Fan Formula Awards 2012

Favourite Race: European Grand Prix (Valencia)

It was a very close contest between this and Brazil, but I went for Valencia because it was arguably the most exciting dry race we had all season. 

And for it being the first recorded instance of an exciting race at Valencia.

Joking aside though, it had everything Brazil had apart from the rain. Cars going off, breakdowns, overtaking, and the best driver of the season won when the car was still pretty terrible. It summed up what a crazy season it's been.

Favourite win: Pastor Maldonado (Spain)

Even though I'm not a fan of Pastor per se, it was great to see a driver get their first win and Williams' first since 2004. And on Frank Williams' 70th birthday to boot. Only overshadowed by the fire in the garages afterwards, but even that showed the true spirit of the sport.

Most enjoyable overtake: Fernando Alonso on Felipe Massa and Mark Webber (Brazil)

Taking two cars at once into the Senna S, in very tricky conditions, in what was far from the best car in the field, can only be yet another reason why people are naming Alonso as the driver of the season. Magnifique!

Favorite Quote of the Season: "Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing!" (Kimi Raikkonen, Abu Dhabi)

Nothing more needs to be said really. You know a quote is good when it's immortalised as a t-shirt slogan.

Favourite VT: BBC's 2012 Season in Review

The arguments about the BBC's commitment to Formula 1 since the coverage split are still going on, but there's no denying that they can still make a VT that tugs at the heartstrings. It keeps the focus on the key moments, while not going overboard with the funny moments from Jake, DC and Eddie. It feels very final; shots of tracks and their lingering fans in the sunset, and the teams packing away equipment, are very well edited, and filming artist Nikki Douthwaite making a portrait of Vettel from dots of Formula 1-themed newspaper cuttings was a clever touch. But it's the use of Alistair Griffin's 'Always Number 1' that I think adds to the poignancy the most, emphasising the feeling that we might never witness a season like this again. I'll admit that it did make me tear up a bit!

Most Shocking Moment of the Season: Maria de Villota's test crash

I think everyone was shocked when they heard how seriously Maria had been injured in the test at Duxford back in July. As soon as you see the words 'life-threatening injuries', nothing other than them pulling through matters.  This more than anything else this season brought home the fact that motorsport is still dangerous. We hope that Maria keeps on her remarkable path to recovery.

Naughty Boy of the Year: Romain Grosjean/Pastor Maldonado

Couldn't really mention one without the other here, for obvious reasons! Hopefully Pastor will keep on his calm and collected streak, and Romain will develop his spacial awareness more. Because they're both clearly very fast drivers, and although the controversies surrounding them added to the excitement of the season, it's not nice to see a lot of penalties in every other race.

Most Emotional Moment: Vettel in last place after being hit (Brazil)

A moment of despair for a Red Bull fan, and in the midst of the whole bar we were in cheering wildly, I honestly thought it was all over after this happened. My initial thought at the time was, "so this is what Fernando felt like back in 2010...". The next 2 hours were spent nervously drumming the table and keeping tabs on Seb's progress through the field, and a massive sigh of relief when he finally came across the line a triple world champion. Nerve-wracking stuff.

Most Hilarious Moment: Kimi Raikkonen getting lost (Brazil) and High Five Fail (USA)

Couldn't really separate these two, as I've never heard a whole room howl with laughter as much as when these two things happened. Kimi trying to find the gate back to the track gave way to this brilliant parody video, and the VIPs epic fail has been GIF'd for everyone's viewing pleasure.

Most Breathtaking Moment: THAT first-corner crash (Belgium)

If anything, I think this made us even more thankful than we already are, that Formula 1 cars are strong enough to withstand an impact like that these days. I was watching the race at the pub with some friends, and the emotions went from shock > fear > anxiety > relief in the space between the crash starting, to everyone involved being safely out of their cars. It literally took our breath away and left us in an uneasy silence. Definitely the scariest moment of 2012, and we were damn lucky that no-one was seriously injured.

Sunny Sakhir

Hello everyone! Firstly apologies for not doing any #FanFormula posts for the last couple of weeks, I've had various events back home which meant that I couldn't write my thoughts up. Hopefully, normal service will now resume.

Q1) Friday saw Force India pull out of FP2 due to an incident involving their team personnel on the Wednesday night. What did you make of their decision and the controversy around FOM showing no coverage of the team during qualifying?

