Video of the World Champion

Just found this great video of Janson Button [sic] celebrating his world title in Brazil:

... and one showing where it all started:

It's Brawn Over

A big congratulations to Jenson Button and the Brawn GP team on capturing both titles in Brazil today.

Button drove a very accomplished race on the Sao Paulo circuit - a champion's drive as David Coulthard put it - mixing aggressive and conservative approaches appropriately. To pass all those drivers without damaging the car is a very difficult thing to do when fighting for the championship and Button did not put a foot wrong.

There was a point when he was stuck behind Kamui Kobayashi - who perhaps should have been penalised for weaving in the breaking zone - where I thought that Button might struggle to win the championship a round early.

However, as soon as Lewis Hamilton had passed Rubens Barrichello it was clear that baring disaster, Button would become 2009 F1 World Champion before travelling to Abu Dhabi.

It was a great drive from Mark Webber and I expect that he will be a contender next year now that he has won his first and second Grands Prix.

Commiserations to Barrichello as well. At times in the second half of the season he was the in-form man and at one stage appeared to have Button in his pocket.

But his early season performances let him down and overall Jenson was the better driver - as proven by his six victories comparing to Barrichello's two.

Button becomes the first British driver to win the championship the year after a compatriot since Jackie Stewart won his first title in 1969.

After the final race at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi in two weeks' time, I will be blogging on my top 10 drivers of the season.

Pole Position

Apologies for the awful pun as the title (you'll see what I mean) - it's been a long day.

Robert Kubica, Formula 1's first Polish driver, will join the Renault team for 2010. This brings both good and bad news.

The good news first: This has confirmed that Renault will not be pulling out of F1 at the end of the season which had begun to look almost inevitable after the Singapore-gate. After Honda pulled out at the end of last year and with BMW now following suit, there was a real danger that F1 could have gone the same way as the BTCC did at the end of the 90s when the manufacturers pulled out en masse leaving a weakened series. That now appears to have been averted and hopefully both Renault and Toyota (the other team most likely to leave) will remain commited to the series for a few more years yet.

The bad news however is that, in my opinion, Kubica will have to endure another season where the pace of his car will not match his considerable ability. I just cannot see Renault suddenly turning their car into a potential race winner over the winter. If they couldn't do it with Alonso onboard - ableit an admittedly demotivated Alonso - then I can't see Kubica faring any better.

Kubica was my driver of the year in 2008 and I felt that there had been a real injustice in BMW's decision not to continue developing the car towards the back end of that season so as to be able to concentrate on the 2009 car. A decision made even more painful in hindsight given BMW's woeful display this year. As seen with the career of Jenson Button, in F1 you are only as good as your last race and it's a shame that Kubica has not landed a seat at Ferrari, Red Bull, Brawn or Mclaren - the teams that I believe will be challenging for the honours next year.

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.

Come on Jenson!

I have normally prided myself on my lack of partisan supporting in Formula 1.

I have tended to support drivers that I like - sometimes because of their off-track personality rather than their on-track ability.

That's why I was less fussed than I perhaps should have been as a Brit when Lewis won the title last year. I supported Hamilton because of his on-track flamboyance and the way he has rejuvenated interest in Formula 1. I supported Massa because of his pleasant off-track persona.

My (perhaps bizarre) reasons for supporting drivers has meant that up into this weekend I have supported Jenson Button more because of his back story rather than because of his nationality.

When I started to seriously watch motorsport back in 1998, Jenson was one of the most promising British youngsters coming through the ranks and I have kept an eye on his career ever since. I always felt he deserved a better chance to show the ability that he so clearly has and first displayed to the world way back in 2000.

The fact that he now has that chance has perked up my interest and I gladly threw myself headlong into becoming a Jenson fan-boy for the races in Melbourne and Malaysia. After his win this weekend however, I am finding myself shift the reasons for my support.

I know there is a long to go, but wouldn't it be great to have the first back-to-back British champions since the late 1960s?