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Old 11-30-2008, 11:24 AM   #1
blue8
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 1,327
Default 2008 best F1 season?

...according to Planet F1 it is:
Forget all the talk of 1958, of 1976, of 1982 or 2003. Andrew Davies is convinced that 2008 was the most exhilarating F1 season of all time...

1.There were seven different grand prix winners in the season - including debut wins for Robert Kubica, Heikki Kovalainen and Sebastian Vettel. It was almost like 1982 when six different drivers won the first six grands prix (and using Bernie's medal system - Didier Pironi, Rene Arnoux, John Watson and Alain Prost would have all been World Champion that year ahead of Keke Rosberg. They all won twice and Rosberg won once).

2. Nine teams managed to get at least one podium. Even Honda. After the withdrawal of the SuperAguri team the grid was often separated by as little as two seconds, the closest, tightest field F1 has ever seen.

3. The Singapore Grand Prix was F1's first ever night race and the organisers put on a faultless demonstration of how to organise a GP from scratch.

4. As an F1 spectacle, the Belgian GP was one of the most gripping motor races of all time. Everything happened in the closing two laps when it started to rain, including Nick Heidfeld strapping on wet tyres and driving from a position way out of the points to a podium place...on the final lap. Though it turned from spectacle to debacle after Lewis Hamilton's win was taken away, the on-track action was the stuff of F1 history.

5. And if Spa wasn't enough we already had the masterclass of Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone for the British GP. Hamilton won by a minute while playing it safe and not going as fast as he wanted. Off the leash, he could probably have lapped the entire field.

6. There were great comebacks.Renault came back from the dead. Kubica challenged, faded, then challenged again. Kimi Raikkonen looked in the ascendancy at Ferrari after his win in Spain, and after less than convincing performances from Felipe Massa at the British and German GPs, the Brazilian looked on the ropes. And then he bounced back to almost snatch the World Championship. So, a full justification for Ferrari's policy of letting both their drivers compete until late in the season

7. There was a three-way battle for the drivers' title with two races to go. Robert Kubica didn't look like he was going to outpace either Massa or Hamilton in the last races, but he possesses Michael Schumacher's obstinate streak. If the two title contenders clashed - as they had done in Japan - then Kubica would be there waiting.

8. We all got the chance to laugh at Max - or is that Mike - Mosley. The FIA president should have died of shame after his exposure in the News of the World. Max's sado-masochistic frolics were headline news around the world, yet despite many heads of governments and royal families' refusals to be seen with him, Max thought it was all right to continue in his job. After all, he had the backing of some key motor manufacturing countries such as Mozambique and Saint Helena.

9. Lewis Hamilton managed to right the wrongs of 2007 when one of the McLaren drivers should have been World Champion. Fernando Alonso really should have been the World Champion in 2007. The interference of the stewards in an intra-McLaren dispute in Hungary put Fernando too far down the grid at Budapest. Without it he would have claimed a comfortable 2nd place, if not the win. And let's not even go into cool fuel in Brazil 2007...

10. One of the most gripping campaigns ended with an amazingly tense race and the title only being decided two corners before the final chequered flag of the season. The Brazilian GP was an epic. It will be harder to get closer to the wire than that in the next 50 years. A fitting finale to what was the best season of F1 ever.
Does anyone think the same? I've only watched 2 full seasons of F1 (shame on me ) so clearly I'm not qualified to say that it is. I can say at least that this season was better than last year (though I prefer that Raikkonen won).
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