[Driver] Top 10 drivers of the year

[Marbot]

They're all pretty much the same.

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/2...atings-part-3/

[strider]

Not so! James Allen has gone for a top five. There's some sort of competition running and the winner is the reader who gets closest to James's choice. It's going to be a tough call: http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/1...ivers-of-2011/

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by strider

Not so! James Allen has gone for a top five. There's some sort of competition running and the winner is the reader who gets closest to James's choice. It's going to be a tough call: http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/1...ivers-of-2011/

I'm liking James's top 5 there. I have to be honest, i thought about putting Kovi in 4th on my list, but that didn't seem appropriate for someone who didn't manage a point, but as Allen points out, he dominated the back of the grid and was the only driver to take the fight to the more established teams.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Mr V

I'm liking James's top 5 there. I have to be honest, i thought about putting Kovi in 4th on my list, but that didn't seem appropriate for someone who didn't manage a point, but as Allen points out, he dominated the back of the grid and was the only driver to take the fight to the more established teams.

But to be fair he could only dominate his teammate, the Norfolk cars were mostly too far away from the midfield (until late season) but a fair bit quicker than Manor or HRT so he didn't really have much to beat.

Heikki is a very good driver but he would have to have scored a massive own goal not to have trounced Trulli.

I don't recall anyone saying Glock should've been top 10 last year when the Manor was on a par or slightly behind the Lotus and regularly beat them on pace.

[Marbot]

Autosport top ten.

AUTOSPORT TEAM PRINCIPALS' TOP TEN - 2011 RESULTS

1. Vettel 241 UP 1
2. Button 200 UP 4
3. Alonso 188 DOWN 2
4. Hamilton 122 DOWN 1
5. Rosberg 90 UP 2
6. Webber 70 DOWN 2
7. Di Resta 44 NEW ENTRY
8. Sutil 38 RE-ENTRY FROM 2009
9. Kovalainen 26 RE-ENTRY FROM 2008
10. Schumacher 23 NEW ENTRY

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/96751

[ECW Dan Selby]

Rosberg ahead of Hamilton for me... I'm not sure how people can have him ahead!

Hamilton had a poor season by his standards, and Rosberg, once again, punched far above his weight in a middle of nowhere car.

Selby

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by ECW Dan Selby

Rosberg ahead of Hamilton for me... I'm not sure how people can have him ahead!

Don't get that either.

[N.A-D.R]

1. Vettel
2. Alonso
3. Button
4. Rosberg
5. Hamilton
6. Kovalianen
7. Di Resta
8. Schumacher
9. Webber
10. Kobayashi

[ECW Dan Selby]

Originally Posted by Marbot

Don't get that either.

I think Rosberg outperformed his machinery more often than not, and Hamilton just didn't.

For Rosberg, it was another promising season (much alike his much credited 2010 campaign), whereas Hamilton's was disappointing by his own standards.

Selby

[Paradise City]

1. Button - fast, focused and outfoxed the more fancied Hamilton.

2. Vettel - imperious in top machinery, few mistakes and took Webber to the cleaners

3. Alonso - fast, courageous but often hampered when the machinery went off the boil.

4. Hambo - lots of messing around but still a winner and still dazzlingly fast when the head is right.

5. Rosberg - still faster and steadier than Schumacher even though Schumacher has gotten more of his act together

6. DiResta - Dazzling fighter. Would've beaten Sutil if the team had given both an equal crack at it, IMO.

7. Sutil - a second half season of strong performances

8. Webber - some of the most dramatic and skilled moves of the season came from Webber but these where in isolation and he was comprehensively outraced by Vettel over the course of the season often to a humiliating level.

9. Schumacher - he's more disciplined and calmer this year. He's still fast enough to be a worthy Merc driver but has nothing but fading glimpses of the speed of his glory years.

10. Kobayashi - a fighter when the machinery was good but he went off the boil in the second half of the season.

[strider]

This from Andrew Benson on Twitter (I've added the numbers):

Re 2011 top 10s, if you're interested mine would be: 1. Vettel, 2. Button, 3. Alonso, 4. Hamilton, 5. Webber, 6. Rosberg, 7. Sutil, 8. Di Resta, 9. Schumacher, 10. Perez

[ECW Dan Selby]

Also, Kovalainen thoroughly deserves to be in people's top 10's (in my opinion of course! ).

