Driver(s) of the season

[kfzmeister]

Well, there was Vettel and then there were the others.

No prob.

[555-04Q2]

The Vet. Cleaned up not only the whole grid with the best car, but also made his teamate Webbo look very, very ordinary this season.

[rjbetty]

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

28.Karun Chandhok: Tough to choose who to put last - Qualified a good 20th
for his one-off race with little practice and seat time. Race was shocking
though so he gets the wooden spoon in a field where again there were no
standout 'rejects'.

27.Narain Karthikeyan: Likewise, no recent practice but did well
considering. Didn't seem to be wild and crashy, but sensible which must
have been appreciated by his short-on-cash team. Despite lack of recent
practice, shone against Ricciardo on his return in India.

26.Jerome D'Ambrosio: Acquited himself well and compared decently to
experienced Glock, outqualifying him nuch more often than Lucas di Grassi
did last year - though the car was more reliable and more sorted, making
the task easier.

25.Vitantonio Liuzzi: Rubbish in a good car, but a real asset to the
smallest team on the grid - Tonio was quite a catch. But he didn't appear
to excel or exceed himself in any way.

24.Pedro de la Rosa: Again, lack of recent seat-time played against Pedro,
but considering that he did well in Canada by not embarassing himself in
qualifying and finishing a crazy race in which his team-mate incurred
damage and a repair bill.

23.Daniel Ricciardo: Franz Tost declared that he expected Daniel Ricciardo
would "best Liuzzi after 3 races" - it took longer. Liuzzi fought back and
outperformed him in Brazil as well. Was also outperformed by Karthikeyan on
Narain's Indian return. So all in all, I still wonder if he really is THAT
special. But then I thought the same thing about Sebastien Vettel when Seb
was in the same situation in 2007...

22.Rubens Barrichello: It would be a shame to see Rubens squeezed out of F1
when he wants to stay. Trouble was, he did not clearly outperform rookie
Maldonado, who is not exactly the next Ayrton Senna (more like Bruno). He
failed to qualify once in the top 10 - Maldonado did so 3 times.

21.Jarno Trulli: Outclassed by Kovalainen, in absolute terms Jarno would
still rank fairly well, but he is so far short of his best now (and with a
bad attitude to boot) that the time is now right for him to move over and
relinquish that seat to a hungry talented youngster.

20.Pastor Maldonado: In a bad car, still started in the top 10 on 3
occasions. He didn't appear to be quite the wild beast that was expected,
and from what I know did not spend the season exloring many different ways
to destroy cars. Very unfortunate in Monaco. Not bad.

19.Sebastien Buemi: One of the most anonymous drivers of all in recent
years, again precious little stood out, and frankly I've never understood
what Red Bull see in him. There as a good drive to 8th from the back in
Hungary, and he relentlessly outqualified Alguersuari early on, but ended
up with just over half his team-mate's points total. Unimpressive.

18.Bruno Senna: Another driver hurt by lack of seat-time in the car, Bruno
started out with 2 bangs at Spa - by qualifying 7th, and then wasting it by
hitting Alguersuari. Unfortunately, Bruno proved to be a disappointment
because the truth was, he was outperformed by Petrov who is not much more
experienced. And I wonder if Bruno would have scored a podium as Vitaly
did.

17.Kamui Kobayashi: After making a real impression in 2010, Kamui started
2011 well with a string of strong points finishes, but faded badly in the
second half, perhaps fazed by the performance of Perez...? Needs to
rebound.

16.Nick Heidfeld: One of the disappointments of the season. It's hard to
say how much spending time out of F1 and racing affects a driver, but the
fact is Heidfeld was outclassed by Petrov (who isn't the greatest
benchmark) in qualifying, and Nick's points total was not significantly
higher. That is not what he was signed for...

