Last Race of the Decade

[harsha]

damn...it's gonna be close to 16 years of watching f1....

[call_me_andrew]

Well technically, since there was no year zero, the decade doesn't end for another year.

[christophulus]

Wow, this is the sixteenth full year of F1 I've watched..

Looking forward to next year, Massa/Alonso in the Ferrari vs. Hamilton/Raikkonen? in the McLaren should be tasty.

Plus Brawn and Red Bull should be there or thereabouts. 26 cars, half of which could be genuinely competitive.. it's all shaping up nicely!

I'm hoping the last race of the year/decade in Abu Dhabi is a classic, nothing to lose from most drivers!

[V12]

Yeah it seems weird, seems only yesterday Jenson Button was the insanely inexperienced 19 year old who everyone thought Frank Williams was mad for hiring. I hadn't even HEARD of Kimi Raikkonen, and Fernando Alonso was a wayward F3000 driver with about as much potential as Enrique Bernoldi.

To be honest back then I was already missing the early 90s, but looking back it was a pretty good time, Michelin were on their way back, Montoya was on his way, the calendar was mostly traditional events, even the impending arrival/return of all the manufacturers was a nice novelty at the time, and even Schumacher's title kind of felt good even if I couldn't stand him, because at the time Ferrari hadn't won anything in ages!

Wonder if I'll look back and miss this year in 2019?

[Josti]

2000 and 2001 was a joy for us Dutch fans, with Jos Verstappen driving that beautiful orange Arrows and putting up some great performances in it. Other than that, 2003, 2007, 2008 and this year were quite spectaculair for the general public. Looking forward to the next decade!

[ShiftingGears]

I started watching in 2006, and the F1 seasons have been very entertaining. Especially the last two.

[harsha]

hey...the racing from 2005 onwards has been pretty good....

2005 - close fight between Raikkonen / Alonso

2006 - close fight between Alonso / Schumacher

2007 - three way fight between Alonso / Hamilton / Raikkonen

2008 - very close fight between Hamilton / Massa

2009 - so many different cars and drivers making the podium esp in the second half of the season

[Copse]

Well technically, since there was no year zero, the decade doesn't end for another year.

The simplest way to get rid of such nonsense is to just consider the first decade, century and millennium to have been one year too short. That lets us celebrate when the dates look like milestone dates, instead of one year later.

[Sonic]

Well technically, since there was no year zero, the decade doesn't end for another year.

Were you one of those guys then? Humbug its not the millennium.

[woody2goody]

Yeah it seems weird, seems only yesterday Jenson Button was the insanely inexperienced 19 year old who everyone thought Frank Williams was mad for hiring. I hadn't even HEARD of Kimi Raikkonen, and Fernando Alonso was a wayward F3000 driver with about as much potential as Enrique Bernoldi.

To be honest back then I was already missing the early 90s, but looking back it was a pretty good time, Michelin were on their way back, Montoya was on his way, the calendar was mostly traditional events, even the impending arrival/return of all the manufacturers was a nice novelty at the time, and even Schumacher's title kind of felt good even if I couldn't stand him, because at the time Ferrari hadn't won anything in ages!

Wonder if I'll look back and miss this year in 2019?

I enjoyed Schumacher's first two titles immensely, before he started showing up the oppostition.

You're right though, even Mark Webber wasn't in F1 then, and he seems to have been around for ever.

Jarno was still at Jordan, and Marc Gene was racing for Minardi.

I liked the fact most of the 'traditional' tracks remained. Even though Bahrain, Turkey, Shanghai and Abu Dhabi are fantastic tracks, they don't quite have the soul of Imola, Indianapolis, Montreal, Hockenheim (which was still the old one back then) etc.