Jenson Button takes 3rd place in Abu Dhabi. Photo © BBC

The 2009 F1 season has now ended, so how will we survive the 19 weeks until the start of the 2010 season? Thank goodness there will be plenty of rugby to keep me going over the winter!

Congratulations to Brawn GP and Jenson Button on their championships, to Rubens Barrichello, Lewis Hamilton and to the Red Bull team for their heroic efforts to keep the season spicy until the end.

Most of all, congratulations to the BBC for an excellent return to F1 broadcasting. To paraphrase Sebastian Vettel, there were some mistakes but overall it was a great season.

The finale in Abu Dhabi was quite a spectacle: a fabulous looking circuit, lots of glamour and the thrill of day turning into night as the race progressed.

One minor quibble about the BBC coverage: a noticeable feature of the season has been the huge amount of fawning (I was going to say a*se-l*cking, but that would be rude), particularly from Eddie Jordan. EJ seems to have two things to say: either HE was responsible for the success of driver X or team Y, or we must prostrate ourselves in worship before person Z  because of what they have brought to the sport.

It’s been a great season and I have enjoyed BBC’s role. It has been infinitely better than previous seasons, with no ad breaks and the red button, but I do hope that Auntie will, like the teams, strive to be even better next year. Jonathan Legard has been a weak commentator but, as long as Martin Brundle is alongside him, I can live with that. Eddie, however, must be consigned to the bin of failed experiments.

As seems to be the norm, Ferrari and McLaren dominated proceedings and, with the exception of a slippery first couple of laps, the race settled down into the usual processional event, although there was a lot of overtaking in the midfield to keep a bit of excitement going.

Unusually, however, the order at the front started to tighten up as the race entered it’s final third. And then came the rain. It’s a shame, but this is just about the only thing that really livens up F1 these days. Suddenly cars were slithering round corners and Lewis Hamilton, a bit of a rain king, was taking massive chunks out of Kimi Raikkonen’s lead in every sector.

With only a couple of laps remaining, Hamilton came storming up behind the Finn’s Ferrari as they approached the final chicane before the start/finish straight. He tried to go round the outside but Raikkonen held his line and shut the door as they approached the second part of the chicane. Hamilton had nowhere to go so, rather than cause an accident, he cut the corner.

Realising that he had gained an advantage from the missed corner, Lewis slowed along the start/finish straight to allow Kimi to retake the lead, switched to the inside and, thanks to his phenomenal speed in the wet, outbraked the red car into the next corner.

Both parties had behaved impeccably and given the viewers some real excitement. Hamilton quickly opened a gap before coming across other cars spinning all over the track, the avoiding action taking him temporarily off track and handing the lead back to Raikkonen. Shortly after this it was Raikkonen’s turn to fall off and the lead swapped around again. Then Kimi lost it completely and finished his race in the wall.

Hamilton had only to stay on the road for another lap an a half to take a magnificent win.

There was so much action at the end that it was a bit chaotic but incredibly exciting, especially as some drivers had pitted with only three laps to go and were flying round on wet/intermediate tyres, eating 30 seconds a lap out of the leaders.

A great race for once.

And then it all went wrong. The race stewards decided that Hamilton had gained an unfair advantage from cutting the chicane while trying to overtake Raikkonen and gave him a 25 second penalty, pushing him down to third place and giving victory to Filipe Massa.

Unbelievable. Disgraceful.

Hamilton had gained an advantage but had given the lead back. Unfortunately he was so much faster on the wet track that he was able to retake the lead at the next corner.

The stewards’ decision has, once again, made F1 look like a complete fix.

McLaren are appealing but, let’s face it, the FIA just love to beat them up (especially when Ferrari stand to gain) so I don’t hold out much hope.

As far as racing is concerned, there was very little action anywhere in the field, with strategy and mistakes being responsible for most of the small amount of excitement.

The most notable events were Toro Rosso’s excellent weekend, with Sebastien Vettel finishing sixth; Kimi Raikkonen’s engine blow-up, Ferrari’s second in two races; Raikkonen (again) leaving his pit box early after the second stop, injuring a mechanic and taking his fuel rig with him; and Massa’s alleged ‘unsafe’ departure from the pit box after his second stop.

The last of these is the most interesting. F1 regulations give priority to cars already in the pit lane and puts the onus on teams not to release their cars from the pit box unless it is ’safe’ to do so. The TV coverage showed, quite clearly in my view, that the Ferrari was released into the path of Adrian Sutil’s Force India in what must surely have been an ‘unsafe’ manner, forcing Sutil to take evasive action and, ultimately, requiring Massa himself to back off to avoid a collision at the pit lane exit.

Normally in these situations the race stewards are very quick to investigate the incident, make a judgement and apply a penalty if appropriate. Indeed, a message came through quite quickly from race control that the incident was under investigation.

I suspect that if any other team had been involved, especially McLaren, judgement would have been swift and a drive-through penalty handed down in short order. But it was Ferrari in the spotlight and, yet again in this observers opinion, the normal rules do not seem to apply where the prancing horse is concerned.

The stewards decided to postpone judgement until after the race, raising the question of what penalty could realistically be applied. The situation is pretty much without precedent and I think there is a good chance that F1 will try to sweep the whole thing under the carpet.

Immediately after the race some commentators were suggesting that, as no accident resulted and no-one suffered any loss of race position, the manoeuvre was in fact not unsafe. The absurdity of this concept, proposed by a former driver, is astonishing. If someone breaks the pitlane speed limit but doesn’t cause a crash, should they then be let off? If I break the speed limit on a public highway but don’t cause an accident, should the courts let me off?

No, rules are rules and they should apply equally to everyone. Except Ferrari perhaps?

The BBC have a great history of high quality coverage and, with their excellent website, will no doubt enhance this reputation in the future. Great news for F1 fans!

Lewis Hamilton took poll position on the grid in his McLaren and then lead from start to finish, never really being challenged. Not terribly exciting, but good for him. The real fun was behind him, with lots of drivers and teams in contention, plenty of overtaking and some really daft lunges to get the adrenalin pumping. Driver errors were punished and skill was rewarded.

Ferrari really messed up their weekend, having looked so strong in the build up, while BMW have clearly been pulling the wool over our eyes in pre-season testing. Great performances from Williams, Toro Rosso and Red Bull added to the excitement and even Honda and Toyota seem to have made some progress.

The attrition rate was astonishing – only six of the twenty-two cars were still running at the finish – so a number of star performances went unrewarded and the three safety car periods brought bad luck to some, particularly Kovalainen (McLaren) who would have finished second if he’d been able to take his last pitstop before the final safety car period, and Barrichello (Honda), who received a stop-go penalty for refuelling while the safety car was out (he would have run out of fuel otherwise) and was then disqualified for leaving the pitlane illegally.

So it seems that BMW may have joined Ferrari and McLaren in the top flight, while there’s little to choose between those in the chasing pack. The signs are good for a great season ahead of us.