15.Vitaly Petrov: A quite brilliant podium in Australia proved to be a
false dawn as Vitaly struggled to replicate that kind of showing anywhere
else. But a lot of credit has to be given as Vitaly showed much improvement
by avoiding the many crashes that almost cost him his drive last year. He
was also the teams' strongest qualifier, a notch above Senna in the races
too. All in all a good job, though may find himself out of room with the
arrival of Raikkonen and probably Grosjean.

14.Timo Glock: The fact that Virgin racing were actually further from the
pace than they had been in their first year must have proved a great
discouragement for Timo, and the way the way that D'Ambrosio outqualified
him on several occasions caused some wonder whether Glock was still giving
his best. Things have to improve - another soul-sapping season might just
be too much to bear.

13.Jaime Alguersuari: Were he being judged solely on race performances,
Jaime Alguersuari could be considered a star in his own right, and would
very possibly win the interest of other teams. Some of his race drives into
the points from the back were highly impressive and he garnered almost
twice the points of his more experienced team-mate. Unfortunately, his
qualifying performances do take the shine of things. Clearly behind the
un-stellar Buemi, some of Jaime's saturdays were woeful. Still, he appears
a very mature driver for his age and deserves a place in the business
(sport).

12.Sergio Perez: Because of the fact that Perez brought a stash of cash
along, not too much was expected. But by impressvely getting the better of
Kobayashi on saturdays, Perez had earned a place in F1 on merit. Very very
good and clearly a top 2 finish in the rookie of the year standings.

11.Adrian Sutil: It is a harsh situation for Adrian Sutil. Initially
outperformed by Paul di Resta, it seemed Sutil was unsettled, perhaps
having grown too comfortable with being unchallenged by a team-mate. In
fairness, he raised his game and fought back, asserting himself over the
rookie. There were several strong performances, such as Germany and Brazil.
These did beg the question, where was this form in the first half of the
season? But truth be told, with Hulkenberg behind the scenes, the writing
was probably on the wall before the season started that Adrian was on his
way out, especially knowing thow Vijay Mallya was seriously put out by the
desire Sutil showed to fly the nest for a space in a top team. It is a
shame to think after such good performances in the season's second half
that Adrian might find his F1 career even over! A tough business.

10.Felipe Massa: A singularly flat and unimpressive season. Massa failed to
finish higher than 5th in a season where his team-mate ascended the podium
in about half the races. The truth was he was only a couple of tenths off
Alonso, but scored only half the points. He is still ranked 10th on account
that his performances in absolute terms were still better than much of the
field. Massa's fans insist he's never been the same after 2009, but the man
himself says otherwise. I think the truth is closer to being that Felipe no
longer has the best car, and more pertinently the quality of his opposition
in good cars has increased beyond his reach. I have to say I think Felipe
is over-rated in the way he was expected to beat Alonso when Fernando
joined Ferrari. He is simply not in the class of Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton,
and the REAL Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen, and that is simply
showing now. In fact, he seems to be quite a bit further behind Alonso than
Giancarlo Fisichella was, which is telling. I believe a driver should be
judged by not only their good drives and years, but also how they are in
their bad ones.

9.Michael Schumacher: His many critics will declare that Michael Schumacher
again experienced another catastrophic season, but look below the surface
and things look much more promising. At age 42 and still overcoming a 3
year absence, Michael may have again outqualified Nico on no more occasions
than he managed in 2010, but actually the time gap was probably more than
halved. Adding up all the qualifying segments in the season in which both
drivers set representative times, Michael beat Nico many more times than in
2010. Often, he started just a little gap behind. The problem is that
people don't seem to understand F1 and only look at surface results, which
show that Michael was again behind Rosberg in both qualifying and points.
It was on race pace that Michael really shone though. For the most part he
was on Nico's pace or faster, and on occasions such as Monaco, Silverstone
and Spa made his younger countryman look silly. The problem was, this often
failed to show because the final result was much compromised by errors and
incidents. Michael came in for much criticism for his less than laser sharp
racecraft, failing to take into account the huge 3 year absence. In truth,
things were still all coming back to Michael and it's only a matter of time
before the racecraft is fixed. When you realise what Schumacher's results
would have been if things had gone his way, things suddenly look very
promising. He would have probably easily outpointed Rosberg. The truth was
that Schumacher's 2011 was actually much improved over 2010. It was just
that the relative performance of the car had dipped and the top teams were
also more reliable. This disguised the apparent lack of improvement in
actual results. In fact, if the season had ended after India, I would have
ranked Schumacher 6th (even 5th). As long as he keeps improving, and if
Mercedes can close the gap to the front, then this could get very
interesting.

