After many years of boring championships, 2005 was the first time signs of ‘change’ began to make their appearance in F1. Renault won the championship instead of Ferrari, Alonso became a respected driver of his generation ending a streak of five championship wins for Michael Schumacher and Ferrari and, a year later, Schumacher, the undisputed champion of the past decade, the best driver of his generation and — arguably — of all time, retired from the sport paving the way for an overhaul at the top, triggering a series of contracts and moves between the top teams. This year we saw Renault disappoint with below-average performance, Alonso overshadowed by his ‘sensational’ 22 year old teammate Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, and a four way battle between the drivers of the two top teams, Kimi Raikonnen and (also very impressive) Felippe Massa from Ferrari and Fernando Alonso with Lewis Hamilton from McLaren looming ahead for what is probably going to be the most exciting year in Formula 1 since the turn of the century and a reminder of the multilateral intra and inter-team battles of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Is this the beginning of a new, exciting era for F1, or just a glimpse of how good things used to/could be?
Image by user DjMagra @ Flickr. Used under Creative Commons 2.0.