Dodge's blog

If I was to say I was reviewing the past 56 races, you’d probably think it would be around 4 seasons’ worth of material – in fact, having calculated averages, the average season length is around 13 races. But in fact, these past 56 races represent just two seasons, and some countries having quite the (mis)fortunes, so join us as places change up and down the cup (well, the top 30), as we enter another journey!

Season 65

Season 65 saw the first 20 of these 56 races take place, and in a fitting twist, 20 drivers took part, travelling all over the world, from the streets of Monaco and Singapore to the legendary tracks of Silverstone, Monza, and the obligatory Spa day, and from Paris to Berlin and every disco that they got in, except their hearts were all pumping with competition rather than love (and sadly visits to France and Germany had been omitted for this season). And speaking of competition, 60+ past seasons have indeed shown us how close some of these seasons can get, with plenty of titles being decided in the final race, and as long as you know what you’re doing, you’re in with a shout, which would certainly be the case this season…

With Lewis Hamiton having won the past 5 F1 seasons, it was expected that the drivers’ title would once again go back to Stevenage, as it had done in the real 2017 F1 season. But from the moment Kimi Räikkönen took the chequered flag in Australia (and then subsequently China and Bahrain), it was clear that this would likely not be the case. In fact, it wouldn’t be until round 6 in Monaco when we’d see a non-Finnish winner, with Valtteri Bottas taking his first nations cup win in Russia (which coincidentally was also where he got his first win in real F1), and Räikkönen winning in Spain, and season 57 champion Hamilton wouldn’t take a win until round 7 in Canada, which started a 4-race win streak. However, with Hamilton having only won a further two races and Räikkönen having won a further 4, the Iceman sealed the title a race early (before one of the aforementioned Hamilton wins), and the crown was brought back to Finland for the first time since season 29 – quite a while ago (although there have been longer stretches of time between treasures going to Finland, as one such drought ends this year), and a points haul of 685 points saw Finland further stake their claim into the top 10.

Meanwhile, in terms of the nations cup, we saw Mexico show more recovery from their slump in form, as they overtook Bulgaria to sit just outside the top 20, and only a few points shy of becoming the 21st nation to break the 1000-point barrier. The Netherlands would also see their start driver Max Verstappen unleash more of his power to see the country climb back up to 6th in the cup, and Australia and Spain would have contrasting seasons, with the former overtaking the latter for 8th.

France would also pull away from Belgium in their battle for 3rd, as rookie Esteban “estenba” Ocon would score 64 points – 64 more than fellow rookies Stoffel Vandoorne (ironically from Belgium) and Canadian nepobaby Lance Stroll, which didn’t mark the best starts to their nations cup careers. However, all 3 are due to appear in season 80, which will feature the 2018 F1 grid, where fortunes have a 50% probability of changing (they either will or won’t).

Without further ado, onto season 66!

Season 66

Now onto a season that took considerably longer than expected, thanks to the record 36-race calendar (18 rounds split into 2 races), and also thanks to my attendance of the London Eurovision preparty (which I might have to write a piece on myself), but I got there in the end, and as I mentioned earlier, some seasons are close in competition and this was no exception.

The season started off with Belgium’s Clement Desalle winning the first 4 races, and it quickly looked like Belgium were taking their revenge on the French for pulling away, and even at the halfway point of the season, Desalle looked to be the favourite to take his second title. However, as the season drew to a close, both Antonio Cairoli of Italy and Romain Febvre of France were both drawing their own closes, and closing in on Desalle. In a heartbreaking twist, Desalle would lose the championship lead at his home race in Belgium, and would never regain it. In a further cruel twist, Febvre would overtake Desalle to finish second. Belgium and France would go on to score a combined 3019 points, and considerably pull away from any other competition. However, there was not much movement in the cup as a result of 9 of the 12 nations competing occupying the top 9, and other than Portugal moving back into their all-time high of 18th and South Africa moving from 29th to 24th, there wasn’t really much to document. However, it is worth noting that the top 3 of the championship were separated by 2 points, which goes to show that even in a 36-race season, you can’t write any race off.

Season 67 goes back to a more manageable 11 races, so expect a writeup on that one when it’s done!

Thank you for reading, it’s a lot to cover!