Brake Point

♫ "Already Home" (feat. Kid Cudi) - Jay-Z on the music system

Season review time. If you are indeed an F1 fan, I don't expect you to be reading this. Go read the season reviews written by James Allen or Peter Windsor or just listen to Sir Jackie Stewart in his tweed coat banging on about what he feels about the way things panned out.

I just felt weird when the lighting systems at the Abu Dhabi circuit died out and left behind a stark darkness as opposed to the brilliantly illuminated giant jellyfish skin they had swathed the entire main grandstand complex with. Jenson Button and Brawn were already champions and they didn’t really have to…

No. I didn’t feel weird. I felt disgusted at that moment because my brain stopped being absorbed in the race and I gradually felt my olfactory senses pick up the most revolting stench that I’d been oblivious to thus far - I'd been too busy drinking in the visuals.

What else do you expect from a room that has no air-conditioning, no proper ventilation, unwashed and un-disinfected ancient carpets, and is generally occupied by those hordes from that state between Tamil Nadu and the pointless Orissa? Oh, and the monkeys occasionally pop in for a dump. And then leave.

I mean, this season shook it all up for the sport. Or the entertainment show(as the honourable Government of India likes to see it). Ferrari and McLaren, the ‘big boys’ could only whimper with their tails ‘twixt their legs while Brawn and later Red Bull brawn-ed and bull-ed their way to an eventual contest between each other for the titles. I’m sure all the Ferrari and McLaren haters(there seem to be some) were overjoyed that this year had been a nice little kick up their backsides. Truth be told, yes, it was really good to see someone else do the winning for a while.

But the novelty factor soon wore off, because Brawn had been blitzing everyone else for the first one-third of the season. Yes, the double diffuser thing helped, but Williams and Toyota had it too – that didn’t make them that awesome. So, we should give credit where it’s due. Ross Brawn, Nick Fry to a certain extent and the exiting Honda management to a small yet no less significant extent.

And of course, the new Brit hero, Jenson Button. Finally. After that promising start to his career with Benetton and Williams, nobody had bet against him not winning a championship before he turned 29. And yet, that’s what happened with him languishing at the luckless Honda pitwall for over 6 years. If people say he doesn’t deserve the championship, well, they should just shut up. There have been a few such champions in the past, and there will be such champions in the future – a champion is a champion is a champion. And Button deserves it, as much as anyone of his other challengers did. After all these years of frustration and anger, it almost seems poetically apt that Button won the title he so badly wanted in this dramatic fashion. Senna had once appropriately remarked, “Every year, there is a winner of the World Championship, but not necessarily a champion.” However, the record books think otherwise and so we should just shut our mouths and move on.

I was totally crushed for Sebastian Vettel. I’ve been looking out for him ever since he set those blinding times during the free practice for the 2006 Italian GP, and 2009 was the year he should have won that title. I won’t go on and on about how some errors, from himself and from Red Bull, and plain old bad luck conspired to deny him what would have been a stupendous achievement. And he just goes hard at it all the time – he can’t just think of getting the car home and bagging a few points. That’s not his style. And I love his attitude. He wasn’t like, “I’ll be stronger because I have learned to lose” or “Losing is part of the game” or “I have grown as an individual” or any of that regular drivel all these smooth-talkers say when they lose. Instead, he said:

“I wish I didn’t have to say it, but I hate losing. I think I knew it all along, but now I am definitely sure. But somehow that doesn’t only go for racing - I’m afraid I hate losing in anything I am doing - whether it is playing a silly game, or football, I obviously simply hate to lose.”

That’s definitely the guy I see as one whose side I am on. Ah, you’re wondering why? Who’s that dude I worship?

And who is that person we are not talking about? Yes, mister, you. You should stop saying “I have never accepted that I wasn’t as good as Michael.” About time.

Oh, and watch out for yet another young German in the immediate future, Nico Hulkenberg. He will probably turn out to be as good as Vettel. Yes.

Anyway, I’m mega-pissed at Ferrari for letting Kimi Vodkanen go, by terminating his contract that would have expired in 2010, all because President Montezemolo wanted Fernando Teflonso in the team. And that’s the reason I am going to be a Mercedes supporter in case, IN CASE Schumi decides to haul his ass into their racecar for the next season. Ferrari and Schumacher fans shouldn’t see him as a traitor who’s ‘forsaken his loyalty to the team with which he’s spent the golden years of his illustrious career’. If Ferrari can hire Alonso, then without an iota of doubt, Michael occupies a higher moral ground if he decides to get himself released from the ‘Consultant’ position at Maranello and drive for the German company who funded his rise through the junior classes and the DTM. So the Ferraristi in Michael’s camp, shut your miserable whining traps and scream for the Silver Arrows henceforth. My reverence for Ferrari the Manufacturer remains undiminished, but Ferrari the Formula 1 Team? They’d have to do something special to win me back. Hah. Like they need to, or like they ever will. They’ll just ask me to go f**k myself.

So, as a pre-emptive measure, I shall hit ‘Publish’, re-enable μ Torrent, rise from this chair I’m sitting on…

…and do just that.

See you later, infected crimson pustules.