F1 2010: Team-by-team review

RED BULL-RENAULT
Constructors: 1st, 498 points
1 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) 256 (5 wins)
3 Mark Webber (Aus) 242 (4 wins)
Red Bull-Renault achieved the 'Double' of world Drivers' and Constructors' champions but it really should have been much easier than this.
The Red Bull clearly had the fastest car on the circuit throughout the season, as demonstrated by its nine race wins and 15 pole positions. But reliability problems and a tendency for the drivers to shoot themselves in the foot on race day left the Drivers' championship wide open until the final race. Perhaps Red Bull were just trying to keep the customer satisfied by inadvertently creating the best F1 season for years.
Vettel, in particular, seems to be the most fallible champion in recent years having only converted his 10 pole positions into five race wins. That ratio was even worse until he managed to win from pole in Japan and Abu Dhabi late in the season. Meanwhile victory in Brazil gave him three wins in the last four races, and finally some consistency, which was enough to see him over the line ahead of everyone else.
Australian Webber was hugely disappointed to miss out on perhaps his best chance at becoming world champion. After taking just 28 points from the first four races in yet another slow start to a season, Webber burst into form with successive victories in Spain and Monaco, and a third-place in Turkey. It was in Istanbul that the rivalry between the two Red Bull drivers came to the fore as they crashed when Vettel attempted to overtake Webber for the race lead, an incident which caused the retirement of Vettel.
In Valencia at the European GP, Webber was involved in a dramatic crash as his car flipped right over after a failed attempt to pass Kovalainen's Lotus. Thankfully, Webber was unhurt and came roaring back to record five podium finishes in the next seven races, including race wins in Great Britain and Hungary. Webber's response to his win at Silverstone was a brutal assessment of his perceived standing in the team - "not bad for a number two driver", he said over the team radio as he crossed the line. But, despite his perceptions, he remained in contention until the last race where a poor qualifying performance and an early pit-stop ended his hopes.
It had actually looked that a failure to back one driver over the other would cost Red Bull in the Drivers' championship and their failure to swap Vettel and Webber in the penultimate race in Brazil appeared particularly costly. It meant Alonso took the title lead into the final race rather than Webber but it was, of course, a gamble which paid off as Vettel managed to leapfrog both drivers with victory in the final race - much to the relief of the whole of the Red Bull team.

McLAREN-MERCEDES
Constructors: 2nd, 454 points
4 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) 240 (3 wins)
5 Jenson Button (Gbr) 214 (2 wins)
McLaren clung on to second place in the Constructors' championship but, as the season wore on, Hamilton and Button looked more and more likely to fall short for a Drivers' title as the car fell behind the pace of the Red Bulls and Alonso's Ferrari.
Despite heading into the season as world champion, Button came into the campaign under pressure to establish himself in a team where Hamilton had been previously recognised as the number one driver. Button began well with early wins in Australia and China before three successive podiums in Turkey, Canada and Valencia kept him in the hunt going into the second half of the campaign.
But a retirement in Belgium left him playing catch up in the vital closing stages, and a 12th-place in Korea proved terminal for his chances. The Frome Flyer ended the season at Abu Dhabi on a high with a seventh visit to the podium of the season after a third-placed finish.
Hamilton started much more slowly until hitting a purple patch midway through the season with successive wins in Turkey and Canada followed by successive second-placed finishes at Valencia and Silverstone.
That sequence put Hamilton at the head of the standings but it was followed in the late summer by an awful run of three retirements in four races. Never mind that he won the other one of those four races in Belgium, the three DNFs left Hamilton with little chance of a second world crown.
Second places in Korea and Abu Dhabi showed Hamilton getting back to his best but it was never going to be enough.

