This is the concluding part of Driver Rankings, places 11th to 1st Part 1 10.Felipe Massa - They say Alonso makes his teammates look bad, Fischella, Trulli, Villeneuve, Piquet, Grosjean come to mind. (Hamilton an exception...) Its fair to say Massa is having a less than average season, where his teammate is over double the points, will we ever see Massa back in form again ? 9.Nick Heidfeld - Quick Nick is doing the trick needed at Renault as he was called in to fill Robert Kubica’s empty seat. The gap is Quali is on average half a second, quite a big gap, but in the races Nick is doing the work and is ahead of his teammate by 3 points. 8.Paul di Resta - The young Scot had an exceptional start to the season getting two tenth places, but in the latter few races Sutil has got the better finishes, even though Di Resta has out qualified him seven times, the race pace has let him down, and is sometimes prone to losing front wings, overall 8/10 7.Kamui Kobayashi - Careful Kamui as labelled by David Croft, is a more complete driver this season, as he can be as crazy as ever but now faster, and less prone to crash. Quali is not strength leading his rookie teammate only 5-4, but in the race he has been able to pull away with six point finished out of eight finishes. 6.Nico Rosberg - Nico is having a steady season again as always, 8-1 in Quali, but only 4-3 in the race. He never makes many mistakes, but never does anything too spectacular, overall a good season for nico, clean and reliable. 5.Mark Webber - If he’s not giving teams orders, he’s drinking Red Bull, even though he has more points than this time last year, when your nearest competitor is 80 points ahead of you its bad, and even worse when its your teammate. Things are coming together for Webber, and hopefully he play a few more tricks before the end of the season. 4.Lewis Hamilton - Lewis has shown some of the good, and a nice bit of the bad too. The season started all good for Lewis, but a trio of races from Monaco on, have put his championship outlook in disarray, and also some of his reputation. If this ranking was done before Monaco Hamilton would be a top 3 contender ‘’for sure’’ 3.Jenson Button - JB, Jense, Jenson is having a great and rated by many as his best driving, even better than when he won his championship in 09. Unlucky not to be 2nd in the WDC, because of a wheel nut failure at Silverstone, it is Jenson doing the consistent driving at Mclaren. Overall 2nd or 3rd in the championship would sum up his season. 2.Fernando Alonso - The spanish warrior is having a superb season, and is the only driver who can consistently put the fight to the red bull(s) of Sebastian Vettel. 9-0 in Quali, 4-2 in the race and double the points to massa, its fair to say Alonso is having a great season, if he can keep it up, only time will tell, and be able to challenge Kinky Kylie 1.Sebastian Vettel - Some will say its the car, but even if it is, you cant say Seb hasnt took the opportunity will both hands six wins and never lower than the second step of the podium this year, Vettel is the man most poised to win the WDC this season, and so far the most deserving. He comes back this year so much more intelligent and is a fuller and more complete driver. So what are your thoughts on this, leave a comment on what you think, Thanks for reading.
Vettel and Alonso have been in a league of their own since Spa last year. I'd give Alonso the edge this season. He's been consistently quick, and hasn't let his frustration at having a less than satisfactory car show. For me, he's gone above and beyond his responsibility, galvanising his team and giving them a figurehead to rally around, full marks from me. Vettel has been driving faultlessly, but has had less to deal with than Fernando. In a way it's therefore not his fault he's second to Alonso, but I'm sure he'd rather have the points anyway.
good article, prob the most unbiased view i have seen on this board, i realise it is an english board and will attract a lot of english fan boys but your ranking seem spot on, only thing i would prob change is button and alonso, we all know alonso is being fully backed as number 1 whereas button is clearly number 2 and not getting all thre backing. yet if not for his bad fortune in last race would be second in the championship race. alonso is however the better driver but i reckon button is driving better this year. cant really argue with vettel though, even if he has a fast car he is driving amazingly and making no mistakes at all. having said that i dont think there is as much a gap in pace between the red bull and mclaren this year. we have had 9 races and mclaren have won twice but if not for great defensive driving from vettel against both mclaren drivers ( and a little monaco luck) mclaren would of won 4/9 with red bull 4/9, ferrari 1/9. simply put mclaren havent taken their chances whereas red bull have. mclaren have been the fastest on race day as many times as red bull have been, its just red bull havent ever really been slow whereas mclaren seem to be inconsistant
Well done Sport! Another good assessment. Before I forget, have you made an error at Number 9 where you seem to refer to Massa as Heidfeld's team mate? I agree with pretty much your whole ranking of the top 10, particularly towards the sharp end with Vettel as number 1. Car or not, he has been doing the bizz and with only one significant error - when he unravelled like thread under firm Button pressure - it would be wrong to rank him below Alonso. Ranking the McLaren boys will always be contentious and will no doubt find disagreement as this discussion unfolds: they have both been doing a great job of making a poor car look better, but an over all comparison of these two this season, with different strengths and weaknesses, could be made with a toss of a coin. Nice work. Fix your number 9 for +Rep! - Or please explain why I've misunderstood!