How he's managed to keep his head up for 2 season's worth of bad car after driving a top-end car is amazing. Plus, he's the only guy to fight the midfield from the back end!

Selby

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by ECW Dan Selby

Also, Kovalainen thoroughly deserves to be in people's top 10's (in my opinion of course! ).

How he's managed to keep his head up for 2 season's worth of bad car after driving a top-end car is amazing. Plus, he's the only guy to fight the midfield from the back end!

Selby

Yes he's done well to keep his motivation high, but as i've said before he didn't have any competition at the rear as he did last year, when to be fair Glock seemed to be trying the hardest...

Such a shame Caterham didn't have Virgin as decent competition in 2011.

[Mr V]

This is how the team bosses see it here

AUTOSPORT TEAM PRINCIPALS' TOP TEN - 2011 RESULTS

1. Vettel 241 UP 1
2. Button 200 UP 4
3. Alonso 188 DOWN 2
4. Hamilton 122 DOWN 1
5. Rosberg 90 UP 2
6. Webber 70 DOWN 2
7. Di Resta 44 NEW ENTRY
8. Sutil 38 RE-ENTRY FROM 2009
9. Kovalainen 26 RE-ENTRY FROM 2008
10. Schumacher 23 NEW ENTRY

[p-matt]

1. Vettel - has to be really. He may have had the best car, but he was truly exceptional with it.
2. Alonso - I'd say probably Alonso's best season since 2005. Consistently punched above his weight in an average car
3. Button - no one expected him to get on top of Hamilton, but he did. Some exceptional drives this year
4. Kovalainen - didn't put a foot wrong all year. Was quite often fighting with the midfield runners in a car that wasn't up to it. He destroyed Trulli again this year
5. Sutil - showed strong pace all year, with some spectacular drives towards the end of the season
6. Alguersuari - not the best qualifier and a terrible start to the year, but some amazing drives from Jaime
7. Hamilton - China and Germany are the obvious highlights, but too many amateur moments and incidents with Massa let him down
8. Rosberg - rock solid all year
9. Kobayashi - his first half of the year was superb. Definitely went off the boil in the middle of the year but fought back strongly with points in the last two rounds
10. Ricciardo - it was impressive to see him get on terms with Liuzzi so quickly and then consistently beat him in the latter half of his stint with HRT. My top rookie surprisingly.

11. di Resta - just outside the top 10. He was good this year, but vastly overrated by the British press especially.
12. Perez
13. Schumacher
14. Buemi
15. Petrov
16. Webber
17. Glock
18. Heidfeld
19. Massa
20. Liuzzi

[f1manoz]

Button - Immense this season. Very impressed. Best drives of the season in Canada and Japan.

Vettel - Best car. He's clearly a very good driver, but just how good is he? Hard to tell. Don't get me wrong, though. Deserved double World Champion. Made it look easy.

Alonso - Probably did the maximum possible in a very ordinary Ferrari. Will not put up with another season like that though.

Kovaleinen - Trounced his team-mate and usually mixed it with the established teams. Deserved to score the teams first points in 2012.

Rosberg - Solid. Did the best he could with the machinery available.

Schumacher - The old boy was impressive the longer the season went on. Even was cheering him on at times.

Hamilton - Some impressive drives, but also some races which belonged in amateur hour. And his constant run-ins with Massa were laughable. Hamilton is better than that.

Sutil - Did the job required - consistent points finisher and saw off his rookie team-mate.

Webber - Utterly stuffed by his team-mate and in the best car was too often beaten by other drivers while his team-mate sauntered off ino the distance.

Kobayashi - Impressive start to the season but disappeared as the season went on. Perhaps due to lack of car development?

[MichaelH]

1. Vettel - just untouchable, dominant, miles ahead.

2. Button - classy, gave Hamilton a lesson in how to put together a strong season, Canada drive best of the season by a distance. His best year.

3. Alonso - usual classy performance in a car that at times was a mile off the winning pace. Trounced Massa. When he got his one chance to win at Silverstone, he dominated. Complete driver.

4. Webber - edges Lewis. Struggled with new tyres, was unlucky but always therabouts, kept his head up against onslaught from Vettel, some brilliant racecraft and ballsy drives, deserved his win in Brazil. Vastly underrated on this thread.

5. Hamilton - A few brilliant drives and flashes of his pace, in between seemingly constant ham-fisted f**k-ups. Something really badly wrong this season, but a big part of that was that he was rattled by Jenson's form.

