The F1 2012 Retrospective: An Introduction
The 2020 Formula One season will draw to a close this December. The last race of the year in Abu Dhabi will not see the kind of grand finale that makes F1 special and cements a season among the greats. This has become the standard for F1 in this hybrid era.
Since the new regulations arrived in 2014, only two seasons have gone down to the final race. Both seasons involved Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton battling it out in Abu Dhabi.
In 2014, the bizarre double points scenario meant the 17 point gap between the two Mercedes drivers was attainable for Rosberg. However, a mechanical issue with the car meant he finished 14th while Hamilton cruised to victory and his second world title.
In 2016, the roles were reversed and Rosberg began the weekend with a 12 point advantage over his teammate. Hamilton would go on to win the race once again, but Rosberg survived the threat of the Ferrari and Red Bull behind to finish second and thus win his only world title by five points.
Rosberg shocked the motorsport world later that year by announcing his retirement from F1. Since then, Valterri Bottas has failed to match Hamilton in the same way. And while there was a challenge from Ferrari in 2017 and 2018, ultimately they fell away in the second half of those seasons as Hamilton cruised to a further four world titles.
In 2020, the Briton sealed his legacy by breaking almost all the major records and by tying Michael Schumacher’s record for most driver’s championships with seven.
But there was once a time when the final race would be the title decider on a much more consistent basis.
From 2006–2012, the championship would go to the final race, almost always in Brazil, in five of the seven seasons. In 2009, it was decided in the penultimate race and in 2011, Sebastian Vettel was crowned a two time champion in Japan with four races spare.
This period of F1 saw championships involving comebacks, last lap overtakes and four-way battles. It also gave us variety in who won the championship. This era truly began in 2005 when Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen fought to end Schumacher’s five year reign.
Alonso retained his championship in 2006, beating a retiring Schumacher to usher in a new generation of F1.
Raikkonen won in 2007 despite being 17 points behind the rookie Hamilton with two races to go — bear in mind this was when winning a race was only worth 10 points as opposed to 25–26 now — to win the championship by one point.
Hamilton came back a year later and took the title off Ferrari. His last lap pass of Timo Glock handed him the title from the clutches of Felipe Massa in the most dramatic of circumstances, once again only one point separating first from second.
Jenson Button fended off the Red Bull of Vettel, as well as the internal threat of his teammate Rubens Barrichello to win his championship in 2009. A dramatic story of redemption and one of the great comeback stories in sports. However, it was still one of the most dominant world championships of this period.
In 2010, four different drivers had the potential to win the championship in Abu Dhabi’s first ever title decider. Vettel became the youngest ever world champion, thanks in part to a Ferrari strategy disasterclass, taking the title by only four points — the first of the 25 points for a win era.
In reality, that Red Bull was much quicker than its rivals, but suffered from reliability. On track overtaking also proved a problem now that re-fuelling was banned, and thus the Drag Reduction System (DRS) was introduced for 2011. Red Bull sorted out their reliability issues in 2011, and Vettel stormed to the title.
But in 2012, all of the drama of the previous seven seasons paled in comparison. The entire season had everything. While the other years almost always went down to the wire in dramatic fashion, the journeys to that point weren’t as consistently breathtaking as the 2012 season.
At least, that is the perception.
Nostalgia has played a large role in how people remember F1, as with everything else in life. That era sounds so great and exciting when laid out in simple terms over a few hundred words and devoid of the full context.
Was 2012 special, or do we all remember it with the most red tinted glasses of all?
Introducing: The F1 2012 Season Retrospective!
There is only one way to answer the question. Is it nostalgia or was it that good? On paper it had a lot to enjoy but were the races up to standard? Did DRS and the new Pirelli tyres help to improve the on-track action, or was it still just as difficult to overtake as usual?
These are just some of the answers this new series will look to answer.
Over the course of the next several weeks, this series will dive deep into each race and look at just how good this season really was. Does it hold up to the standards of today, or are people right to yearn for something more akin to this time period?
Next week the first part will look at pre-season testing. Before we can examine the races themselves, we must first understand who the major players are, what the expectations were going into the season and what the big story-lines were going to be.
Following that, every Friday, two races will be assessed at a time. First up will be the pairing of Australia and Malaysia. Viewers of current F1 should recognise Australia. Albert Park has been a mainstay in the sport since it first arrived on the calendar in 1996.
However, Malaysia hasn’t been used as a venue for F1 races since 2017 and it’s future is uncertain.
The series will continue from there by looking at two races each week, examining what happened. It will focus on both how the individual race was in terms of excitement but also what that particular Grand Prix meant for the season as a whole.
This series will act as if live, though will look at certain elements through the lens of what would go on to happen in the future, i.e. if someone does something it may be put in the context of how they’ve changed in the eight years since, but it will not spoil how the 2012 championship played out specifically. So, anything from 2013–2020 is fair game.
To set the tone of what is to come, and if you don’t believe me when I say that this season is highly regarded as one of the best, then leave it to none other than Eddie Jordan to narrate what we have to look forward to:
“It was a season like no other, an unfolding story so full of twists and turns it could have been the product of Hollywood. A script that brought together flesh and metal, emotion and power. The greatest car chase ever. It dealt in fantasy and impossible happenings, unpredictable at every scene.
“Old favourites returned to the stage to show they lost none of their luster. Some stars dimmed, reduced to mere extras, as we embraced new heroes with familiar names. We cheered for the underdog, celebration cut short.
“Like an action movie, it kept you on the edge of your seat. Bravery, excitement, glamour. A life out of reach. Subplots evolved, story-lines changed. Triumphs and pitfalls. A love story gone sour. Heroes and villains switching in a moment. It had to be scripted.
“An epic tale requires the perfect backdrop and this one was altered with every episode. Some of these supporting stars came with stripes, greeted with a warm fanfare. Others became the focus themselves, as the tension rose. Still, the old director stood firm.
“The greatest story ever told, has an ending just as captivating. Lights out. Camera. Action.”
