Calling the 2010 Formula 1 Grand Prix season the greatest in the 61-year history of the series may sound like exaggeration, but it’s true. After a dozen races, five different drivers on three different teams were separated in points by less than the reward for a single victory. It is an unprecedented situation, and major decisions over the final seven races will ultimately crown a worthy champion.
Because F1 has one of the longest seasons in sports (19 races from March to November), the series traditionally takes a four-week hiatus in August. Factories are required to close for at least two weeks during the break (to allow employees to enjoy some family time), but the thinking never stops. An F1 car has more than 4,000 pieces, and more than a quarter of them are changed in the course of a season. Once back at work, engineers at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, Red Bull Racing, and Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro worked feverishly to develop improved parts in the hopes of producing fractional improvements in speed.
Two of the contenders – 2008 champ Lewis Hamilton and 2009 titleist Jenson Button – used Mercedes engines, recognized as the most powerful in the sport. But the British duo was worried. In round 12 in Hungary, Hamilton struggled to keep pace with the Red Bulls and Ferraris and ran fourth before a broken gearbox (his first mechanical failure of the year) ended his day. When Red Bull’s Mark Webber scored his fourth win of the year, he took the points lead (161), followed by Hamilton (157), Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel (151), Button (147), and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso (141). The factory MercedesGP team and drivers Nico Rosberg (122 points) and Michael Schumacher (46) were out of contention with an uncompetitive chassis; as the season wound down, they were merely accumulating data for the components planned for the 2011 design.
The McLaren chassis was flawed. Though it was quick through high-speed corners, the MP4-25 failed to match the speed of the Red Bulls and Ferraris through medium-speed and slow corners. In Hungary, the McLarens fell hopelessly off the pace (1.7 seconds behind – a huge amount in a sport where grid positions are often determined by hundredths of a second). Hamilton was a fading fourth when his transmission failed, while Button struggled to salvage eighth (equaling his worst result of the year) and four valuable points.
Races 13 (the Belgian GP) and 14 (the Italian GP) were the final events at venues with mostly high-speed corners – situations where the 2.4-liter, 32-valve Mercedes-Benz FO108X V-8 engine could excel. The silver-and-red cars needed strong performances there if they hoped to stay close in the final five races.
All of this information was known by Hamilton and Button. How they dealt with the pressure of such a close title fight presented an interesting study in contrasts. Although McLaren maintains that it treats its drivers equally, the reality is that favoritism toward one invariably appears in subtle (and sometimes imaginary) ways.
“So many decisions of the team influence the psyche and the confidence of a driver,” said David Coulthard, winner of 12 grands prix (but never the F1 championship) over a 10-year career at McLaren. “It can be something subtle, like where the chief designer goes when both cars are in the garage. It can be something more obvious, like a new part arriving and going on the other car rather than yours, or which engine is put in which car. If you feel that the other driver on the team is being favored, then this can have a really negative effect on your performance – you subconsciously think about that rather than using all of your energy to drive the car.
“For McLaren, the decision is difficult. Both drivers have won world championships, and neither wants to play second fiddle. The question is: Just how long can the ‘love-in’ last?”
To their credit as sportsmen, McLaren executives refused to give priority to either Hamilton or then-teammate Alonso during the 2007 season, but the end result saw the duo tie for second place, just one point behind champion Kimi Räikkönen of Ferrari. It was a high cost – thought to be a contributing factor in Mercedes deciding to sell its share of McLaren and form its own team for 2010 – for the sake of a principle.“If you want to win a world championship,” said McLaren Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh after this year’s Hungarian race, “you want to be able to sit down and look at yourself in a mirror and believe that you’ve won it, that it’s not been gifted.”
In Belgium, Webber won the pole, but Hamilton qualified second and Button fifth. Rain scrambled race-day proceedings, and Hamilton used his uncanny car control to survive a scary slide through a gravel trap that took him within inches of the barrier. He scored an impressive win over Webber, but Button left the track a frustrated man after Vettel lost control and crashed into the McLaren while battling for second, ending the hopes of both men. While Hamilton regained the points lead, Button was a distant fourth, 35 points behind. He would have to succeed with an unconventional gamble at one of the final six races if he were to maintain hopes of defending his 2009 championship.
Button chose the next event – the Italian Grand Prix – to roll the dice. McLaren’s computer simulations indicated that a high top-speed, low-downforce, low-drag aerodynamic package would be fastest at the Monza track. After trying both setups in practice, Hamilton followed conventional wisdom and selected small front and rear wings without the F-duct (a conduit that channels air from the front of the car through the cockpit to the rear wing, where it exits through a slot and balances the air pressure above and below the wing, reducing drag), but Button and his engineer Jakob Andreasen decided to go with the high-downforce, high-drag wings and use the F-duct. They reasoned that high downforce would minimize lateral corner movement and that Button’s demonstrated ability to conserve his tires would enable him to maximize the speed from both the hard and soft rubber compounds each car is required to use in every race.
Button drove a nearly flawless lap in qualifying to rank second to Alonso’s Ferrari (also extensively modified for this race), while Hamilton made mistakes and could only register the fifth-best time. “You’ve got more downforce, so you can brake later. You can carry more speed through corners,” Button said. “You have to push very hard. It’s different to running low downforce. You’ve got to make the time up in the corners, whereas with low downforce, most of the time comes in the straight and you obviously have to tip-toe through the corners. But when you have high downforce, you have got to be aggressive and you have really got to push the car. I feel it worked in qualifying. We were not 100 percent sure it was going to, but for the race, I think, we’re looking good.”
