmly in the realm of Clark and Lauda, with 26 wins and moving into 3rd place all time with 36 pole positions.