No Champagne for Vettel, but Alonso's got sour grapes...

Wow. 2010 really was the season where anything could happen.

Going in to Abu Dhabi it looked like Alonso or Webber would be champion. I was even getting ready to brag about my post from February predicting that Alonso would be the happy man now, rather than the miserable git he clearly is. But more on that later...

Qualifying this race didn't throw up any major surprises, except for Petrov beating Kubica into the top 10. But it did signpost that thing weren't going Webber's way as he could only manage 5th on the grid whilst Vettel bagged yet another pole. Hamilton failed to spot Massa and gave us one of the TV moments of the year as he ran over a camera cunningly disguised as a bollard.

Race day couldn't have been more tense. As it turned out, the race would be too. With Hamilton away behind Vettel at the start, Button managed to jump Alonso for 3rd , just in time for Liuzzi to have yet another DNF courtesy of the sort of parking you see from little old ladies during shock TV reports. Schumi is one lucky bunny, and now has a very good idea what the inside of a Force India looks like.

Quite a few drivers dived for the pits to get their tyre change out of the way whilst the safety car made yet another appearance (I hope they're on a cash-for-laps payment scheme this year) whilst the most expensive track ever got it's staff to use brooms and cement dust to tidy up.

Vettel cheekily slowed right down as the SC let him lead before the restart, forcing Hamilton to back off and giving Seb a breathing space as they got back to racing. Stuck in 5th behind Alonso, Webber needed something to improve his lot, so gambled on an early stop. Fearing this might give him the jump on them, Ferrari pitted Alonso too. For those two, the championship suddenly went very, very wrong.

They rejoined behind Petrov, who, for once, was keeping it on the road most impressively. So impressively, in fact, that the 2-times world champ couldn't find a way past him. Webber could do nothing about Alonso either. Button was out front after Hamilton pitted for tyres and to allow the team to investigate a whining noise. It turned out to be from inside Lewis's helmet. Specifically, Lewis complaining as usual about tyres, balance, why Take That are better than Westlife, how it's not fair that Jenson is taller than him and just about everything else.

Jenson couldn't pit until Kubica did, or risk losing the place, and after they had finally stopped playing dare, Seb was heading for the win and remarkably the title, as Rosberg, Kubica and Petrov were all ahead of Alonso and Webber.

Jonathan Legard proved his increasing inability to actually see what's happening, brilliantly reporting that a piece had fallen off Trulli's front wing, whilst we had all watched Jarno's rear wing collapse. To compound his, he later noted that the Lotus driver was in the pits and said "I wonder if they'll send him out again". Er.... no.

As an emotional Vettel went all squeaky on the radio, the gallant loser Alonso was busy shaking his fist at Petrov. Fernando, you great big, petulant, miserable, whingey git. Again. (Speculation is rife that Fernando will be disqualified anyway, as his car was underweight because of all the toys he's thrown out of it recently.)

And so the man who hadn't lead the championship all year becomes the youngest world champ ever, at just 23. Congratulations Seb. I'm guessing it won't be the last either. Shame the podium celebration was less than fizzy...

So now we have to wait 119 days until the first race of 2011, when 5 world champions battle it out. Can next year be as exciting as this one? God, I hope so...

And now, a plea from Jenwis Hamilbutton:

"Dear BBC, thanks for another great year of coverage. It was a joy to watch the build-up and post-race coverage. Jake, DC and EJ are highly entertaining, and Martin Brundle is brilliantly insightful, dryly witty and brilliantly able to sum up what's going on. Well done.

Here's the thing though: Legard is a liability who can't see what's going on, wrongly identifies drivers and gets so over-excited he fails to spot stuff everyone watching has already seen. OK, Murray used to do that too, but he was MURRAY for God's sake.

Please ask that pit-lane bimbo to think of some way of wording a question that doesn't start with "So just tell us what happened" and please, please don't let EJ interview anyone important again. Ever. He basically got hold of that Red Bull chappy (Matchiesticks, or whatever he's called) and told him his was fab, without actually asking him anything. Jaysus."

(Right now, Alanis Morissette is a Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie on my stereo.)

Faking it for real

As Donald “I’m really great, everybody says so” Trump is so fond of pointing out, there is a lot of fake news around nowadays. Honest. Your friends at Facebook think so too, and have recently been publishing their top tips for spotting false news – by placing them as ads in newspapers. Considering they came in for considerable criticism themselves, that’s like shouting “Squirrel!” and pointing at a tree whilst you hastily kick away the prize begonias you just trampled. To help you make sense of this (and because I’m a caring person), I thought I’d run you through their suggestions and help to explain them for you. I know. I’m lovely. 1. Be sceptical of headlines READING THIS ARTICLE WILL IMPROVE YOUR SEX LIFE!!! And explain that catchy headlines, or stuff all in capitals might be a bit iffy. 2. Look closely at the URL You can find out more about this at www.wowyouregullible.com if you want to understand how phony web addresses are a sure sign of dodgyness. 3. Investigate...

Going Underground

The US presidential election and Brexit must have made me more nervous than I’d realised. It seems I’ve created an underground bunker without realising I was doing it. Still – we’ve all done that at some point, right? No? Ah... In that case, the fact that I have inadvertently turned my cellar into a rudimentary survival shelter, just in case it all kicks off, demonstrates a severe case of bunker mentality. Fretting about Donald and his wall, and Hillary and her emails, clearly made me more paranoid that I thought about the possibility of WW3 kicking off. Whilst attempting to find a specific size of imperial washer the other day (turns out I’d mis-filed it in the nut cabinet – Tsk!) I was struck by what a lot of jam and chutney we have in the cellar. And I do mean a LOT. There are boxes of boiled-up sugar and fruit and more boxes of boiled up vinegar and fruit. We’re still only part way through 2015’s output too. Then there’s the plastic containers holding pasta in various for...

Is it cold? Snow way...

Lunch out? Not unless you want snow balls... I’ve got a confession to make. Lean in a bit, because I’m going to whisper it. Bit more. Did you have curry for tea? OK, good. I’m a weather nerd. There, I said it. When I was growing up, I didn’t want to be an astronaut or a fireman – I wanted to present the weather on the TV. I was lining myself up for a career at the Met Office when, at about 18 years of age, I discovered I was allergic to studying. Anyway, despite a jam-packed and varied career over the subsequent years, I still have a fascination for the world of meteorology. I even have one of those clocks that projects the time and the external temperature onto the ceiling at night, so I can see how cold it is outside whilst lying awake worrying that I might have wasted my life and been more successful with girls if I’d been more into cars than clouds. So far this year, I’ve gazed at a chilly reading of -5C a couple of times, and been grateful for previous sensible ch...

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