Both McLaren drivers also benefited from new electronic engine mapping designed to produce constant exhaust gas pressure even when the driver is off the throttle. The exhaust gases are used to increase the downforce of the rear diffuser, an essential aerodynamic component that creates a large portion of aerodynamic grip. Having consistent grip at all points on the track is part of the “balance” that drivers constantly seek and rarely totally achieve. Because the next five races were scheduled at tracks that favored the handling characteristics of the Red Bulls and the Ferraris, Hamilton privately decided he had to charge at the start of the Italian race. That was a mistake. At the flash of the starting lights, Button applied the power perfectly to take the lead, while Hamilton snatched fourth. With unnecessary desperation, Hamilton stuck the nose of his McLaren to the inside of Felipe Massa’s third-place Ferrari in an ill-conceived passing attempt as the duo entered the first chicane. The right front wheel of the silver car touched the left rear of the red one, and Hamilton soon rolled to a stop with a broken steering arm. Button fought valiantly but eventually had to yield to the top speed of Alonso’s Ferrari. The Englishman maintained his composure to finish second and earn 18 valuable points that returned him to championship contention.
In body language and tone of voice, Hamilton and Button were at opposite extremes. Button was happy, joking, expressive. Hamilton was visibly shattered and sullen.
The 15th race of the season, the Singapore Grand Prix, was a complete contrast to the Italian event. On the relatively slow circuit through the city streets, Vettel dominated practice with his Red Bull but lost the pole to Alonso. McLaren introduced an intricately curved front wing that helped reduce the gap to the rivals, but Hamilton could still do no better than third ahead of Button and Webber, who made several mistakes in qualifying. In the race, Alonso drove brilliantly and led throughout despite heavy pressure from Vettel, but Hamilton again showed poor judgment.
With Webber lying third because of better pit-stop strategy, Hamilton seized an opportunity when a lapped car briefly blocked the Red Bull. Hamilton attempted a pass on the outside, but surged ahead so late that Webber had to hold his inside line. Thinking he had cleared Webber and wanting to block a counterattack, Hamilton prematurely cut toward the inside and the McLaren’s left rear tire collided with Webber’s right front. Hamilton again suffered race-ending damage – this time, a flat tire. Webber knew his car was damaged, but he continued, slowing but still holding off Button for third and 15 points. As he pulled into the pits afterward, the sidewall of Webber’s right front tire was noticeably gouged; Bridgestone engineers said the tire, which deflated during post-race inspection, could not have stayed on the wheel if he had raced hard for another lap.
After 15 races, Webber led with 202 points, followed by Alonso (191), Hamilton (182), Vettel (181), and Button (177). It had taken just two races for Hamilton to slip from leading the championship to trailing by 20 points with four races to go (three if construction delays forced cancellation of the inaugural South Korean Grand Prix). More significantly, his spirit was noticeably shaken and his confidence was gone.
“I’m in a bit of a daze,” Hamilton said. “I saw Mark [Webber] made a mistake and got caught by a backmarker, so I knew I could slipstream him into Turn Seven, and I thought I was enough past him. After that, I’m not really sure what happened. He was in my blind spot – I didn’t see him alongside me. The next thing I know is my tire’s blown and that’s it. I’ll have to watch it on TV and see what really happened. [Combined with not finishing at the previous grand prix in Italy], I couldn’t have had a worse two races at this time of year. Twenty points is a massive gap with four races to go. I have to get my head down and hope for something. But the points gap is just a race victory [25 points] away. It’s not insurmountable. Hopefully, myself or Jenson [Button] can still win the world championship.”
Button, the only title contender without a major driving mistake this year, sounded more upbeat. Yet despite grabbing 12 more points in Singapore, he was concerned about his car’s performance in the final four races.
“When you can’t catch a Red Bull [Mark Webber] that has 30 more laps on its tires, it shows how quick they are,” Button said. “But we go to Japan happy. We have a good upgrade for that race. We wanted to have it here but couldn’t because of reliability issues. I am still in the title race – it’s a very small margin [covering the top five drivers], and we will race until the last race. There is everything to play for. Lewis’s incident shows that consistency is important, but I need to be on that podium [top three].”
Though Alonso and Ferrari had won two races, the Italians faced a challenge of their own. Each F1 car is limited to using eight engines per year. Alonso used his eighth engine to win in Italy and Singapore. Both McLarens and Vettel had used seven, while Webber had used only six. The Renault engines in the Red Bulls are regarded as the least powerful of the three contending power plants, but that relative performance gap shrinks when the rivals must use engines with a substantial amount of mileage. Add the fact that Renaults get the best mileage (and, as a result, carry less fuel, helping tires maintain top performance longer), and the chances of a McLaren Mercedes driver winning the Drivers’ Championship appear slim.
Whether Hamilton can regain his confidence, make better decisions, and control his aggression remains to be seen. Button simply needs to have a more competitive car. Regardless of the mathematical possibilities, if the upgrades for the Japanese Grand Prix do not help the McLarens fight for the lead, the hopes of Mercedes-Benz adding another F1 championship will be over.