Sebastian Vettel finally tied it all up last night in a fascinating Japanese Grand Prix. Lets be clear, it’s been a while since there was anything other than mathematical doubt as to who was going to win the drivers titles this year.

It’s been another compelling season of racing and the comfort of Vettel’s championship, won with four races left, had taken little of the drama away.

The winning margin this year is impressive because both the driver and the team cut out the mistakes. Last year he was clearly the quickest, but errors by both parties cost him points on more than one occasion. This year there was none of that, just a team and driver at their very best.

I can think of only two significant errors this year, and that is remarkable. The last lap mistake in Canada that gave Jenson Button an outstanding win, and a spin in Germany, that’s it.

Nine wins and twelve pole positions in fifteen races is impressive. Yes, there were weekends where he was dominant, but there were others where he had to fight for every point and did so. But wait there’s more, he’s the only driver to have finished every race and what’s more finished every race except for Germany on the podium. That’s impressive.

Perhaps his most dominant weekend was Turkey, it was clear from the Friday times that everyone else was looking at second. Team principal Christian Horner was asked after qualifying by one of the press pack if Vettel had any weakness. He replied, “Yes, when he turned up this weekend he had quite a dodgy haircut.”

It was the same story in Australia, Valencia, Belgium, Italy and a couple of others. Monaco was shaping up to be an outstanding fight to the end before a safety car ruined the spectacle.

Sunday we saw one more of the signs of the impending apocalypse (Zombie apocalypse is my guess, read Max Brooks to be prepared), or perhaps Michael Schumacher is mellowing in his old age.

“You know Michael – you talk to him and he will always feel that he is right. He stopped [for] three years [but] he hasn’t changed at all. He is still the same guy.” No prizes for guessing that’s Barichello speaking.

While it’s not actually listed as one of the seven signs of this apocalypse thing, it makes way more sense than Michael admitting he may have been in the wrong on his own. I’ve done a little research this evening, and no where does it actually give the names of the four horseman, its very possible one is called Michael.

He actually admitted that perhaps he was a little over aggressive when he all but ran Rubens Barrichello off the track in Hungary Yesterday. I was watching the race and no question was the move over the top, no one has an issue with the driver defending the corner, but what Michael did was over the top.

The pass is all over Youtube if you’ve not seen it.

Schumacher said that after looking at the incident, the stewards were right, it was too much. OK, Michael has history of this, and there is certainly no love lost between those two drivers, but this was a far too aggressive move for the lead, let alone 10^th place and 1 point in the standings.

“Right after the race I was still in the heat of the action,” said Michael, “But after watching the moment again, I must say the stewards were right in their assessment: the manoeuvre against Rubens was too dangerous. I wanted to make it hard for him to pass me but I didn’t want to endanger him with my manoeuvre. If he has this feeling I am sorry, this was not my intention.”

Yep, get your Zombie fighting gear together, Michael Schumacher said sorry.

Ross Brawn (Mercedes Team principal) came to Michaels defence immediately after the face with “I don’t think for a moment Michael was trying to put Rubens in the wall, he was trying to discourage him from coming down the inside as he thought that was where he would be vulnerable. At the end of the day he gave him enough space. You can argue it was marginal, but it was tough racing.”

The stewards disagree about it being “marginal” and Michael got slapped with a 10 place qualifying penalty on the grid in Belgium, and a lot of people thought he got off easy.

As for the rest of the race, the Red Bulls were once again totally dominating in qualifying. Weber drove a great race, Vettel lost his early lead ended up third behind Massa after screwing up with the safety car out which cost him a stop-and-go penalty. It’s a long time since I’ve seen someone that unhappy to be on the podium. Vettel was not happy and this is just another weekend where Red Bull has failed to turn a great qualifying performance into an easy 1-2.

McLaren were nowhere to be seen after a disastrous weekend. Lewis Hamilton lost the world championship lead with a costly DNF when his gearbox broke. Jenson Button finished a very distant eighth in what was a rather processional race, which is typical for Hungary. It’s clear that Red Bull and to a slightly lesser extent Ferrari have a distinct equipment advantage.

There has been a lot of talk of these two teams running flexible front wings that run much closer to the ground when the car is at speed on the track giving more down force and better performance, especially on the high speed circuits. Hungary is not a high speed circuit (nor was Hockenheim last weekend) and Red Bull are clearly the best team out there. McLaren and Ferrari have a lot of work to get the initive back in what’s turned into a very close fought championship.

With 25 points for a win, there are 5 drivers heading into the final 9 races just a good weekend away from leading the championship. This is fun.

