Driver(s) of the season

[Malbec]

Couldn't resist a long reply to this thread.

Instead of ranking all of them I put them into key groups. In no particular order:

Not impressed:

Karun Chandhok - Binning a Lotus exiting the pits in his first FP1 session was a low. A great ambassador for the sport outside the car and best kept there.

Jarno Trulli - Utterly dominated by his teammate despite his exceptional experience and one lap pace. Didn't improve once Lotus got the power steering to his liking. Getting on a bit and I question his motivation too. I really like him as a character and I think its best he chose to leave the sport with dignity intact rather than carrying on and fading away.

Rubens Barrichello - Claims to be as motivated and quick as ever, yet his not particularly highly rated teammate was soon matching or beating his pace. Was prickly off track as well making some pointed comments about his team which although probably true would not have endeared him. As with Trulli, nice guy who should leave the sport now with his head held high rather than have another season like this to spoil his memory with.

Vitantonio Liuzzi - Kubica supposedly recommended Renault take him instead of Heidfeld because he's supposedly a better driver. Supposedly. Rather underwhelming performance this year where he failed to trash his teammates in the way I'd expect someone of his supposedly great talent to manage.

Flashes of brilliance but...:

Narain Karthikeyan - Excellent performance in his one race at India beating his much vaunted teammate who Red Bull rates so highly they are prepared to buy a seat at another team for him. Still, doesn't make up for his previous lacklustre performances in years gone past.

Timo Glock - Often quick, occasionally blindingly fast taking that Virgin places it shouldn't be going, mixing it up with Loti of the green sort. At other times though he was quite vulnerable to his teammate and got beaten by HRTs sometimes too.

Jerome D'Ambrosio - Beat his quick teammate on more than a few occasions. Would have been nice to see him at a midfield team so I could properly see his talents but there are plenty more drivers with a similar level of talent.

Bruno Senna - Impressive start at Spa and did well to cope with the pressure of entering a struggling team halfway through a season but thats about it. Did nothing to vindicate Boullier's decision to replace Nick with him mid-season and hopefully there are few people left who genuinely believe he is anywhere near as good as his uncle.

Pastor Maldonaldo - Apparently a bit of an idiot off-track, he still managed to match Rubens early on in the season and IIRC the only times a Williams popped into Q3 he was at the helm. Impressed me more than Hulkenberg did the year before. At some races like Monaco he was on fire until Lewis found him, but at too many others he could be found fending off green Loti and serving drive throughs. Might well improve a lot next season though.

Pedro de la Rosa - Good job squeezing into a Sauber at the last minute. Was trashed by his teammate who was running second at one point in Canada while Pedro never threatened to score a point but given the late notice merely finishing the race was an achievement.

Sebastien Buemi - Makes John Major look like an extrovert party animal. Somehow instantly forgettable even when he puts in tremendous performances but over the full season he was unable to match his teammate. Will probably be kicked out for next year but then again so might his teammate...

Sergio Perez - Stupendously quick on some tracks especially street circuits but at Monaco he looked like an accident waiting to happen, and it did. Scored a few points towards the end of the season often by splitting his strategy with Kobayashi and having luck fall his way. Might improve next year with a little more experience though.

Good but I know you can do better:

Michael Schumacher - Better performance than last year but this is not the Schumi from before still. Seems more comfortable within himself though. Must beat Rosberg next year...

Vitaly Petrov - Definitely improved from last year and did well to race as well as he did while his team self-destructed around him. Wasn't fazed by Nick at all. Found more consistency this year but he needs that final touch before he can be considered good, speed.

Nick Heidfeld - Dumped for political or financial reasons but that doesn't change the fact that he should have done better and probably could have done so. Should have stamped his authority all over the team and his teammate, failed by a big margin.

Felipe Massa - Usually the sixth quickest out of the cars capable of winning a race. Showed a bit more pace towards the end of the season but we know he can do better and so does he. Seems to have lost a lot of confidence on the Pirellis. Obviously lost out colliding with Lewis but it says a lot that Massa was often running at his natural pace trying to fend off a quicker but recovering Lewis when those accidents happened.

Mark Webber - This might be harsh but unfortunately his teammate showed exactly what could be done with an identical car, Mark's pace just didn't measure up. Should have come second on a regular basis but didn't even manage that sadly. The pole position stat for this season says it all.

Lewis Hamilton - Showed that he has the pace he's famous for but made far far too many errors, many of them unforced. Great drivers should not be making this number of mistakes. Still hopefully he'll enter 2012 in a better frame of mind and his old form should return but judged purely on his 2011 performance he was a disappointment, perhaps the biggest of the year.

To be continued...

[Mia 01]

Vettel!!!

[steveaki13]

It's aki13's fault. He layed down the gauntlet by reviewing all the drivers. I've taken up the challenge.

...

You took up the challenge and smashed me into the distance.

Brilliant evaluation. Well Done

[The Black Knight]

Snap. Pleased to see you agree with my top 5, especially Kovalainen - it's easy to forget about him.

Belated snap. Hadn't read your post actually. But yeah, I think Heikki had a fantastic season and deserves all the credit he gets. Jarno may have had his woes with the power steering, but Heikki still ruined him.

[Knock-on]

Top 3 are pretty easy for me.

Seb takes the top spot. Not only did he have a near perfect year with few mistakes but he dominated his team mate in the process. The car was .1 to .5 a sec quicker than anything else out there but he converted it beautifully to a well deserved 2nd championship.

Button gets it by a country mile for 2nd place. He managed his machinery wonderfully and was the only one really pushing the much quicker Red Bull. If the McLaren was a bit quicker, could he have challenged for the championship? Who knows but you wouldn't bet against it, would you.

Third is a tricky one. Alonso was pretty strong although we don't know how good because his team mate was woeful again. Is anyone else getting fed up with Rocky pleading with his driver to pick the pace up a bit. Get him the feck out of there for gods sake. Then we had Paul di Resta. Great début and really kicked-started Sutil into action. On balance, it must go to Alonso although I'm really looking forward to see what Paul does next year.

A few mentions:

Rosberg. Again he beat Schumacher by a nice margin but his race craft just doesn't really impress me much. He only really showed some fire when Schumy tried to bully past him and he had enough of it. Lets hope he keeps a bit of fire in his belly and destroys the seat waster next year.

Lewis. Up and down like a tarts knickers this year but when he was on it, nobody could touch him which his 3 wins proves. Come on buddy, sort it out in 2012!!

Sutil. Once he took up the challenge from the rookie, looked in good shape again and finished the season strongly. I've always been a fan of his but was starting to lose patience. Glad he found his mojo again and hope he continues the momentum into 2012.

Kamui had some good races, Alguersuari impressed at times and Trulli battled gallantly.

As for the rest, special mention for the Renault and Williams drivers who were crap all year. Woeful.