Formula One: Fernando Alonso missing out – Please come back Ross Brawn, Ferrari could do with a brain!
The final race of the season, or round 19 of the 2010 Formula One line up, to be more technical, saw Fernando Alonso 15 points clear of Sebastian Vettel in 3rd and 8 points ahead of his closest mathematical challenger, Mark Webber.
Bearing in mind the gulf to the 2nd placed Australian driver, it perhaps made sense to match the pace of the Red Bull. Qualifying saw Fernando Alonso qualifying 3rd with Sebastian Vettel taking pole and Mark Webber ending the session
starting 5th on the grid. Maybe it was safe to assume that as far as the Ferrari camp was concerned, it was Alonso’s driver’s championship to lose – His outcome was simply dependent on his performance. There was no deficit that he had to cover during
the 70 plus laps of the feature in Abu Dhabi while his opposite numbers needed him to ‘malfunction’ even to have a sniff at the title.
What did Ferrari do on Sunday? Their response to the expectations was a rather defensive one. It was fair to say that they looked to take the perceived safer way out of the predicament rather than race on their own ‘original’ strategy. The Scarlet machine
made a rather slow start off the line, losing a place to Robert Kubica. However, all was not lost as based on the points system, if the 2nd Red Bull bearing Sebastian Vettel were to finish on pole, 4th place was all the Ferrari needed
to wrap up the championship – What happened next however, was rather hard to believe.
A team subjected to a lot of stick from the media this season owing to alleged ‘team orders’ made another ‘grey’ decision. This time however, it backfired on them. The safety car at the 20th lap mark saw Mark Webber, still behind the Ferrari and
therefore potentially had little effect on the outcome of the championships, head for the pit lane. Ferrari on the other hand, opted for a ‘pegged’ strategy – Using the Red Bull as a benchmark for the race. What happens when you base your strategy on a car
that’s behind you? – Simple, you merely end up matching it. This time sadly for the Ferrari, they were able to match Webber for a mediocre finish – It looked to be the perfect ‘diversion’ that saw Sebastian Vettel with a clear path for check mate.
Replicating Mark Webber’s pit strategy saw the Ferrari dropping down to the middle of the field albeit ahead of the Australian. However, being stuck behind the ‘slower’ Renault of Vitaly Petrov for around 40 laps of the race left Alonso helpless; paralized
at 300km/h, an irony. Finishing the Grand Prix in 7th combined with Sebastian Vettel taking all 25 points for the race saw the young German crowned as the youngest Formula One champion in the sport’s six decade history.
"It's a shame to get to the end of the season and then miss out on the title at the final moment. Everything went wrong today, from the start to the strategy. With hindsight, it would have been better not to pit so soon.” – Does this sound like the words
of the 2010 champion? Perhaps it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that these were the cries of a guy who lost it all in the blink of an eye – We’ll give you a hint, it’s Red and Spanish and does not like being second best; no, it’s not Rafael
Nadal, he actually won, remember?
Come the conclusion, with Alonso eventually finishing seventh, the double world champion disgraced himself by gesticulating at Petrov as he pulled alongside the Renault on the slow-down lap – Things aren’t always warm and fuzzy nor are they pages from a
children’s fairytale. Real life prefers the black, white and grey over the happily every after; something that Fernando Alonso needs to find out the hard way.
However, seeing the bigger picture, the unpredictable and dramatic ending was the perfect icing on the cake for Bernie Ecclestone and his multi-million dollar franchise – Ironic.
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