The post is so long I exceeded the character limit! To be continued...

[rjbetty]

PART 2
=====
8.Paul di Resta: Perhaps a little highly placed considering Sutil outshone
him in the second half of the season. Let's see if he's as good as he
claims to be.

7.Nico Rosberg: Same here. Nico seemed less imressive than in 2010. Last
year there were 3 podiums - in 2011 there were no finishes higher than 5th.
Doesn't look good. However, this owes to the fact that the car was
definitely a step backwards in relative performance. What has really taken
the shine off Rosberg somewhat is the way that Michael Schumacher
outclassed him at Monaco, and finished 17 seconds behind at Silverstone -
but having lost 50 seconds early on. Things like this raise questions as to
how much Rosberg is really getting out of the car, though his motivation
must undoubtedly have suffered due to again finding himself without a
chance of winning.

6.Mark Webber: A textbook example of how fickle and silly "experts" are. Last
year the crowds fell over each other getting onto the bandwagon for Mark
Webber. This year, the same people rushed to discard that bandwagon and
instead rush to get on the one for knocking him down, saying "retire" and
all that stupid stuff. I'm afraid this proved to be my most spot-on
prediction for 2011 - the comedown. This was because even after Korea in
2010, Webber had seemed tired from the effort of extracting the form of his
life from within himself to continue hanging onto the coat-tails of some of
the greatest ever drivers. I openly wondered well before the season how
much Webber would be able to find in 2011 and didn't expect him to do so.
You can read all about it on my dormant-ish website www.rjbetty.weebly.com
(but ignore the fact that I stuck my neck out and predicted that Red Bull
might have a McLaren 2006 style comedown and only finish 3rd in the
championship!). Webber is 6th because in absolute terms I think he should
still be around there, and also for the fact that he did finally win.

5.Heikki Kovalainen: A surprise choice maybe, but those in the know say
Heikki extracted everything possible from his car, and did so consistently.
If he had done that in a top car, then the reason for this ranking would be
obvious.

4.Lewis Hamilton: A bad year, but even so was able to show his genius on
occasion.

3.Jenson Button: A great example of how to extract the optimum performance
possible out of the circumstaces. Was always there to pick up pieces and
make the most of the situation. Again he often headed Lewis this way, but
impressively also did so on several occasions through pure performance and
merit, such as in Japan and Brazil.

2.Fernando Alonso: If Jenson showed how to extraxt the maximum possible
from a situation, then Alonso was even better, almost toppling Jenson in
the standings despite driving a significantly inferior car. Was just pipped
by Webber in a car which enjoyed a huge advantage over the Ferrari, and
actually did finish ahead of Hamilton for the second season in a row.
Didn't put a foot wrong all year as far as I could tell. Missed out on
number one in my rankings by nothing.

