Turk's Delight

I forgot to congratulate Colin Turkington on his fantastic BTCC championship win claimed last weekend at Brands Hatch.

His qualifying and fastest lap records in often poor cars proves that he has been one of the quickest in the championship for a number of years, but he always seemed to have the bad luck. Not quite as much as Jason Plato admittedly, but it always seemed to hinder his progress.

Both Plato and Fabrizio Giovanardi could well have been champions and Plato in particular has done a fantastic job in a car he had to learn about as the season progressed.

Turkington though has had a fantastic and consistent season, he has stayed of trouble and he fully deserves the championship.

Deserving Winner

Jenson Button will be a deserving Champion should he clinch the title this year.

There has been a lot of chatter on blogs and forums that have suggested the contrary.

I do not agree with them for three reasons.

Firstly, Jenson had an absolutely brilliant start to the year. No-one could have asked for any more than what he achieve - and there are a few drivers on the grid that would have been unable to achieve the same level of consistency, pace at timely stages of the Grands Prix and controlled aggression. His team-mate Rubens Barrichello for one.

Secondly, the way that Button has driven since that storming beginning has arguably been just as commendable. He was undoubtedly extracting the maximum performance from his car at Singapore and Hungary when Barrichello was unable to match him during the Grand Prix. Equally, his racecraft and race-pace in Japan this past Sunday was also very impressive, adding vital points to his haul.

Of course his qualifying performances have been suspect at times, but you don't get championship points for pole position.

Finally however, and perhaps most importantly, if Button doesn't deserve the championship then who does?

Of the four contenders this year, Button has made the least mistakes while under the most amount of pressure. His only DNF at Spa-Francorchamps was due to another driver.

However, Vettel made a critical error in Melbourne when he could have let Kubica past instead of trying to finish ahead in a car that was shod with failing tyres. At Monaco, he was on for a good points finish when he binned it at St. Devote.

Webber made less mistakes than Vettel, but quite often found himself just fractionally behind Vettel on pace, such as at Silverstone and in China.

Barrichello was poor at the start of the season. He could have won the championship this year had he done better earlier on, but he played bumper cars in Melbourne, and avoided the podium for the next three races while the Button was racking up the points.

Of the other drivers we would normally expect to be at the front, only Lewis Hamilton looked sufficiently motivated over the entire season - but he threw away too many points and brought the sport into disrepute in Australia. Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Robert Kubica at times looked despondent and uninterested, perhaps with some justification.

But Button should not be judged on the mistakes of the drivers he was competing against. If that was the case, then we would have to re-evaluate numerous champions past.

Button has been the best driver over the course of the season and he would be a deserving champion.

Old Things to Begin With

I am going to try and migrate some of my older articles over from the previous blog. It might be a bit difficult though and things will probably end up in the wrong order, but keep with me.

Here's some articles from my last blog:

Bernies' Medallions (original Feb 2, 2009)

The story that held the most interest for me today was that the FIA has 'revealed' that 13 Formula 1 championships since 1950 would have ended differently had Bernie's medal system been in force since the championship's inception.

Firstly, lets ignore the fact that I would argue a new system of classification should not really be assessed based on the impact it would have previous championships. Lets also ignore the fact that the biggest gainers would have been Nigel Mansell and Jim Clark which would have been nice.

What has interested me about this story is Bernie's claim that a new system would create more excitement for the viewers. He said, in an article published on crash.net, that the championship would have a much greater entertainment value if drivers were forced to fight each other tooth and nail for wins rather than tour round collecting points.

It appears that Bernie is none too happy about the fact that Lewis Hamilton won the 2008 championship. He used the example of the Brazillian Grand Prix last year, when Lewis settled into cruise and collect mode while an inspired Massa drove away from the rest of field, as proof that a radical shakeup is needed.

I believe that Bernie has missed three vital points when taking this stance:

1. The climax of this year's championship was probably the most dramatic of all time. The medal system would have confined Hamilton's incredible pass on Timo Glock at the second last corner of the race as all but academic. As such, I don't understand how fans, other than those who support Ferrari, would have been better served by a medal system.

2. A medal system would either amount to a confusing double tiered points system or a removal of all incentives for those teams not capable of fighting for victory. With Honda already gone, and Toyota and others pondering their future, this is clearly not the best plan in the current climate.

3. The consistency versus race wins formula is what makes motor racing so great. The age old dilemma, for both team and driver, of deciding between a conservative approach or balls out racing has been the cornerstone of competition since racing began. Without trying to undermine my own point about the irrelevance of past championships when assessing a new system - imagine a world without Prost vs Senna, Mansell vs Piquet, perhaps even Massa vs Hamilton. None of these fantastic duels would have been quite what they were if both drivers had always been pushing for the win in every race.

So please Bernie, stop changing the rules every season. Apart from the fact that it devalues the sport and adds to its inaccessibility for those who are new to Formula 1, they are often not brilliant ideas. Let us have our dramatic and championship deciding final lap passes - even if they are for just 5th place.