Brazil approaches – and Alonso could take the title but where did it start

For the first time in the season someone could take the title, though it seems unlikely if Alonso repeated the results of Korea then he’d be world champion for the third time. It marks an amazing turn around from mid season where the Ferrari team looked nowhere.
Looking back over the season the Ferrari has never been that slow, but they have had some terrible luck with safety cars and some bad reliability. The fact that Alonso is leading the world championship is down to Ferrari though and the fact that they have concentrated on Alonso for some time. His fortunes turned with the infamous ‘he is faster than you’ moment and he’s never really looked back since.
Now that Alonso has won the most GP and is at the top he looks every bit the world champion and Red Bull are going to find it hard to beat him, even with [...]

McLaren falter and Red Bull charge onwards in Japan

With the five title contenders only 25pts or a race win apart the championship looked incredibly close going into the race. Vettel’s victory and the failure of either McLaren driver to even look like they could get on the podium unless one of the other guys has a problem means that the championship looks less open going to Korea.
If Red Bull don’t have an issue at the next race, and I probably mean a double DNF here then the McLaren guys are out of the title race now, Alonso is still in there but it’s looking more and more like Red Bull have this year in the bag.
Kobayashi had a fantastic race for Sauber and was the only man to really drive past people, if the tactical guys at Sauber had got their act together then he may well have finished further up the field than he did. If more [...]

With three races down – is the new points system working if Felipe Massa is leading?

With three races completed, Bahrain, Australia and Malaysia there have been three winners so far, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Sebastien Vettel but it’s Felipe Massa who leads the Championship. It may be by only 2 points but it seems strange that a points system that was designed to give winning races more emphasis is being led by a driver who hasn’t won yet.
The table itself is very close with 9pts covering the first 7 drivers:

1. Felipe Massa
Ferrari
39

2. Fernando Alonso
Ferrari
37

3. Sebastian Vettel
Red Bull Racing
37

4. Jenson Button
McLaren
35

5. Nico Rosberg
Mercedes GP
35

6. Lewis Hamilton
McLaren
31

7. Robert Kubica
Renault
30

Though I doubt this will hold all season it does mean that you can hold onto the people who are winning even if you don’t manage it yourself. I’m sure that Felipe Massa will be wanting to win and justify that position at the top but with all the different people who seem to be in with [...]

Can Jenson Button retain the title this year?

Arguably Jenson Button has the least chance of retaining his world title since Jacques Villeneuve pulled on his Williams helmet in 1998. With Ferrari signing Alonso and Mercedes bringing back Michael Schumacher plus the fact that Lewis Hamilton is now Jenson Button’s team mate there will be much more competition this year for the top set of points, and I haven’t even mentioned the Red Bull team.
Jenson Button will first and foremost have to beat his team mate to win the title and that is going to be a tough ask, he’ll have to do better than Fernando Alonso did in 2007, Hamilton has improved since then too. Button moves to McLaren as the World Champion as Alonso did in in 2007 but he’s also British and Hamilton did alienate a portion of the McLaren team last year after his antics in Australia so Button’s in a stronger position. What [...]