F1 - mid-season 2010 - Bulls in a china shop

It's mid-season, and I though I'd do a little look at how the season is panning out.

So far, we've had an outstanding car, an outstanding team, some outstanding drives and an outstanding season. After Bahrain, it looked like the season was going to be boring, far from it. Five drivers have led the championship, but it shouldn't be as close as it is.

Red Bull has the outstanding car. It's super fast and it's getting more reliable. No-one can really come close in qualifying trim, and barring a few reliability problems at the beginning of the season this car should be leading the championship by some way. It isn't. The drivers are at war, and the team are joining in.

In Turkey, the collision between Vettel and Webber was a disaster and lead to bad blood. That could have been handled, but the Red Bull side of the garage pointed the finger at Mark Webber when most thought it was probably 60% Vettel's fault. It surely, made Webber feel unloved. This weekend's decision to take the front wing off Webber's car and give to Vettel, to replace his broken wing, just before qualifying was a bad decision. It did show favouritism, and Christian Horner's explanation of it going to the person with most points in the championship didn't hold true, when a new part was fitted to Vettel's car before Webber's when Webber was leading the championship.

The team is in danger of losing this championship because of bad driver management, and that would be a tragedy.

The outstanding team has been McLaren. Without the fastest car, they are leading both championships, and with a driver harmony unparalleled for a team with two champions. They are playing catch up and if they can make the blown diffuser work for Hockenheim they may be able to compete on pace and tear apart the Red Bull team. Both drivers are driving beautifully. Lewis Hamilton has got a new maturity, learnt from Button no doubt, that will make him the most formidable opponent on the grid. Button has won two brilliant wet/dry races and is performing much better against Lewis than I dared hope!

Each of the four drivers at the top have driven brilliantly, but Alonso and Massa have been a disappointment. They've both made bug mistakes, and the team seems to be falling back into it's pre-Todt mould of making bad decisions and blaming everyone else. After Alonso's outburst at Valencia, I couldn't help but laugh when he got a penalty at Silverstone, but when the safety car came out, the outcome was disastrous for him. But he should have handed the place back to Kubica. Lewis Hamilton was stripped of a win in Spa 2008, even when he did hand back a place, so talk of an unfair penalty does not hold up.

Schumacher is a disappointment, he doesn't seem to have the same race craft - but can we ever remember him being good in the mid-field? No, because he was never there! Maybe the fact that he was always in a good car let him get rusty, way before his three year absence.

I'm liking that Williams are having a resurgence and that Lotus are doing best of the new teams.

It's been a great season so far, and I think it will get even better!

Squiffy.