March: Car crash; no more car.

May: Bought brand new motor scooter.

July: Had an accident with the scooter, damaged shoulder, had to wear an arm brace.

August: Wore arm brace for most of the month, relieved of it at the end of the month.

September: Started riding the scooter again at the end of the month.

October: Sent to Mexico for a meeting.

I am still carless at the end of the year.

Fortunately, I was carless when the oil prices were at their peak.

Lewis Hamilton became the youngest ever Formula One World Driver's Champion this year. The previous youngest F1 champion was Fernando Alonso. Alonso had also been the youngest driver to win a F1 championship race, but he lost that record this year to Sebastian Vettel of Scuderia Toro Rosso at the Italian Grand Prix. I love seeing Alonso being taken out of the record books. :)

Interestingly enough, before Vettel won in the STR at Italy, the last time an Italian-made Formula One car that wasn't a Ferrari won a championship race was fifty-one years earlier at the 1957 German Grand Prix. It was a Maserati 250F driven spectacularly by Juan Manuel Fangio in his last F1 racing victory. I have just realized that Fangio was not the oldest driver ever to win a F1 championship race and never was. Luigi Fagioli was 53 when he and Fangio won the 1951 French Grand Prix (drivers were allowed to share cars in those early days of F1). Fagioli was the only person born in the 19th century to win a F1 championship race.

With the New Year will start an uncertain new era. The world economy is in turmoil. General Motors, once the largest corporation in the world, is standing shakily, depending on government help to survive. This, oddly enough, is despite GM making money everywhere except in the United States. Buick sold more cars in China than it did in the US (not sure about right now, though...), Opel, Vauxhall, and Holden are thriving in their respective markets... what is GM doing right in Europe, Asia, and Australia that they are not doing in North America?

Before Dubya, there was Nixon. Nixon resigned halfway through his second term and was replaced by Gerald Ford, who was then voted out of office and replaced by James "Jimmy" Carter. Everyone had high hopes for Carter and saw him as a new beginning after the Johnson/Nixon-style duplicity. Carter, however, was a tragic failure whose ineptitude in foreign affairs exploded into the Second Gas Crisis and a massive recession in 1979-1980. I sincerely hope that history is not repeating itself and that Obama is not the next Carter.

In the 2008 French Grand Prix, Hamilton passed David Coulthard after being forced off in a chicane and did not give the position back promptly. He was given a ten-second drive-through penalty. Those are the rules.

In the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix, Hamilton passed Kimi Raikkonen after being forced off in a chicane and gave the (lead) position back promptly. Despite this, he was still seen as taking advantage from cutting a chicane and was given a twenty-five second penalty in lieu of a ten-second drive-through penalty. This drops him from first to third in the race results and the corresponding points. Those are the stewards' interpretation of the rules, and for drive-through penalties their decision is final.

I suppose the only way to satisfy the stewards if one is run off a chicane is to stay off the track. Or is that just the only way *Hamilton* can satisfy the stewards?

...mighty Lewis has struck out. :/

I did not see most of the race. I just saw the end.

Kimi Raikkonnen won the race and the championship. Fernando Alonso was third. Lewis Hamilton was seventh. Raikkonnen won the championship by one point over Hamilton and Alonso.

I heard the commentators say something about an incident between Alonso and Hamilton when Hamilton was trying to pass Alonso. They say that's what knocked Hamilton so far down.

Hamilton is in second place because he has the same number of points as Alonso, has the same number of victories as Alonso, and has more second-place finishes than Alonso.

The main reason why I did not want Raikkonen to DNF in the final stages of the race is that he would have lost the championship not to Hamilton but to Alonso. If it was a choice between Alonso and Raikkonnen, then I would want Raikkonnen to win.

It was, and he did.

I still wish Hamilton had won, though.

Second is better than third, however, and immensely better than third behind Alonso.

I personally think that Hamilton did well earlier in the season because everyone was pulling together at first. McLaren looked like a team for the first time I could remember. Hamilton was backing Alonso up but was otherwise going for whatever he could.

Then Hamilton started to shine. This caused Alonso to demand #1 driver treatment from MacLaren. Alonso had McLaren's management over a barrel because he knew about their dirty deals with one of the Ferrari engineers. So McLaren held up Hamilton in qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix. They got caught with that trick. McLaren lost all the constructors' championship points from that race and Alonso was put back five places in the grid. The fallout after that was that Alonso brought his spoilsport attitude out into the public.

I personally think that what happened next was that Alonso, who knew about the ill-gotten info from Ferrari, ratted McLaren out to the FIA out of spite. McLaren's punishment for this was a fine of one hundred million United States dollars and disqualification from the Constructors Championship.

As a result, the team was no longer after championship points and Alonso and Hamilton became every man for himself. Hamilton, who had thrived on the close-knit support of the early part of the season, floundered in the new order of disunity and general apathy. His flawless drives of earlier on were gone, he was now beginning to look like a rookie.

The best moment of this latter part of the season was the end of the Japanese Grand Prix, where Hamilton won convincingly on the rain-sodden track. He has followed in the rain-boot steps of Jim Clark, Ayrton Senna, and Michael Schumacher, and he may yet be considered a Rain Master as these three are.

Hopefully Hamilton will win the championship next year. If Hamilton does not win, I hope Massa wins. If Alonso is with Renault next year, I hope Renault will be as competitive as they were this year (i.e., not really).