Today marked the end of yet another Formula One season, and as the end of each season brings with it, this one too brings the prospect of a whole load of changes the following year; some welcome, others not. 2013 had its highs and lows like any other year, but a few things were rather different.  Here's my take on them:

No Schumacher, Again!

After Schumacher retired at the end of the 2006 season,  we fans came to accept his absence, but when he chose to make a comeback in 2010, even his die-hard fans weren't convinced it was a good move.  In hindsight, it was probably not, but that's the value of hindsight for you.  He retired again at the end of 2012 without adding a single win to his record in the three years that he raced again.  The closest he came was when he got pole position for the Monaco GP in 2011, but that too was lost because he had picked up a penalty in the previous race which meant he started lower down.  He announced his retirement at the end of the 2012 season and that meant that there was no Schumi in 2013. In his place was Lewis Hamilton!

Romain Grosjean and his crashes!

If seasons 2011 had Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa coming together too often for comfort,  Romain Grosjean was in the eye of the storm in 2012, getting involved in more collisions than one would want to be in.  People questioned his very presence in the highest form of motorsports and claimed that his very technique was flawed;  He did seem to get tangled in a lot of first lap incidents and things weren't looking good at all.  His lowest point came at the Spa, when he plowed into the car of Lewis Hamilton at the first corner and then led to a multi car pile-up.  FIA took such a serious note of the incident that he was slapped with a one race ban and in his first race after the return, he crashed into Mark Webber! People said he wouldn't race in 2013, but Eric Boullier reposed faith in the young Frenchman who went from strength to strength in 2013.  He finished the year with an impressive haul of 132 points which included six podium finishes.  He may have well ended the season with another podium after starting from P6, but a blown engine caused an early retirement.  He looks more and more confident after each race and is definitely one of the drivers who are championship material, if he gets a reliable and fast ride.

The Pirelli controversy

I'd blogged in 2012 about how Pirelli was killing Formula 1. The year 2013 seemed in many ways a continuation of 2012, as far as terrible tires were concerned.  To be fair to Pirelli, they were being squeezed by FIA; they could only use a really outdated F1 car for their tests and testing with current cars was a strictly regulated affair and testing opportunities were minimal.  The result of this however was that their tires were extremely unreliable and far from increasing excitement in the sport, it was rapidly increasing frustration, as the sport was no longer about driving fast but about managing tires.  I've blogged more about this unfortunate development here. After a lot of protests,  they seemed to go back to kevlar reinforced tires that at least didn't explode after running them for a couple of laps.  The 2013 season has unfortunately seen a lot more attention being given to tires than racing and that's something that's not been fixed.  Hopefully,  FIA and Pirelli can sort out their differences and allow for a more interesting season next year.   We fans like to see the likes of Raikkonen, Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton, Massa and Grosjean battling it out on track, lap after lap and not to see them running laps in procession for 40-50 laps after pushing for the first fifteen.

Vettel and his finger!

If there's one person who's taken the sport completely by storm after the exit of Michael Schumacher, it's Sebastian Vettel.  After a dream debut year in 2007 for Lewis, many said that he was indeed the champion of the future.  This idea was reinforced when he went on to win the 2008 world drivers' championship, but since then, few people have grabbed attention like Vettel has.  After the blown diffuser assisted championship for Brawn and Jenson Button in 2009,  Sebastian Vettel and RedBull have swept every title, obliterating all manners of records.  Such was Vettel's domination that the crowds even started booing him on his victories, in what can only be called an unfortunate turn of events, but even that didn't slow him down or reduce his hunger for race wins.  He kept winning and the crowd actually started cheering him again!  I daresay his popularity increased after he stopped saying 'Whoohoo' at the end of each race :D He even delighted his fans by doing doughnuts, first in India, to celebrate his formal clinching of the title, at Abu Dhabi, to celebrate RedBull clinching the constructor's title, at the US GP, for setting the record for maximum consecutive race wins and at the season finale at Brasil, to celebrate equaling Michael Schumacher's record of 13 wins in a season.

Retirements and team changes

Like every F1 season, this one too brought with it a bunch of announcements of changes for the following season. Mark Webber has retired from Formula One, to pursue a career in the FIA World Endurace Championship, with Porsche. Felipe Massa will no longer race for Ferrari, after driving in the scarlet car for eight years.  He won all of his eleven race victories with Ferrari and lost the 2009 championship to Hamilton by a single point.  He moves to Williams, replacing Pastor Maldonaldo. Kimi Raikkonen, who was bought out of his contract with Ferrari, to usher in Alonso, is confirmed to have made a move back to Ferrari for next year, taking the spot vacated by the outgoing Massa.  It'll certainly be interesting to see the team dynamics as Kimi is not expected to be happy to play the second fiddle to Alonso, as Massa was often forced to do, by Ferrari. Adrian Sutil is another driver who doesn't have a drive for 2014, with Nico Hulkenberg taking his place.  There is some chatter about a possible return for Rubens Barichello, but that's still pure conjecture at this point.