FERRARI
Constructors: 3rd, 396 points
2 Fernando Alonso (Spa) 252 (5 wins)
6 Felipe Massa (Bra) 144
Ferrari have been forced to defend their final-race strategy which saw Alonso blow a 15-point lead over eventual champion Vettel.
Their reaction to Webber's early pit-stop left Alonso with the task of needing to overtake Petrov, Rosberg and eventually Kubica, while Vettel sped off into the distance.
With Ferrari being based in Italy, it was no surprise to see some of the politicians shove their oar into the debate in calling for the resignation of team president Luca di Montezemolo. But the Marinello-based team were right to point out that the politicians were looking at the race with the benefit of hindsight.
After all, Alonso's failure to make any inroads into the drivers in front of him came as a surprise, given his excellent form in the second half of the season. The Spaniard had appeared on the podium in seven races out of eight between the German GP and the Brazilian GP with four victories in Germany, Italy, Singapore and Korea. That record made up for a slow overall first half of the season which featured just two podium visits after an opening day race win in Bahrain.
The turning point in Ferrari's season at Hockenheim was controversial as Massa was clearly forced to move over for Alonso in contradiction to rules on team orders. Ferrari were fined for their troubles and managed the situation in a horribly crass manner, claiming Massa was happy to move over when his body language after the race hardly supported this suggestion.
Still, team orders have always been a part of F1 and it would be no surprise to see article 39.1 dropped but, undoubtedly, Ferrari should have better managed that particular situation.
From then, Massa was cast into the role of a support driver and, as such, did not win a race all season. For the most part, though, he did a decent job for Alonso with two third-placed finishes in Monza and Korea, and two fourth-placed finishes in Hungary - the site of his terrible accident in 2009 - and Belgium.
Once the disappointment dissapates, Ferrari fans will be glad to have seen their team back at the front of the grid after a wretched 2009 season. 2011 promises much, not least a more fired-up than ever Fernando Alonso.

MERCEDES GP
Constructors: 4th, 214 points
7 Nico Rosberg (Ger) 142
9 Michael Schumacher (Ger) 72
Mercedes made the big off-season headlines last winter with the announcement that Michael Schumacher was returning to F1 but the German seven-time champion was regularly out-performed by his younger compatriot.
Rosberg finished in third place on three occasions - in Malaysia, China and Great Britain - and he was fourth in the final race in Abu Dhabi. Additionally, he had five fifth-placed finishes and three sixth-placed finishes among 15 point-scoring races in total, just beating Kubica in the standings.
By contrast, Schumacher had a tough first season back. Although point-scoring was fairly regular, the German legend could not find a way onto the podium, finishing fourth in Spain, Turkey and Korea.
Schumacher's mid-season was also overshadowed by controversy when he almost drove his ever-loyal former Ferrari team-mate Barrichello into a wall in the Hungarian GP when unsuccessfully defending 10th.

RENAULT
Constructors: 5th, 163 points
8 Robert Kubica (Pol) 136
13 Vitaly Petrov (Rus) 27
Renault comfortably finished fifth in the Constructors' championship, thanks mainly to the fine efforts of Kubica.
Like Mercedes' Rosberg, the Pole was one of the few drivers on the grid to take the fight to the front three teams while Russian team-mate Petrov also impressed intermittently.
Kubica finished second in the Australian GP, and third at Monaco and in Belgium. He also finished fourth in Malaysia and fifth on four separate occasions. In all, he made 15 appearances in the points and his stock has deservedly risen.
Petrov's highlights were fewer and farther between and he had just five points finishes all season, although one of these was a fifth place in Hungary and another was a ninth-placed finish in Belgium, having started in 23rd.
However, by far his best moment of the season came in the last race in Abu Dhabi as he held off Alonso to finish sixth and kill off the Spaniard's title chances, earning a thoroughly undeserved rebuke from the Ferrari man.