1.Sebastian Vettel: The continuing put-downs and general bad feeling
towards this young man are getting increasingly tiresome. The constant
bleating about the best car is now sounding like a stuck record, and it
does a huge disservice to what is an outstanding year of achievement. This
is how you know you are witnessing a genius - when he makes a car look
dominant when it really isn't (nearly as much as people claim). For
evidence, check out team-mate Mark Webber (so nearly winless, so nearly
beaten by a Ferrari as well as a McLaren). What is really telling is not so
much Webber's lack of wins, but his lack of 2nd places. Think about that.
I'm making myself look like a real Vettel fanboy when the truth is I'm
really not that fussed on him and prefer Webber and the McLaren drivers -
I'm just giving credit where it's due. You can tell when a driver is really
on special form by not just the wins, but the fact they still finish 2nd on
bad days, which is how it was for Seb this year. In a resentful attempt to
belittle the lad's achievements, people rely on making this big issue about
an apparent lack of racecraft and questioning what he would achieve in a
car that's not the best (that was actually at least partially answered in
2008). I have confidence that for his next trick, Sebastian will now grow
in these areas too, leaving the critics to try and find some other apparent
weakness to try to latch onto and magnify - perhaps his well-known finger
gesture will soon be the only target left, to which I say - give him a
break.

[jens]

Rjbetty, impressive effort to write up such a long thoughtful evaluation, so I had to use the 'like' button.

But if I personally had to rank drivers in 2011, I would do it strictly based on how they performed in 2011, which means I would put Sutil and Kobayashi above their team-mates, not the other way around. Pérez and di Resta may have been rookies, but 'theoretical potential' doesn't count at the moment. If they improve and perform better in subsequent seasons, their rankings would improve anyway.

[Zico]

Just opened this thread to see if anyone could find a reason not to have Vettel in his top 3.

I suppose I'd pick Vettel, Alonso and Button, in that order. What about you?

+1, couldn't/wouldn't argue with that.

[tfp]

1. Bunson - every day of the week. Especially toward the end of the race, when he pushed, he would take the fight to the man who completely dominated this season....Only bunson took the fight to vettel in a much slower car.

2.Vettel. His performance cant be argued with, he made sure he was at the front at all times. He has by far the best car, but having the best car with a poor driver just wont work.

3. Di resta - Rookie of the season, I thought he'd play second fiddle in the team to Sutil, but proved me completely wrong!!

[F1boat]

1 Vettel 2 Jenson 3 Alonso - the WDC is an accurate reflection of the class shown by the drivers IMO.

[The Black Knight]

In order, here are my top of the season:

1: Vettel - It was close between him and Alonso but you have to give him driver of the year becuase he extracted the most from his machine and whenever made mistakes it was in free practice. Incredible performances for a guy his age and I'm looking forward to watching his talents on show in F1 over the coming years.

2: Alonso - I was torn between him and Vettel as to who to put first but he did make more mistakes than Vettel. He finished 3rd in the championship in a heap of **** Ferrari and won a race. I think that he more than deserves to be ranked 2nd.

3rd: Button - Although I feel he was being made look better because of Hamilton's woes, I do also feel that he has progressed massively as a driver and he put in some fine races. Japan was his best race in my opinion. People get too carried away with Canada. Anyone that is in the pits 6 times during a race and wins has to be counted as lucky. He drover magnificently the last 10-15 laps of the race but it has to be put into context with the rest of the race. Nevertheless he still had to drive like he stole it those laps to win and he did it in style. Outstanding performances throughout the year and he has improved massively as a driver. To outscore Hamilton is not an easy feat. And he is also a very nice chap indeed.

4th: Hamilton - A turbulent year which has seen the wonderkid lose some of his prestigous speed. He will improve next year. I do expect to see him outscore Button in 2012. Nevertheless, considering how many collisions he had this year, to finish 5th and not too far off the 2nd 3rd and 4th is still quite impressive. He is still the best driver on the grid on his day, he just hasn't been able to show it this year. 3 wins, 5th place in championship. Next year should be different.

5th: Kovaleinen - This might surprise some of you but I think his performances have not got the attention he deserved. He has been beating Jarno Trulli throughout the year, outperforming him all the time in race and qualifying. I think he has improved massively as a driver and got his confidence back after the demolishing handed to him at McLaren by Hamilton. Big improvement and consistent throughout the year. I'm now looking forward to seeing him in a car capable of scoring points again.

[rjbetty]

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