Thanks for the tip cosi fixed now. It will always be hard rank the two British Guys, but i hope i have an unbiased opinion as im a not a Brit, and can look at the situation fairly.
Good stuff Sport! I wondered if I'd misread it but just couldn't get it to make sense first time around. P.S. I went back to give you +Rep, since you've obviously put some unbiased effort into your work; but it seems I've already given you too much so am unable to do so right now!
At a glance, looks very good! Rep and a good measure of love added... Will read in more detail a bit later
Is Rosberg better than Kobayashi? I guess Nico has more past experiance that may put him in better light bat Kamui has done better in the sauber this year to what Rosberg should be doing in the Merc
At the moment I'd say 'yes' Bando. Although ultimately this will may become 'no'. In my opinion, Rosberg is a solid driver who usually places close to where his car 'ought to be', although he is one of the easiest drivers to overcome in any on-track battle, since he doesn't put up much of a fight. - Very much unlike Kobayashi; who is surely destined to become Japan's greatest…
Another great article Sportydan. I don't think many would argue with Alonso and Vettel being the best two drivers this year. It's close between them but I would (just) give it to Vettel. Would just like to add another point - Autosport's driver ratings. Although they are nothing more than opinion, it's worth having a look at: Average ratings from the first 9 races: 1. Vettel - 8.9 2. Alonso - 8.7 3. Button - 7.9 4. Hamilton - 7.6 5. Di Resta - 7.4 6. Webber - 7.0 Lowest score for a race: Vettel - 7 (Silverstone) Alonso - 7 (Australia, Malaysia, China, Canada) Button - 6 (Australia, Turkey) Hamilton - 4 (Canada) Di Resta - 5 (Monaco) Webber - 4 (Australia) Highest score for a race: Vettel - 10 (Malaysia, Spain, Monaco) Alonso - 10 (Turkey, Spain, Monaco, Valencia, Silverstone) Button - 10 (Monaco) Hamilton - 10 (China, Spain) Di Resta - 9 (Australia, Malaysia) Webber - 9 (China)
Good article and I think I pretty much agree with all of it, although I probably would of swapped Heidfeld with Perez but that is about it.
1. Vettel 2. Alonso 3. Button 4. Hamilton 5. Webber 6. Rosberg 7. Kobayashi 8. di Resta 9. Perez 10. Buemi
1. Vettel 2. Alonso 3. Button/Hamilton 4. ~~"~~/~~"~~ 5. di Resta 6. Rosberg 7. Webber 8. Kobayashi 9. Heidfeld 10. Perez P.S. I hereby declare the right to change this without notice as I can be prone to forgetting someone.
1. Vettel 2. Alonso 3. Hamilton 4. Webber 5. Button 6. Kobayashi 7. Rosberg 8. Schumacher 9. Perez 10. Di Resta
On the button hamilton ranking, sorry but when the team has not interferred to cock things up for the drivers, Hamilton has consistenly out qulfied and out run button. Seriously its not even close!
Well they have both had 1 DNF each and they are level on points so I would say it is pretty close, the only thing is that Button's DNF was 100% not his fault and without it would of been ahead of Hamilton still in the WDC.
Its not all about qualifying...And where has Mclaren cocked it up for Hamilton? Nowhere, he's the one making the mistakes. Button has had the worst from the team.
Just so i dont contridict myself ill put my 26-11 ranking here N/C. Daniel Ricciardo N/C. Pedro De La Rosa 24. Narain Karthikeyan 23. Jarno Trulli 22. Jerome D'Ambrosio 21. Vitantonio Liuzzi 20. Pastor Maldonado 19. Rubens Barrichello 18. Felipe Massa 17. Sebastian Buemi 16. Jamie Alguersuari 15. Michael Schumacher 14. Paul Di Resta 13. Adrian Sutil 12. Timo Glock 11. Nick Heidfeld ----------------------------- 10. Sergio Perez 9. Vitaly Petrov 8. Heikki Kovalainen 7. Nico Rosberg 6. Mark Webber 5. Kamui Kobayashi 4. Lewis Hamilton 3. Jenson Button 2. Fernando Alonso 1. Sebastian Vettel
