Enlarge (credit: Formula 1)

The longest season in Formula 1’s 66-year history is now complete. Like so much else in 2016, it wasn’t a fantastic year, starting badly with a ridiculous farce in place of qualifying. (That qualifying process lasted two races before it went back to the old method.) And even at the beginning of the year it was obvious that only two men—Mercedes-AMG teammates Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton—stood a chance of winning the championship.

But the season was not without some high points: watching Rosberg emerge victorious in Abu Dhabi and promptly retire was one (although I, at least, will miss him); and young phenom Max Verstappen bursting into the sport, rapidly polarizing opinion between those who think he’s the freshest breath of air since freshness first started being measured and others who reckon he needs to spend at least a season in something like GP2 or Formula 3 before playing in the big league; seeing more of fellow Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo and his podium ritual of drinking champagne from a sweaty race boot, which we look forward to seeing more of in 2017. All of these (although, unsurprisingly, not the qualifying debacle) have made it into F1’s rather adorable 8-bit Season Review, which is online for your viewing delight.

Changes are a-coming next year—bigger tires, even more downforce, and a return to free engine development throughout the season—so 2016 marks the end of a three-year period of rules stability that has seen Mercedes-AMG completely and utterly dominant. With Rosberg leaving the sport, there’s an opening at the sharpest end of the grid, which may see some shuffling of drivers between teams; most are betting Valteri Bottas will make the move from (Mercedes-powered) Williams F1 to partner Lewis Hamilton.