A six-sided dice – the 2012 Formula One season
Even the most ardent of Formula One fans will concede that many races, indeed many championship seasons, have carried an air on inevitability and monotony about them. If you’re lucky, the drivers of the two best teams duke it out towards seasons end for the title. Even more luck is required to reach the 2010 scenario, where five drivers still have a legitimate shot at the title with three races to go. All of which makes me giddy about the opening five races of the 2012 season – potentially the most open and evenly contested season in decades.
Incredibly, the first five races fell to five different drivers in five different makes of cars. Read that sentence again. Five different makes of cars. It’s a scene more akin to the British Touring Car Championship than to the realms of Formula One.
The last time this occurred was in 1983, when Nelson Piquet (Brabham), John Watson (McLaren), Alain Prost (Renault), Patrick Tambay (Ferrari) and finally defending World Champion Keke Rosberg (Williams) took out the first five races. Thereafter, the spread of winners expanded to seven drivers (for six different constructors) after just eight races, before the second half of the season saw a championship race in three develop between Piquet, Prost and Ferrari’s Rene Arnoux – Piquet prevailing over Prost by just two championship points.
This time around we have Jenson Button (McLaren), Fernando Alonso (Ferrari), Nico Rosberg (Mercedes), defending World Champion Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) and from out of nowhere, Pastor Maldonado (Williams) sharing the spoils to date.
Even better, much as was the case in 1983, we’re highly unlikely to be done with the list of race winners for 2012 just yet.
Three of the current top-five in the World Drivers’ Championship have yet to win, while the team currently sitting in third on the Constructors’ Championship are yet to break their duck. It would be a brave pundit to suggest that we won’t see Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen or Mark Webber on the top step of the dais at some point this year.
That would make eight winners for the year, before we even consider the chances of drivers such as Raikkonen’s teammate Roman Grosjean (who finished third in Spain and has twice made the second row of the gird already) or Sergio Perez (second in Malaysia and fifth on the grid in Spain). While you wouldn’t want your last dollar riding on a 2012 win for either driver, the same could have been said for Maldonado only a fortnight ago.
At this stage, it feels as though eight different drivers across six different constructors is thelower bound for the number of different race winners we’ll see this year. For a long time F1 aficionado, it’s incredible stuff.
The story gets even better though when attention turns to the Drivers’ Championship race. While it is difficult to envisage the likes of Rosberg, Grosjean or Maldonado challenging for the title, six drivers across four different constructors are well and truly in the debate. With five of these drivers having reached the pinnacle of the Formula One before, it makes for a tantalising next six months.
The 2009 World Champion Jenson Button started the year with a bang in Australia and threatened to win yet again in China before finishing second. However, he has only scored two points from the other three races sits in sixth spot, 16 points off the leaders.
Australia’s great hope Mark Webber continues to bomb the start of races, has not yet qualified better than third and hasn’t seen a race day podium in 2012. Despite all of this, the ebbs and flows of the season to date see him only 13 points off the pace in fifth place. If the Red Bull can regain a little of its 2011 dominance, he is right in the frame.
It seemed a significant gamble for Kiki Raikkonen to return to Formula One after two years on the rally scene, but the 2007 World Champion has vaulted onto the podium at both of the last two race meets and finds himself in the thick of the championship action. If the Lotus can keep improving and win a couple of races along the way, he may improbably become the champion once again.
He may have put his car on pole twice and on the front row three times already this season, but Sunday afternoons have been far from kind to Lewis Hamilton thus far. Three third placings and a pair of eighths at the last two starts has been a lean return for the 2008 World Champion, but there he is, only eight points off the current pace setters.
You wouldn’t know it if you were watching Felipe Massa’s car stumble round midfield or worse (sadly, it seems like Formula One has passed this man by – completely understandable when you consider his horrific crash in 2009), but Ferrari are in the mix in 2012. Not that the qualifying positions of 2005/06 World Champion Fernando Alonso would give it away either – only once has he started from better than eighth position. Somehow he has a win, a second placing and a share of the championship lead after five rounds.
Speaking of dual World Champions, Sebastian Vettel is currently on track to make it three titles on end. He has only one race to date where he has started from better than fifth, but a win in Bahrain and a second in Australia have been critical in keeping him at the forefront of the championship race.
2012 has provided the most unpredictable and enjoyable start to a Formula One season in almost three decades. I don’t know what lies in store over the remaining 15 races and neither do you, but I do know this much – whatever happens between now and the November 25 finale in Brazil, I’ll be watching intently.
Thanks to Clive Mason/Getty Images AsiaPac for use of the photo
