First up, what was with all the accidents in qualifying!? I’ve never seen a qualifying session like that before and I don’t remember Suzuka being that dangerous the last time F1 raced there. Real shame about Timo Glock in particular – just as he was starting to shine

Quick points that stood out from the race:

Sebastian Vettel – A champion’s drive. Shame he probably won’t be champion – not this year anyway I say give it to both him and Jenson! They’ve both deserved it as much as each other at different points in the season

Jenson Button – After a great drive in Singapore this performance was very disappointing. Kind of sums up the 2nd half of the year for Jenson.

Jarno Trulli – Great job from Jarno and Toyota. One wonders what would have been if Glock was able to race too. Let’s hope Toyota can continue the momentum into next year.

Lewis Hamilton – Another good race from the Englishman. Some championship-winning consistency there. If only McLaren didn’t have such a poor start to the season…

Heikki Kovalainen – Very surprised he didn’t get penalised for completely screwing Adrian Sutil’s race up. Sutil made the cleanest pass possible then Heikki just straight out punts him off. I’d be surprised to see him at McLaren next year.

Kimi Raikkonen – Like Lewis, Kimi is getting some good consistent results.

Nico Rosberg – Can’t wait to see him in a (hopefully) better car next year.

Fernando Alonso – First race in a long while where he’s completely not been a factor.

Singapore Track – Love the F1 cars under lights!

Lewis Hamilton – Dominated the race. Doubt Vettel could have touched him even without the problems.

Timo Glock – Such a shock. On minute Toyota are at the back of the pack, then one or two races later they’re front-runners.

Fernando Alonso – Solid. Seemed very cold toward Lewis after the race. Next year should be interesting

Sebastian Vettel – It was nice seeing him push and dreaming there might be a fight for first place in the race, but the reality was the Red Bull cars weren’t up to it and speeding in pits didn’t help.

Jenson Button – Really good drive from the would-be champion! Started the race a bit so-so but then did a string of good laps and outdrove Barrichello.

Rubens Barrichello – Just when you thought the momentum was going Rubens’ way he faltered a bit in this race.

Romain Grosjean – The guy spins off in practice in exactly the same place Nelson Piquet Jr crashed last year to alledgedly help Alonso win the race. Now that’s irony!

Ferrari – Bit weak all round..

The points in text:

• Giancarlo Fisichella – Great performance first time out. So nice to see him live a dream he’s no doubt had since he was a little kid running around in Rome
• Rubens Barrichello – Thank you for keeping the Championship interesting
• Jenson Button – A good result and no-one can take that from him, yet he doesn’t seem to have that spark like say, Hamilton or Alonso..
• Lewis Hamilton – Despite crashing he was by far the only driver worth watching during the race.
• Force India – Both drivers (and the team) should be very proud for what they’re achieving, especially Liuzzi with his qualifying effort and strong running until retiring.
• Reb Bull Racing – Didn’t get much of a mention in the video because they’re letting the championship slip away. I thought their car was supposed to be very good aerodynamically? Perhaps they needed to turn the engine down to preserve them..?

Giancarlo Fisichella – Without a doubt this guy was the star of the weekend. It’s a shame he didn’t win but 2nd place is like a win for Force India. I don’t know how true the rumours about Fisi to Ferrari are but let’s hope where there’s smoke, there’s fire He’s definitely one of the best Italian drivers of recent time so to see him in a Ferrari in Italy would be magic

KERS – There’s so much talk about KERS being the only reason Kimi won the race. Sure, that helped him get the lead but I think the people complaining about KERS just have a case of sour grapes. No one complained about KERS being an advantage when it was making McLaren and Ferrari slow at the start of the season. There is a weight distribution penalty after all (ask McLaren) and any of the other teams are free to run it if they think it’s an advantage.

Kimi Raikkonen – As the Ferrari gets better, Kimi has been steadily delivering the goods. More so than last year it has to be said. Would be really nice to see him back at McLaren next year – not sure Brawn will do too well in 2010.

Sebastian Vettel – The only driver in the championship hunt to really capitalise on Jenson Button’s misfortune.

