Battle of Brawn - 4 races to go

I suspect whoever said ‘there’s never a dull moment’ would have thoroughly enjoyed F1. Within the past week Lotus have made a welcome return, BMW have found a savior and then there’s Renault. The Enstone-based team had their day in court on Monday but, far from drawing an end to the matter, the decision has raised far more questions, speculations and rumours. The ruling has also hit Renault financially with two major sponsors announcing an immediate termination of contract (although given that the two were pulling out at the end of the year anyway I suspect the terminations are more financial than social-minded)  

If minds can be cast back a massive 14 days however F1 was making headlines for *shock* on-track action. Following events at Spa the driver’s championship is now looking to be swinging all in Brawn’s favour and team boss Ross has said his boys will be free to battle it out between themselves as long as they ‘play nice’. Well it’s a good attitude but it’s not the first time we’ve seen such a situation…
In 2007 the McLaren’s of Alonso and Hamilton were tussling it out for supremacy, although I doubt ‘nice’ was in the vocabulary. Both had something to prove; the Spaniard was after a third successive world title and the Brit was a rookie wonder looking to get his name in the record books – neither was to get their wish. In a last gasp surge it was the flying Finn in the Ferrari that took victory leaving McLaren to ponder where it all went wrong; so could history be about to repeat itself?

Halfway through the season it was almost a certainty that Button, the ‘nearly-man’ of F1 would finally realize his dream but then it all started to unravel, paving the way for teammate Barrichello and a couple of Red Bulls to mount a charge. Now with only 4 races to go the Bulls are cursing a certain engine supplier and the oldest man on the track could be about to reach the pinnacle of his career. 14 points is not as big a gap as it seems, neither, for that matter, is 26.

When there’s pressures on the cracks start to show and although Jenson’s and Ruben’s relationship is a lot better than that of Lewis and Fernando both are at the end of the day out for victory. I would like to think the two will be allowed to battle but are team orders inevitable in a championship situation? Could frustration lead to errors? And come Abu Dhabi who will be making the positive headlines that F1 needs?

By Samantha Wilcox for enterf1.com