Formula 1 2012 Season

In my opinion it was without doubt 2012. For the following reasons:

1. With 20 races, it was the longest season in the 62 years of Formula 1.

2. It had 6 world champions lining up on the grid namely Michael Schumacher, Kimi
Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel
3. Seven different winners in the first 7 races created a new record.
4. Sebastian Vettel, who ultimately won the championship was only in contention after
September-October when he won 4 races in succession of Singapore, Japan, Korea and
India.
5. The final gap was just 3 points. And even during one of the most amazing Brazilian Grand
Prix I have seen, the equation kept changing and we were never sure as to who would
ultimately win the title.
6. At 25, Vettel is F1's youngest Triple World Chamption. Had Alonso won the title, he
would have got the same record.
7. Kimi Raikkonen was the only driver who finished ALL races and scored points in all
except China where he was 2nd before tyre failures dropped him outside the points.
8. Romain Grosjean became the first driver, after Michael Schumacher to be banned from a
Grand Prix following his collision at the Belgian Grand Prix that took out both Fernando
Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.
9. It witnessed one of the most unpredictable and topsy-turvy races of all time including the
Brazilian Grand Prix
10. This year also saw comparatively more number of crashes, GP2-like manoeuvres
especially from Maldonado and Grosjean.
11. Pirelli, with its slick tyres provided for some fantastic strategies and brought out the best
from the drivers. Vettel charging from the pit-lane to 3rd place in Abu Dhabi is one of them.
12. Lewis Hamilton retired from the race after leading at least twice. The championship
might have been very different had the McLaren, which was clearly the fastest car on track
not have had reliability and pit-stop issues.
13. Speaking of pit stop issues, McLaren suffered huge problems on that end but managed
to wriggle out of them and as Abhay Chandra pointed out recorded the fastest pit stop
ever of 2.31 seconds in Germany.