6. Schumacher - get over his qualifying issues and he'd be really impressive. His starts and racecraft, although a bit overaggressive at times, really impressed and he scored Mercedes' best results this season, huge improvement over 2010.

7. Rosberg - solid, but far less convincing compared to Schumacher in all but qualifying pace. Did a solid, steady job and scored a lot of points, but rarely did anything to suggest he was outperforming the car did he?

8. Sutil - as the Force India got quicker and quicker he recovered from a terrible start to have his best season, genuinely impressive late run of race results.

9. Alguersuari - hugely underrated. Struggled in qualifying but managed to score a hell of a lot of points for such a lowly team, with some really mature race drives in the second half of the season. Deserves to keep a place in F1.

10. Kovalainen - did well. Regularly ran his Lotus higher that it had any right to be and did a solid job all season. Given that Trulli seemed to have totally lost the plot I don't think his domination was quite as impressive as some seem to, but he did well.

11. Di Resta - solid debut season.
12. Perez - ditto.
13. Kobayashi - more flashes of speed.
14. Massa - performance of the Ferrari was somewhere right in the middle of the respective pace of Alonso & Felipe. Struggled as much as Fernando did well.
15. Petrov - strong start, seemed to lose all hope and then his drive.
16. Heidfeld - nip and tuck with Petrov = not good enough clearly.
17. Maldonado - for getting his Williams into Q3 on a number of occasions.
18. Buemi - unlucky, should have scored more points.

rest didn't really register.

[strider]

Since top ten seems no longer to mean what it says, autosport.com his put together a top fifty from all categories. Presumably they take all the correspondents who cover the different categories in a room together with a plentiful supply of beer and let them argue it out. Must take a while.

Anyway, picking out the top ten from F1, it goes like this:

1. Sebastian Vettel
2. Jenson Button
3. Fernando Alonso
4. Lewis Hamilton
5. Nico Rosberg
6. Mark Webber
7. Adrian Sutil
8. Paul di Resta
9. Sergio Perez
10. Michael Schumacher

Romain Grosjean would have slotted in ahead of Mark Webber, but that's based on his GP2 performances and therefore irrelevant.

[chunterer]

Maldonado would feature just outside my top 10 for his fantastic drive in Monaco and for those amazing Q3 jobs, which generally speaking his car didn't really seem very capable of!

Ok, so he blotted his copybook with a bit of bloody mindedness in some rounds but I think we have to accept that he's a pretty decent driver but with some character flaws. It's not as though F1 hasn't been littered with them over the years.

[strider]

I think that's a very fair summary of the guy. There are several drivers on the fringes of the top ten. Going back to the Autosport list, Heikki Kovalainen would have been #11. Then there's Timo Glock, who has kind of slipped out of peoples' awareness, yet I'm sure he's just as good a driver as before; it's simply that this year's Virgin was a complete dog. Let's hope the Marussia is better.

[danoli]

1.Vettel
2.Alonso
3.Button
4.Rosberg
5.Webber
6.Michael Schumacher
7.Paul Di Resta
8.Heikki Kovalainen
9.Lewis Hamilton
10.Jaime Alguersuari

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by danoli

9.Lewis Hamilton

Ooooo, thats unlikely to upset a few on here

[stripedcat]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Ooooo, thats unlikely to upset a few on here

I think it is fair to say that he has had a disappointing season. I put him pretty low down on my list. Thinking of it, he probably had the best rookie season any F1 driver has ever had - but - and this is thing, I don't think he has driven as well, as he ever did than in 2007.

Still he won 3 races this year. He still has the potential.

[strider]

I'm not sure what this says about the readers of Crash.net, but this is the top ten their votes came up with:

1. Jenson Button
2. Sebastian Vettel
3. Fernando Alonso
4. Paul di Resta
5. Nico Rosberg
6. Michael Schumacher
7. Mark Webber
8. Heikki Kovalainen
9. Kamui Kobayashi
10. Adrian Sutil

I've jumped the gun slightly because they have not announced the #1 yet, but it has to be Jenson doesn't it? Surely not Hamilton? But then you'd think Lewis has to be in the top ten somewhere. His fall from grace was not that bad.

[cds_uk]

It does make you wonder how popular Lewis is though doesn't it, for whatever reason he does seem to rub people up the wrong way, not me i might add.