Yas Marina Review

From a betting perspective it was disappointing. Raikonnen managed the impressive feat of moving backwards from the start, and got leapfrogged by Kovalainen at the pit stops. Kobayashi and Kovalainen showed that significant progress could be made at the circuit, so a bad tip by me.

Race-wise it was pretty exciting. Hamilton lacked his expected pace and had to retire, leaving Vettel to romp home to a glorious victory. Meanwhile Button and Webber duelled for 2nd place, the Aussie managing to hold off the new champion with some impressive defensive work. Kobayashi deserves special mention for climbing six odd places and beating his far more experienced team mate Trulli.

The key for Vettel this season has been a combination of poor reliability from the car, and a few mistakes due to inexperience. At one point his finishing record was less than 60%, I believe.

Anyway, the season is all wrapped up. The next has few changes, save for no more refuelling. Red Bull were dominant in the latter half of the season, putting them in good stead for the start of the next, and Ferrari have been spending some time developing their new machine, to be driven by the recovered Massa and his new team mate Alonso. Be fun to see if they get along as well as Hamilton and Alonso did.

As I’ve said before, I’ll be doing a season review, not sure when exactly other than it not being next weekend. If it’s short enough I’ll include a brief rundown of my tips and see where I got things right and where (like today) I buggered up.

I do intend to keep an eye on the official F1 website. It was there I read the impressive Brawn testing times which made me brilliantly tip Button at 70/1 for the title (although I stupidly failed to follow my own advice) and may post during the off-season if I see something significant.

Thanks for reading, check again in March 2010 for new tips.

Morris Dancer