WILLIAMS-COSWORTH
Constructors: 6th, 69 points
10 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) 47
14 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) 22
Williams sneaked sixth place in the Constructors' championship ahead of Force India by a single point after Hulkenberg's efforts at the penultimate Grand Prix in Brazil.
Hulkenberg was the only man outside of Vettel, Alonso, Webber and Hamilton to put a car on pole and he finished 8th in the race.
However, most of Williams' points this season came from the experienced Barrichello in his 18th season in F1. The Brazilian rolled back the years to finish fourth in the European GP and fifth at Silverstone. He scored points in 10 of the 19 races, failing to finish only twice, and it is this consistency which earns him another year in F1 with Williams.
That is not something which can be said for Hulkenberg who will be replaced in 2011 by Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado. But the young German should be too downhearted - his Sao Paulo performance should be enough to earn him a drive elsewhere. After all, the main reason for him being replaced is simply that Maldonado comes with greater financial backing.

FORCE INDIA-MERCEDES
Constructors: 7th, 68 points
11 Adrian Sutil (Ger) 47
15 Vitantonio Liuzzi (Ita) 21
Force India will be disappointed with the 2010 season after the progress made in the latter part of 2009 when Giancarlo Fischicella even achieved a pole position at Spa in Belgium.
Sutil looked set to back up the breakthrough with a positive start in 2010 which saw him score in six consecutive races between the Spanish and the British Grand Prix. But the German scored just 12 of his 47 points in the second half of the season, 10 of them coming in one go in an impressive drive in the Belgian GP.
Liuzzi's best finish of the season came in Korea where he finished sixth but that was out of keeping with a dreadful end to an average season at best. Four of the Italian's last five races ended in retirement and included a horrible head-on crash with Michael Schumacher in the race at Abu Dhabi.
In all fairness, there was little Liuzzi could do to avoid contact with Schumacher who had been spun after contact with his team-mate Rosberg but just six points finishes and 21 points altogether still represents a poor return from a full 19 starts.

BMW SAUBER-FERRARI
Constructors: 8th, 44 points
12 Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) 32
17 Pedro de la Rosa (Spa) 6
18 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) 6
Kobayashi won over the doubters after a spate of retirements early in the season to bag almost 75% of Sauber's total points.
Particularly impressive was his seventh-placed finish in his homeland, and he also finished seventh in the European Grand Prix at Valencia and sixth at Silverstone.
Experienced Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa failed to match the Japanese driver's achievements, scoring just six points from a single seventh-placed finish in Hungary before being replaced by Nick Heidfeld.
German Heidfeld also scored six points but from just five races as compared to de la Rosa's 14. Heidfeld also finished in the points twice in those five starts - in Japan and Korea - but he is set to be replaced by Mexican youngster Sergio Perez in the new season.

TORO ROSSO-FERRARI
Constructors: 9th, 13 points
16 Sebastien Buemi (Swi) 8
19 Jaime Alguersuari (Spa) 5
How much credit can Toro Rosso claim for Sebastian Vettel's world championship with sister team Red Bull? Not a huge amount, I suspect, but one thing for sure is that Vettel is still conspicuous by his absence from this team.
The youthful pairing of Switzerland's Sebastien Buemi and Spain's Jaime Alguersuari have just 42 years between them and regular points finishes were never really expected. It is a good job that was the case as Buemi scored on four occasions and Alguersuari just three times.
However, Alguersuari - the youngest driver on the circuit at 20 - deserves credit for having kept the car on the track almost all season. He retired just twice, while Buemi's record of five DNFs is not too bad either, and that represents something to build upon.

LOTUS-COSWORTH
Constructors: 10th, 0 points
20 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin)
21 Jarno Trulli (Ita)
Lotus were the best of the three new teams but that was surely to be expected, considering their driver line-up of Kovalainen and Trulli had 285 starts between them, including one race win each.
Having failed to impress in a much stronger car at McLaren in 2008 and 2009, this season of nul points for Kovalainen is perhaps a case of reaping what he sowed. Meanwhile, Trulli must surely feel that his best days have come to an abrupt end. Even in 2009 at Toyota, the Italian still achieved a pole position in Bahrain and three podiums but that does not look like being repeated any time soon.
Indeed, Trulli's best finish in 2010 was 13th in Japan which was also where Kovalainen had his best result of 12th. Trulli retired on seven occasions and Kovalainen five times - and so, while it is wonderful to have the Lotus name back in F1, it must surely be hoped they can produce a more competitive car for 2011.

