The title fight was close because McLaren and Ferrari were so evenly matched, and both teams gave both their drivers the opportunity to contend for the championship. The ascendancy ebbed and flowed, from race to race, from team to team, from driver to driver. But these two teams led 97.3% of all race laps this year and took 90.2% of all podium finishes. BMW was a lonely third all season, and although the midfield was tight in terms of lap times, a distinct hierarchy largely carried through the whole year.

The problem, as we have often bemoaned, was that the relative stability in regulations not only created over-reliability but also ridiculously short braking zones and limited passing opportunities. Plus this year a further variable was taken away as the tyre war ended and Bridgestone supplied the entire field. The two-compounds-per-race rule proved ineffective, and either teams and drivers managed to get themselves hooked up on the Japanese rubber, or they didn't. And that was the way it stayed all year.

Some didn't manage to get it right all season in terms of aero and set-up. Renault's fall from grace as reigning drivers and constructors' champion was dramatic, as they scored one podium all season and 50 points fewer than BMW. But that nothing compared to the embarrassment suffered by the two Japanese giants, Toyota and Honda, both of which professed aspirations of victory and title challenges before the season began. On a money-to-results ratio, both their seasons were absolutely criminal.

Perhaps the greatest contradiction of all was that this was a thrilling championship which produced a worthy drivers' champion in Kimi Raikkonen in a feel-good finale, but the season as a whole left, and continues to leave, a sour taste in the mouth. The Spygate controversy was unsavoury as much for what actually happened, as it was for the way the FIA handled it, the penalty it meted out which screamed "Prejudice!", and Ferrari's moral grandstanding along the way. And, with Renault now embroiled, it's not over yet.

Indeed, the race-day stewards and FIA seemed intent on parading its officious power (not necessarily without reason, mind you) like a carnivore stalking its prey. Interventions in Canada, after Japan, and in Brazil to name a few could have had, and did have, a bearing on the title. Oh, and in Hungary of course, where it should never have got involved in the way that it did. In true website-imitates-life fashion, it was enough for us to revise our Reject of the Year podium criteria again so that F1 officialdom could take its worthy place on it.

Tied into all this was that rookie phenomenon, and a contradiction in himself, called Lewis Hamilton. He was spellbindingly brilliant until his chokes in the last two GPs, but his own blind refusal (and that of his ardent supporters - which at times seemed to include the majority of Britain) to recognise that he was extremely lucky to land in the best car, to not have to unlearn Michelin behaviour, to get his breaks with officialdom, and to be mollycoddled by Ron Dennis, meant he polarised neutral observers.

Further back in the field, there was more avoidable angst over the customer car row, which took a back seat to other events and remained unresolved, so much so that a new Concorde Agreement for 2008 has not been agreed and Prodrive's entry is now in jeopardy. But the issue had Spyker (another one-year-wonder name for the team formerly known as Jordan) in a knot all season - why? - and cast a question mark over anything good that Toro Rosso and Super Aguri accomplished.

All in all, though, compared to 2006 and before, there was a palpable sense that F1 was in the birthing pains of a new era of sorts. Yes McLaren were having their usual every-second-year success, but new-look Ferrari seemed fragile at times, BMW look ready to pounce, Red Bull and Williams likewise but less so, and Renault, Toyota and Honda proved that manufacturer clout doesn't automatically guarantee success. More notably, on the driver front, Michael Schumacher had gone, but did anyone miss him?

It was the next generation's turn, but just as quickly the likes of Alonso and Raikkonen seemed to be superseded by another new breed. Not only Hamilton, but the likes of Nico Rosberg and Heikki Kovalainen were sensational as the year wore on, and Robert Kubica, Sebastian Vettel, Adrian Sutil, even Kazuki Nakajima in the last race had their moments. A season of positives and negatives then, just like the race reviews on our podcasts. As we said, a year of contradictions.

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