[Tournament] Formula 1 2010 World Championship

As of today, after 10 races (9 remaining) Lewis Hamilton is leading the championship from his teammate and 2009 world champion Jenson Button. Who cares, though? What's really hot at the moment is the raging, totally unexpected, ridiculously epic intra-team rivalry between Vettel and Webber at Red Bull Racing who, in spite of having the fastest car on the grid by miles (nine pole positions out of ten races!), have failed to capitalize on it and have now dropped behind the McLaren pair in both championships.

Ferrari? They were off to the best possible start with a 1-2 finish in Bahrain, but it's gone from bad to worse since: Massa's less-than-stellar form, Alonso's uncharacteristic driver errors, overall poor management and sheer bad luck mean they have plummeted in the standings, despite clearly having a car able to challenge for the championship.

Not that there haven't been other surprises: Kubica/Renault and Sutil/Force India's surprise form, as opposed to Schumacher/Mercedes's lack thereof; a little-short-of-awful start to the season for Williams and Sauber, who finally seem to have come alive in the last two races, courtesy of Barrichello and the late 2009 rookie Kobayashi; and the rather poor performance of the three new teams, usually fighting for 18th place and two seconds down on the back of the pack at best... there's something slightly sad about having Champagne to celebrate your first two-car... finish.

Video action as it happened

Spoiler:

Spectacular three-car pile-up in Melbourne after Kobayashi loses his front wing.

YouTube Video

Hamilton tries a pass on Alonso in the dying laps; hilarity ensues.

YouTube Video

Buemi loses both front wheels in free practise.

YouTube Video

The infamous Turkey clash, or: how to lose a 1-2 finish by turning into your teammate.

YouTube Video

And the nastiest-looking F1 crash in years, which Webber fortunately escaped unscrapped.

YouTube Video

I might post more videos as I find them!

Standings as of today

Spoiler:

01  	Lewis Hamilton 157
02 	Jenson Button 143
03 	Mark Webber 136
04 	Sebastian Vettel 136
05 	Fernando Alonso 123
06 	Nico Rosberg 94
07 	Robert Kubica 89
08 	Felipe Massa 85
09 	Michael Schumacher 38
10 	Adrian Sutil 35
11 	Rubens Barrichello 29
12 	Kamui Kobayashi 15
13 	Vitantonio Liuzzi 12
14 	Vitaly Petrov 7
15 	Sebastien Buemi 7
16  	Jaime Alguersuari 3
17 	Nico Hulkenberg 2
18 	Pedro de la Rosa 0
19 	Heikki Kovalainen 0
20 	Karun Chandhok 0
21 	Lucas di Grassi 0
22 	Jarno Trulli 0
23 	Bruno Senna 0
24 	Timo Glock 0
25     Sakon Yamamoto 0

1  	McLaren-Mercedes 300
2 	RBR-Renault 272
3 	Ferrari 208
4 	Mercedes GP 132
5 	Renault 96
6 	Force India-Mercedes 47
7 	Williams-Cosworth 31
8 	BMW Sauber-Ferrari 15
9 	STR-Ferrari 10
10 	Lotus-Cosworth 0
11 	HRT-Cosworth 0
12 	Virgin-Cosworth 0

So, who has been following this? Who are you cheering for? What was your favourite race, and how do you expect the remainder of the season to unfold?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

AND WE'RE BACK. Rising star Sebastian Vettel has just clinched pole position for tomorrow's German Grand Prix, only 0.002s clear of Alonso. Mercedes GP continue to disappoint, with Schumacher a lowly 11th on the grid; and Hamilton could only manage 6th, having trashed his McLaren during Friday practice:

YouTube Video

The session was also briefly interrupted after a spectacular crash courtesy of Force India driver Liuzzi:

YouTube Video

Full starting grid

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Honestly, I'm only interested in the crashes... Some circuits have so little overtaking that it's really, really boring.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Well, one may argue that this makes the few overtaking manoeuvers all the more dramatic! Seriously, it's been awful at some races (Bahrain) but we've also had some very unpredictable and action-packed ones this year: only four races out of ten have been won from pole position.

On paper it looks like Hockenheim should deliver: with both RBR and Ferrari keen to maximize on McLaren's slump in form, overtaking spots and a tricky track that caught out many drivers in practice, it looks like we've got the main components for a good race. I sure as hell won't miss that one.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I've not really been following F1 this year (I'm watching Moto GP instead) and I was quite surprised to find out that Hamilton and Button were leading the championship, I'd watched a few of the qualifying sessions and assumed Red Bull were winning everything.

I'm not too surprised that Schumacher has come back a bit rubbish. He always said it was his driving skill, not the car that won him so many races but then he also said he'd prove it by driving a lesser car and still doing well but looks like he was wrong. I'm sure being out of the sport for a couple of years hasn't helped him much either though.

I'd rather see Hamilton win than Button but I hope Maclaren don't pull team orders on them like Ferrari have. This is one of the first years in a long time where you've not been almost guaranteed to hear the British anthem after every race (Since most of the teams used to be UK owned) but it's good to see we're still world leaders at one sport.

I was speaking idiomatically.

OH MY GOD I spoke too soon. Hockenheim proved to be an epic borefest, with Ferrari's splendid performance tarnished by their questionable tactics. After a solid start saw Massa take the lead from Alonso and Vettel, what was shaping up to be a rather unlikely outcome was overturned by a simple radio message, granting Alonso a victory that could resurrect his championship charge.

Yes folks, the infamous Ferrari team orders (think Austria 2002), they are back and you haven't heard the end of it: Ferrari were fined $100,000 (that's about ten bucks to you and me) and will have to appear before the World Motor Sport Council, where they could face further punishment. Meanwhile, Alonso, Massa and Domenicalli have indulged in one of the most convoluted, ridiculous and absurd PR stunts in the history of motor racing, Alonso saying Massa maybe missed a gear, Massa insisting he made the decision to surrender the lead by himself, both looking quite embarrassed on the podium and nobody buying their horse shit.

That's where the F1 soap opera never seems to disappoint: even when the races are dull, there will always be some kind of OMG SCANDAL brewing and ready to break out. Not sure if I'll have enough popcorn for that one! I was going to say, thankfully there's only one week to go before Hungary, but that would be forgetting that circuit is like Monaco without the barriers (and the glamorous babes) and the racing there is usually horrible. I'm an addict anyway, so see you guys next weekend!

P.S.: MotoGP, now that's something. Amazed with Rossi's comeback and podium finish at the race he said would put a lot of strain on his broken leg. The championship might be as good as wrapped up for Lorenzo but there's still lots of amazing action to come.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

FELIPE NO