No shortage of high-octane action

CREDIT: The writer is the Corporate Communications Manager at Dubai Autodrome llc.

The festive season coupled to the end of the year always brings out the ‘best of’ in the sports and entertainment fields. Without further ado here is my own Formula 1 awards relating to the season gone by, which happened to be the longest in the history of the sport and arguably the closest fought,

After all there were eight winners in the first eight races.

* Driver of the Year – Kimi Raikkonen

This will be a point of contention because Fernando Alonso was elected by team bosses as their driver of the year, and they should know. Couple it to the fact that 25-year old Sebastian Vettel clinched his third title in as many years and is in the process of trashing every F1 record ever established.

Nevertheless, Raikkonen gets the nod from me simply because he is “The Iceman”. A real character returned to a sport packed with no characters, yes-men and an era of politically correct, sponsor-burdened race drivers, whose sound bites are construed and dispensed by an army of spin doctors who make up a huge contingent of the F1 circus.

At Lotus, Raikkonen is pretty much his own man, a maverick who tends to do things his way. He is famously disdainful of media, despises sponsor promo events, is a nightmare to interview, thoroughly enjoys a good party, but most importantly he loves to drive race cars. And he is particularly good in the cockpit of a Formula 1 car.

However few would have predicted the impact he made in his comeback season where he scored points in every race bar one, took victory in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in fine style and dispensed with the quote of the year when he brusquely informed his talkative engineer over the radio, “Leave me alone, I know what I am doing.”

Perhaps the most telling quote though was his response when asked why his comeback was way more successful than that of seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher. Raikkonen replied, “It’s just about whether you have a good car or not. It has made life much easier for me. He ([Schumacher] was not so lucky.”

When the points were tallied up Raikkonen was third in the world championship title standings. But for all these above mentioned reasons he gets my vote. Bravo!

* Race of the Year – Brazilian Grand Prix

The last race of the season was an epic by my books. It was the best race of the year and the best I have witnessed in 30-something years of following this sport. A true contest that had everything: more heart-stopping moments, overtaking, crashes and incidents than ever before and involving all the top guns.

Fittingly the final race of the season was outrageous in terms of high drama and pure adrenalin pumping action. In the end Jenson Button was victorious, Sebastian Vettel became the world champion and Michael Schumacher called it quits. Those couple of hours in Brazil were unbelievable,

* Drive of the Year – Sebastian Vettel in Abu Dhabi

They once said that overtaking was not possible at the seven-star Yas Marina Circuit. How wrong they were.

Throw in DRS, KERS and Pirelli tyres and we now have a venue which allowed Vettel to power through the field after starting in the pit-lane, to finish third and scupper any hopes that his arch-rival for the title, Alonso, had of making inroads into the championship lead the Red Bull driver had eked out at that stage of the title race.

It was an incident packed night, where Vettel drove a race that will go down as one of his best, and for me the best performance by a driver during the course of a season filled with great drives by the F1 collective.

* Rookie of the Year – Jean Eric Vergne

There were only two real rookies this year – Jean Eric Vergne and Charles Pic – and judging either of them is somewhat unfair as Pic was in the back of the grid Marussia, while Vergne plied his trade in the mid-pack Toro Rosso team which enabled him to score some points at least.

In his first year Vergne outscored his teammate Daniel Ricciardo (who was technically not a rookie as he had half a season of F1 under his belt) and although he is yet to prove he is the real deal, it must be remembered that the young Frenchman was fast-tracked into F1. In the cut-throat world of the Red Bull driver programme the pressure is on. Vergne gets my vote over Pic by a whisker.

Other awards that would be given out at my F1 ‘Oscars’ would include:

• News of the Year: Lewis Hamilton quits McLaren to move to Mercedes, prompting Michael Schumacher’s second retirement.

• Car of the Year: Red Bull RB8, another masterpiece by F1 design guru Adrian Newey.

• Track of the Year: Circuit of the Americas

• Surprise of the Year: Pastor Maldonado, fighting off Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, to win his maiden F1 race at the Spanish Grand Prix.

• Crasher of the Year: Two way tie between Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado, with no explanation necessary.

• Quote of the Year: “Leave me alone, I know what I am doing!” – Kimi Raikkonen on the radio to his engineer during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

• Understatement of the Year: “I’m happy but there’s nothing to jump around about!” – Kimi Raikkonen after winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.