HISPANIA-COSWORTH
Constructors: 11th, 0 points
22 Bruno Senna (Bra)
24 Karun Chandhok (Ind)
26 Sakon Yamamoto (Jpn)
27 Christian Klein (Aut)
Hispania had the toughest of debut seasons in F1 on and off the track with regular driver switches and financial problems throughout.
Indeed, it is a credit to Hispania that they managed to keep the whole thing going to the bitter end of the campaign, finishing on a relative high note in that their two drivers in Abu Dhabi - Senna and Klein - completed the race, albeit two laps behind.
In all, the Spanish team used four different drivers, starting off the season with Senna and India's second-ever F1 driver, Chandhok. Senna was first to be dropped when Yamamoto replaced him at Silverstone but, from the next race in Germany onwards, Senna was restored and it was Chandhok who failed to get a seat. Yamamoto was himself replaced by Klein in Singapore because the Japanese driver suffered from food poisoning but Klein also replaced him for the final two races in Brazil and Abu Dhabi. It was a head-spinning amount of changes.
Off the track, the future for Hispania looks bleak. The team parted company with designers Dallara and have now lost the backing of Toyota who had looked set to supply the cars for 2011. Toyota blamed a lack of payment from Hispania for their decision and, unless something changes soon, this foray into F1 looks like being a short one.

VIRGIN-COSWORTH
Constructors: 12th, 0 points
23 Lucas di Grassi (Bra)
25 Timo Glock (Ger)
Richard Branson may have enjoyed his time as a sponsor of the successful Brawn GP champions in 2009 but, predictably enough, he found having a stake in his own team a much tougher proposition.
Indeed, finishing statistically behind the Hispania team comes as somewhat of an embarrassment even at this lower end of pecking order, and German Glock - who did well at Toyota in 2008-09 - looks particularly lost. By contrast, this season was di Grassi's first taste of F1. Both drivers' best finish was 14th - di Grassi in Malaysia and Glock in Japan. Di Grassi retired seven times and Glock eight times.

FINAL STANDINGS
Drivers' Championship
1 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull-Renault 256 (5 wins)
2 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 252 (5 wins)
3 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 242 (4 wins)
4 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren-Mercedes 240 (3 wins)
5 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren-Mercedes 214 (2 wins)
6 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 144
7 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes 142
8 Robert Kubica (Pol) Renault 136
9 Michael Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes 72
10 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Williams-Cosworth 47
11 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India-Mercedes 47
12 Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) BMW Sauber-Ferrari 32
13 Vitaly Petrov (Rus) Renault 27
14 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Williams-Cosworth 22
15 Vitantonio Liuzzi (Ita) Force India-Mercedes 21
16 Sebastien Buemi (Swi) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 8
17 Pedro de la Rosa (Spa) BMW Sauber-Ferrari 6
18 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber-Ferrari 6
19 Jaime Alguersuari (Spa) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 5
(20 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Lotus-Cosworth, 21 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Lotus-Cosworth, 22 Bruno Senna (Bra) Hispania-Cosworth, 23 Lucas di Grassi (Bra) Virgin-Cosworth, 24 Karun Chandhok (Ind) Hispania-Cosworth, 25 Timo Glock (Ger) Virgin-Cosworth, 26 Sakon Yamamoto (Jpn) Hispania-Cosworth, 27 Christian Klein (Aut) Hispania-Cosworth failed to score)

Constructors' Championship
1 Red Bull-Renault 498 (9 wins)
2 McLaren-Mercedes 454 (5 wins)
3 Ferrari 396 (5 wins)
4 Mercedes GP 214
5 Renault 163
6 Williams-Cosworth 69
7 Force India-Mercedes 68
8 BMW Sauber-Ferrari 44
9 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 13
(10 Lotus-Cosworth, 11 Virgin-Cosworth, and 12 Hispania-Cosworth failed to score)

2010 Team-by-team preview