Halfway through Lap 26 of the British Grand Prix will mark the central point of the 2010 Formula 1 season. Before visiting a new-look Silverstone, GPUpdate.net reviews each driver’s performances, including highs and lows, from the first nine races of a highly dramatic championship.
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What to make of this, then? Let’s backtrack a bit. Double Champion with Renault before enduring a (mostly self-induced) difficult year with McLaren. Two more seasons yield little, on the whole, at Renault but tipped by many – not least some in the GPUpdate office – as Champion for 2010.
It’s not quite worked out as Fernando expected, has it? Having said that, though, he’s always remained in touch despite a catalogue of misfortunes…and it seems strange to be able to say that about Ferrari. Raw pace has been lacking at most races since the expected win in Bahrain and technical problems such as those in Malaysia certainly don’t help, either.
Alonso has made a number of driving errors, though; he got himself involved in the first-corner chaos in Melbourne, spun in qualifying at Sepang, jumped the start and duly picked up a penalty in Shanghai, missed Monte-Carlo qualifying due to writing off his chassis in practice and was eliminated in Q2 qualifying after running wide in Istanbul.
On the other hand, we’ve seen some typical Alonso comeback drives and the Oviedo man remains perhaps the only man in the field who can drive every single lap of a race on the absolutely limit, usually minus the mistakes.
After nine events he’s 29 points behind but, if Ferrari can get their act together and keep up with the general development pace, a title challenge is still more than possible.
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Highlight: Commanding performance in Bahrain to record, after erstwhile leader Vettel’s issues, a triumphant victory in his first race for Ferrari
Lowlight: Furiously labels the race ‘manipulated’ after old rival Hamilton passes the Safety Car in Valencia
Championship position: 5th (29 points off lead)
Grid positions: 3-3-19-3-4-24-12-3-4
Average grid position: 8th
Finishing positions: 1-4-R-4-2-6-8-3-8
Average finishing position: 7th
Retirements: 1 (Malaysia – race-long gearbox problem results in miserable afternoon which is compounded by engine failure whilst chasing Button)
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