A: After what happened to those Force India mechanics I really don't blame some of them for going home. It was interesting to hear deputy team principal Bob Fernley say that the team were pretty much on the verge of a meltdown, had they not skipped FP2 to get back their hotel before sunset, so in that sense I thought it was a sensible decision and one that was for the the greater good of the team. Though it didn't seem to affect their performance all that much, with Paul Di Resta equalling his best-ever finish in Formula 1 by crossing the line in 6th.

The Curious Case of the Invisible Force India's... © Force India/Sutton Images

However, qualifying in particular will be remembered for FOM's apparent snub of the team's performance. It's fair to say that Force India have had a somewhat lukewarm start to this season, so making Q3 was quite an achievement that many weren't expecting. Unfortunately we never got to see any of their hard work, as hardly a shot of them made our TV screens. Social media went rife with conspiracy theories that Bernie Ecclestone had ordered FOM not to cover the team as revenge for them missing FP2, while Bernie's comments on the matter didn't help:

"Nobody cares if someone is 9th or 11th, only the people that are watching a particular team"

By that logic, no-one cared when Michael Schumacher only qualified 18th due to problems; no-one cared when Sebastian Vettel qualified 11th in China; no-one cared when Kimi Raikkonen qualified 18th on his return to the sport in Australia, after so much hype. I often wonder if Bernie makes these controversial comments just to draw more attention to the sport (as the saying goes, any publicity is good publicity). At a time when the whole world has been scrutinising Formula 1, comments such as these show that he's becoming increasingly out-of-touch and as such, it really wouldn't surprise me if he did order FOM to snub the Force India's as revenge.


Q2 [as suggested by @HedgeryHoops]) The stewards reviewed the two incidents between Nico Rosberg and Hamilton/Alonso and have decided not to penalise him. Do you agree with their decision? If not, what would you have done?

A: No I don't agree! I couldn't believe what I was seeing as the incidents, especially the one with Hamilton, reminded me of the Schumacher and Barrichello incident at Hungary 2010:

If it had been another few centimetres Hamilton would have slammed into that barrier, and if that run-off had been grass instead of concrete a crash would have been almost certain to happen. At least Schumi had the good grace to apologise to Rubens after their scrap, unlike Nico, who defended his actions and said that it was good racing. He's entitled to his opinion but in my view pushing another racer off the track, especially so close to barriers and walls, is completely unacceptable and downright dangerous, and he should have been given a drive-through penalty for both incidents.


Q3) Bahrain was our first dry race of the season, which saw the first win for Red Bull and a double podium for Lotus. Do you think that this indicates that even without weather intervening, that the grid is a lot closer this year and that we will continue to see a variety of drivers and constructors on the podium for the rest of the season?

A: The grid has definitely been much closer this year and that's been evident in qualifying, with the top 10 in Bahrain (barring Alonso and Di Resta, who didn't set times in order to save tyres) being covered by just under a second. Red Bull not being the dominant force they were last year, Ferrari struggling, McLaren's pitstop problems, Mercedes' tyre wear and Lotus' pace have really opened up this year's championship and have given us some great racing up to now, which makes a nice change from the domination of last year. Having said that, with Spain being the traditional time of the teams bringing big updates, I think the top 4 teams (McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Lotus) will pull away slightly from then on, but the way the results have gone up to now it would be silly to make any concrete guess as to how the rest of the season may unfold.


BONUS) Who was your driver of the day and why?

A: This is a really hard one to answer. There were quite a few great drives to choose from - Vettel did what he does best and left the rest for dust after starting from the front; Webber scored his fourth 4th place in a row in a great show of consistency; Raikkonen performed some great overtaking, as well as using the set of soft tyres he saved in qualifying to challenge Vettel for the win; and Di Resta managed to make a 2-stop strategy work despite a late charge from Alonso.

But my driver of the day is everyone's favourite croissant/giraffe/Sid the Sloth, Romain Grosjean. He finally proved that he has the raw pace to score podiums, maybe even wins, and gave Raikkonen a good run for a while before having to yield to save his tyres. It was a very mature drive and I have a feeling we'll be seeing much more of him on the podium, as long as he can keep out of trouble!

Smile! © AFP