With both titles wrapped up for 2011, we can start reviewing the season.

Let’s begin with the champions, Red Bull. They have looked extremely comfortable this season, the only danger coming from McLaren-Mercedes at the beginning of the season. I believe Sebastian Vettel deserves the title.

He has made winning the championship look easy. He hasn’t made a lot of mistakes, and when he did, he almost always made them before Sunday’s race and kept his head down and did the job.

Mark Webber, on the other hand, has not looked comfortable in the car or lived up to expectations. Most of those came from me. I thought he would walk this season. But things never looked really settled with him after the shoulder-gate incident at the end of last season.

Red Bull Formula One driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany drives in the pit lane during the second practice session of the Japanese Grand Prix on October 7 2011. Photo: Reuters

McLaren did a reasonable job this season, after a couple of years in the doldrums of being the third or fourth best team on the grid. They didn’t have the best car but the biggest issue came from their drivers. Lewis Hamilton showed glimpses of what made him champion in 2008, but appeared to lose his head at times.

Jenson Button seems to be growing in his new team. He has done what he should have: keep his personal life out of his racing and  his head down, and do his talking on the race track. Except, of course, in Canada.

This brings me to probably the biggest disappointment of the season — Ferrari. I had extremely high hopes for the Italian team. The old saying goes, when Ferrari do well, F1 does well. Not this season. After they did a stellar job at the end of the season in 2010 to take the championship down to the wire, they just didn’t do a good enough job this year. Which is a very un-Ferrari thing.

Fernando Alonso reminds me of Kimi Raikkonen after he won the title in 2007. He just doesn’t seem motivated to take the team where they deserve to be. As I said before, I’m a huge Alonso fan, but he has to do what Michael Schumacher did — work as hard as you can and mould the team around you.

Don’t get me started on Felipe Massa. I have said time and time again that Ferrari need to get rid of him. The only reason he is still with the team is past glories. He doesn’t seem capable of driving the car at 100% and has been a nonentity this season.

Then there are Mercedes. As with Ferrari, I had high hopes for this team. They should be considered the dream team of Formula One. Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn, Bob Bell and other previous championship winners should have delivered this season. Yes, there were high expectations after they won the championship in 2009, as Brawn GP, but 2010 wasn’t easy after they didn’t spend a lot of time and money on the car.

Schumacher showed at some races why he won seven world championships, and he seems to be getting stronger and stronger as the season went on.

Nico Rosberg I have never really rated very highly. A couple of seasons with a uncompetitive team have not done him any favours, but he is a strong racer — although in my opinion not a championship winner.

Tags: #Felipe Massa, #ferrari, #Formula One, #Jenson Button, #Lewis Hamilton, #Mark Webber, #McLaren, #mercedes, #Michael Schumacher, #Red Bull, Fernando Alonso, Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel