Looking back: 1981 - F1's strangest season

The recently ended 2010 season is commonly accepted as a great one. When thinking of great F1 seasons some readily spring to mind, such as the dramatic championship finishes of 1964, 1986 and 2008, or the competitiveness of 1974, 1997 and 2003, or even the drama and controversy of 1976 and 1989. The season of 1982 however tends to rise above others in such debates. It after all can boast no fewer than 11 different winners (for seven different constructors) in 16 races, no individual winning more than two of them. This all was alongside multiple acts of drama on and off the track, conducted in an atmosphere of extreme acrimony. Such is the myth that surrounds 1982 that it even had a specialist book about it written and published a quarter of a century later, by the sadly recently-departed Christopher Hilton.

However I feel that the season which preceded 1982, 1981, is somewhat forgotten about, and has a strong claim as a memorable and dramatic season. It can certainly match 1982 for controversy and acidity. Indeed, much of the 1982 politics were simply a continuation of those in 1981! The 1981 championship battle was tighter and went to the wire to a much greater extent than 1982's did. Plus the on track racing action (easy to forget in all of this) was generally much more diverting in 1981. It seems to have been lost in time somewhat that most of the races in 1982, i.e. the hour and a half on a Sunday, were soporific spectacles. And 1981 isn't far off 1982 in terms of variation of winners, no driver won more more than three races, the world champion totalled but 50 points, and in the final drivers' table no fewer than five drivers were within seven points of the top of the table. Eat your heart out 2010.

Even if one maintains that 1981 was not among the sport's greatest seasons, it certainly has a claim to being one the sport's strangest. It started with a race that never was in South Africa, attended by only 19 cars, the races were participated in by a field of cars, for the most part, in flagrant breach of the rule makers' flagship regulations, and it ended in a car park in Las Vegas, wherein the three contenders stumbled disastrously over the line, and Nelson Piquet claimed his first World Championship by a point, almost in spite of himself.

Final thoughts on 2010: F1 mostly looking rosy

Hopefully the 2010 F1 season will be viewed in years to come as a watershed rather than a blip. It was a season wherein F1 was strangely at ease with itself, and delivered a level of on track action not seen in years, and a championship battle of a competitiveness probably not seen ever.

Given F1's capacity for false dawns and for shooting itself in the foot, I feel slightly reluctant be so positive about F1's state, but at the topline level 2010 was a great season for F1.

On the track it was the year of the Bull, with the Red Bulls continuing their almost uninterrupted upward trajectory over their six year stint in the sport, by claiming the drivers' (for Vettel) and constructors' championship titles. Indeed, their competitive advantage, particularly in aerodynamics, was compared by some to some of the Ferraris in the Schumacher/Todt/Brawn era, and to the Williams FW14s. The car's pace advantage, particularly through the quick corners, appeared to indicate a fundamentally different approach from their rivals.

That they didn't finally claim their championship crowns until the very end of the season was down to a number of well-documented factors, including unreliability (for Vettel), driver errors and having two competitive drivers taking points off each other. But it also reflected the resurgent Ferrari and McLaren teams' ability to pounce on any slight opportunity that Red Bull presented them with.

The (possible) return of the ground effect - hurrah!

I was intrigued by the article on the Autosport website on the latest working group ideas being touted to improve overtaking in F1. This may seem unlikely, given such working groups are convened and their outputs applied on a daily basis, it seems. But this time, just maybe, it could be different. This is because, for this first time I can remember, the return of the ground effect is being 'actively considered'.

I feel that the near absence of ground effect on F1 cars, that is achieving downforce from air flow passing under the car, is a major part in the difficulties of cars to run close to each other, and therefore to pass. I'm told that ground effect is less negatively impacted by the 'dirty air' from the car ahead, and also will relatively speaking reduce the reliance on air flow over the top of the car (which both creates and are negatively impacted by dirty air). I don't think it's a coincidence that the point in history when overtaking levels in F1 fell off a cliff loosely coincided with the 'plank' being attached to the underside in 1994, and the stepped underside introduced at the start of 1995, both of which combined to virtually eliminate ground effect.

Of course, a lot of things have to happen first before this becomes a reality, and no one has ever got rich by predicting what the FIA and F1 teams end up agreeing on (and it won't happen until 2013 at the earliest). But, here's hoping, a bright future with racing cars racing each other may lay in wait.