BMW – Funny how every year they seem to start the season really well, then drop off toward the end. Yet in this, their final year, they start the season bad then start to improve at the end. That’s F1 for ya

Red Bull Racing – Someone really needs to talk to their pit guys to get things together. These penalties and near misses are too costly for them.

Jenson Button – Couldn’t really see from the replay whether he was unlucky or a bit too ambitious. I tend to think unlucky as you’re there to race but in any case his luck came in the fact that once again his nearest rivals didn’t score to well.

Rubens Barrichello – Great to see Rubens win. He actually did a damn good job to keep in touch with Hamilton even if it was a McLaren pit-stop error that ultimately handed him the win. Only thing I don’t like about Rubens is why he’s such a clown on the podium when he wins. Sure, we have to love a guy that will cry even at the sight of a small puppy, but his antics on the podium are obviously an inside joke that most people don’t get.. Still, congrats Rubens!

Lewis Hamilton - Unstoppable… except for the tyre stop   Seriously though without the pressure of being in the championship hunt Lewis is hard to stop with a good car under him.

Luca Badoer – WTF!? Ok.. in previous years any monkey could have stepped into a Ferrari or McLaren and at least be half way up the grid. This year everyone’s a lot closer and the top teams are struggling somewhat… but to qualify at the back of the grid and then have one of the most woeful races ever!? The fact that Kimi finished 3rd shows the car is pretty good. There’s too much to say on this matter – gonna have to follow it up with a post of it’s own..

Kimi Raikkonen – I keep feeling like Kimi isn’t 100% into Formula One any more yet he just keeps putting in solid drives. Will be such a shame to see him go at the end of the year (if that’s how it pans out)

Heikki Kovalainen – Not bad, but how did he fall to 4th. Hmm..

Nico Rosberg – Nice

Fernando Alonso – Not much to say. Not a bad result but nothing spectacular in front of his home fans.

Jenson Button – Did well to get ahead of Mark Webber, but both championship contenders didn’t look like worthy champions.

Sebastian Vettel – Boy this boy is unlucky.

Mark Webber – Had a chance to close on the championship. Not sure why it didn’t happen.

BMW – Looks to have found a little pace? A little being the key word.. but still, worth noting given they’ll be gone next year.

Toyota – Were they in the race? I didn’t see them the whole time..

Force India – Seemed to be going pretty well..

Romain Grosjean – The race didn’t go so well for him. Qualifying wasn’t too bad. For some reason I feel this guy has a lot of potential.

Now to the race itself…

Lewis Hamilton – Unstoppable. He looked like he would have been fast in the last round and this round confirmed that. Great drive.

Kimi Raikkonen – Bit of a surprise here. Both McLaren and Ferrari seem to have had a nice surge in performance at almost the same time. Kimi was lucky not to be penalised for his swerving at the race start – but I guess there were so many cars around that their movements influenced his (as opposed to Mark Webber in the previous round who swerved for seemingly no reason).

Mark Webber – Another solid drive. These podium places will certainly help especially as teammate Sebastian Vettel keeps having DNFs.

Nico Rosberg / Williams – Looks like Williams has decided that if the “great” teams like Ferrari and McLaren are going to go faster, they should be on the list too Shame that Nico will change teams next year. Or will he?

Heikki Kovalainen – I haven’t wrote about this guy for so long I almost forgot how to spell his name hehe Seriously though, his result shows how far McLaren has come. But it also shows how far behind his teammate he is.

Timo Glock – Keeps making a name for himself. Bye bye Jarno Trulli next year?

Jenson Button / Brawn – For a while I didn’t think the prediction that they’d be beaten later in the year would come true, but now they’re going backwards very fast..

Sebastian Vettel – What a shame he’s had 4 DNFs. He could have started to put pressure on Button by now otherwise. We’ll just have to leave it up to Mark Webber to give the championship a little bit of excitement.

Sebastien Buemi – Even though the result doesn’t say much, Buemi’s performance in qualifying is worth a mention. This guy is very very good. As for new boy Jaime Alguersuari, he didn’t exactly shine on debut did he?

Fernando Alonso – Probably would have been good for about 5th or 6th if it wasn’t for his tyre coming off.