A lot of people (me, Jackie Stewart, Eddie Jordan and all of my more informed racing friends) though Lewis Hamilton was going to crush Jenson Button this year.

So far that’s not happened and I started looking through the results of the first four races and was rather surprised. I accept its early days, we are not even a quarter of the way through the championship and the weather has certainly played a part in mixing things up a bit. None the less it’s rather interesting to have a quick glance down the results.

Bahrain

Race – Hamilton 3rd, Button 7th

Qualifying – Hamilton 4^th, Button 8th

Practice – Button 5^th, Hamilton 6th

Australia

Race – Button 1^st, Hamilton 6th

Qualifying – Button 4^th, Hamilton 11th

Practice – Button 4^th, Hamilton 7th

Malaysia

Race – Hamilton 6^th, Button 8th

Qualifying – Button 17^th, Hamilton 20th

Practice – Hamilton 1st, Button 3rd

China

Race – Button 1^st, Hamilton 2^nd (fastest lap)

Qualifying – Button 5^th, Hamilton 6th

Practice – Button 1^st, Hamilton 3^rd

Coming into the year it was though by many that Button was a good race driver, but ultimately Lewis Hamilton was quicker over a single lap, and that’s not been the case.

This is going to be pretty simplistic as I don’t have the energy to really break the numbers down and pull out my stats text books (there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics) to prove my point, but here we go.

First is the faster over a single lap argument that has been all over a couple of blogs by Hamilton supporters to prove he’s the best.

Combining qualifying and practice Button was faster than Hamilton 75% of the time (6 out if 8).

Personally I feel practice is a little irrelevant. With the limited testing this year it’s a chance to try a few things out and get some laps on the car, but it is head-to-head data and we can’t ignore it totally.

Looking at qualifying only we see the following “average grid position” from each driver.

Button – 8.5 (ignoring Malaysia – 5.6)

Hamilton – 10.25 (ignoring Malaysia – 7)

Button has on average out qualified Hamilton by almost two (1.75) grid places over the four races. Take out the deeply weather affected Malaysian GP grid and it’s a little better for Hamilton, he’s “only” beaten by an average of 1.4 grid positions.

Being subjective for a moment, Buttons two wins have come in part because he reacted to the conditions better and produced a great race strategy. This has become more important with the heavier fuel loads and making tires last. Reacting to the conditions earlier today in Shanghai led to an early swap to slicks and then a decisive change to intermediates saved him a couple of stops over Hamilton. Those two stops were the difference between the top and second step on the podium.

No question Hamilton’s drive through the field was terrific, especially the battle with Vettel as they climbed though the field together. However Buttons win would have been far more dominating had he not been forced to relinquish a substantial lead to the safety car.

I still think that Hamilton is potentially quicker than Button over a single lap, but qualifying and practice have not supported that assumption. I’d like to revisit the numbers in a few races and see what’s going on then.

Today the one important stat is the race for the drivers’ championship, and there Button leads Hamilton 60 to 49 with lots more racing to go.

Schumacher has signed a three year contract with Mercedes, a little surprised by the length of the contract, but not that he signed. It is a nice full circle for Michael, Mercedes got him into the Jordan at Spa in ’91 for his first race after Bert Gachot was jailed in London for pepper-spraying a taxi driver.

The three year contract allows Michael to stay with the team until the end of 2012, which happens to be when Sebastian Vettel (in another Mercedes powered car) is out of contract with Red Bull. It’s no secret that Mercedes wants Vettel in the car eventually.

It gives Mercedes some stability and there is no question he is technically one of the best test drivers around. Another big bonus to the team when testing is limited and every testing mile needs to mean something.

In 2006 Schumacher beat Alonso in a great season long battle. In addition to Alonso wanting another run at him, there will be Button, Hamilton, Vettel and Weber all in competitive cars and wanting to beat maybe the best driver ever. If it comes together for these drivers 2010 has the potential to be a great championship.

Lewis Hamilton once said that his biggest regret was that he never got to race against the seven time world champion, he does now.

Assuming Ross Brawn provides him a good car I don’t think anyone doubts Schumacher’s ability to be at the front of the grid. As his Ferrari team mate Eddie Irvine said “Michael Schumacher at 90% of his best is still better than the vast majority of the F1 grid.”

Baring a total disaster I think his legacy is safe, no one can take away 91 wins, seven championships and clearly being one of the best drivers in the history of F1.

It also means Nick Heidfeld is looking for a seat; he seemed to be waiting as Mercedes second choice if Michael decided not to come back.