2012 yearender: Sebastian Vettel takes triple in year of surprises
the championship entered its second half.
Even if Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone held up Vettel as a new benchmark for the sport, team principals voted Alonso their driver of the season and the Spaniard had no doubt about what he had done in a car he knew was not the fastest.
"It was by far the best season of my career and I will remember this 2012 like some dream season," said the man who won two titles with Renault in 2005 and 2006.
The Spaniard's win in rain-hit Malaysia, the second race of the season, was a stunning result considering how far off the pace Ferrari had been in testing and in the Australian opener.
Alonso, lucky to escape unhurt after Romain Grosjean's Lotus skimmed past his head in Belgium in an incident that got the Frenchman banned for a race, and Vettel were the main men in a field of six champions - five of them race winners in 2012.
SCHUMACHER AND STONER LEAVE
There were few gasps of surprise when seven times world champion Michael Schumacher, three years into an unimpressive comeback with Mercedes and six years on from his last win with Ferrari, decided to call it a day for the second time at the age of 43.
There were rather more when 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton cut the umbilical cord with super-successful McLaren and signed for Mercedes, whose otherwise bleak year was illuminated only by their first win as a works team since 1955.
That bombshell was comparable to the shock in
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