KERS – Good on McLaren and Ferrari for sticking with KERS. Looks like they’re going to have a big advantage at the start of every grand prix now that they’re getting on top of their system. I agree with Martin Brundle – next year they need to either mandate KERS be used, or get rid of it completely. It seems like a technology that could be good in road cars, so hopefully it’s made compulsory next year – but that’s unlikely.

Not only did Mark win, but he completely dominated the race. That’s a huge achievement against a teammate like Sebastian Vettel and to do it for a team that isn’t traditionally a “top team” is even sweeter.

The points:

Mark Webber – Apart from a stupid swerve at the start that gave him a penalty he deserved, he was simply brilliant. I didn’t think of Mark as a championship contender, but now I do. Let’s hope his bad luck doesn’t stop his roll

Sebastian Vettel – Strong race although for him to finish second puts Mark Webber’s pace into perspective – despite a drive through penalty Mark was still that much ahead at the end of the race.

Felipe Massa – Felipe continues to impress me immensely. He’s making his teammate Kimi Raikkonen look ordinary. And I’m sure Kimi is still a very quick driver. Good drive.

Nico Rosberg – Rosberg and Williams certainly do look to be getting stronger lately.. A fairly anonymous race resulting in a very solid 4th place

Rubens Barrichello – Rubens must have the 2nd worst luck in F1 after Mark Webber. Although even if he wasn’t forced to a 3 stop strategy because of the fueling problem I don’t think he could have touched Webber still.

Jenson Button – How quickly the tide turns. It’ll be very interesting to have another hot race to see if the Brawn cars are suddenly quick again. Otherwise Jenson will have to worry about not only being beaten by Red Bull cars but by the ol’ Ferrari and McLarens amongst others.

Fernando Alonso – Did some Michael Schumacher magic tricks All the race he’s running in 11th or 12th then bang, 5th place! And some very very fast laps to boot!

Kimi vs Sutil incident – A racing incident, but if you had to lay blame it looks like Sutil slid into Kimi so one cross against Adrian’s name

Webber vs Barrichello start – Clearly Webber was a bit too agressive this time. The on-board shots made it look like a solid thump against Barrichello. Although the non-on-board stuff looked fairly light and he might have got away with it if it wasn’t for the on-boards

In Summary – Brawn starting to slip a little. McLaren and Ferrari still clawing away. Red Bull at least on par with Brawn (some circuits suit one car, some suit the other.. and interesting how the Brawn car can run in dirty air better than the Red Bull)

I had a feeling this would be one race that escaped Jenson… should have taken that bet

I think the point form works better so we’ll go back to that for this round:

• Sebastian Vettel – Wow.
• Mark Webber – Almost wow Great job getting ahead of Barrichello though! And good to see the Aussie media start to give some front page coverage to him (at least on the news web sites).
• Rubens Barrichello – Great that he managed to beat his teammate, but should have drove it home by taking the win.
• Felipe Massa – After Vettel I vote Felipe for drive of the race. He fought hard and got a great result.
• Nico Rosberg – Solid. Williams edging ahead of Toyota?
• Jenson Button – Hard to tell whether he could have done more. I really hope he doesn’t settle for playing a numbers game for the rest of the season
• Giancarlo Fisichella – What happened there? Wasn’t he ahead of Alonso and Hamilton at one point? Then he ends up 10th. I guess that’s still good for Force India though
• Kimi Raikkonen & Kazuki Nakajima – Didn’t quite catch where they dropped down the pack so much?
• McLaren, Renault, BMW – Oh dear…

Just kidding But really, Jenson Button’s dominance made this race rather boring. Thankfully Rubens Barrichello managed to balls up a few things again to prevent another Brawn 1-2. Not that I have anything against Brawn GP but we don’t want them to take the Championship too early do we Bernie?

It was good to see the Red Bull cars back on pace after a disasterous Monaco (for Vettel anyway).

McLaren and Ferrari are still lost at sea.

Nico Rosberg finally got some decent points instead of just showboating on Friday practice

Was great to see how KERS can keep a slower car (like a McLaren) in front of a car with a lot more overall pace.

I’ll put it out to the readers – can anyone stop Jenson Button now?? In any race let-alone for the Championship?