James Allen's top 5 drivers of the season

1. Sebastian Vettel

I’ve gone with the World Champion as number one for the last two years and I see no reason to change this year. If anything this is the most emphatic superiority we’ve seen by one driver over the rest for a long time, regardless of how good his car was. Take Vettel out of this year’s standings and it would look like a close championship, with three drivers within 13 points of each other. Vettel is 122 points ahead!

His qualifying was nothing short of electrifying and he had to soak up more pressure in races than people give him credit for.

He adapted earlier and better than others to the new Pirelli tyres and put right some of the things he had got wrong the year before, like overtaking. He has his detractors, who think it’s all the car, but they are fighting a losing battle.

He’s the best 24 year-old F1 has ever seen. Where it goes from here, who knows?

I just wish Red Bull wouldn’t do things like hold Mark Webber back from passing him in the closing stages at Silverstone. It makes it look like there is a finger on the scales in his favour – he doesn’t need it and it undermines his achievements.

2. Jenson Button

It was a very close call between Button and Alonso for second place, because both drivers were outstanding this year in cars which were short of the Red Bull’s pace. Button gets the nod because of the way he took his three wins, especially the crazy 4 hour epic in Montreal where he was running last at one point. His win in Japan was top drawer too. The way he adapted to the Pirelli tyres was impressive as was his clever use of strategy.

Like Alonso his races were usually better than his qualifying performances, but he had some strong qualifying runs especially towards the end of the season.

I also give Button huge credit for having the courage to move to Lewis Hamilton’s team to prove that his 2009 title win wasn’t simply down to the Brawn car. He proved it this year, beating his talented but troubled team mate, scoring 54% of the team’s points in the process.


3. Fernando Alonso

For several years Alonso has been the most complete driver in F1 but that’s under threat now from Vettel and it will be fascinating to see how he responds in 2012 if Ferrari give him a more competitive car.

Alonso made life tricky for himself, by falling behind team mate Massa a few times in qualifying or at the start this year which compromised the first half of several races, but he never failed to squeeze the maximum out of the car, as usual. He scored 68% of his teams’ points this year.

He often got himself into competitive positions late in the race only to be passed on the out-lap from the pits on the harder tyres, like Germany and plenty of other examples. It showed the Ferrari’s weakness and must have been frustrating as hell for Alonso. But the fact that he was even fighting for the win in Germany shows he was doing something remarkable with a poor car.


4. Heikki Kovalainen

It’s very easy to talk only of drivers in top teams when compiling lists like this one, but I’ve always seen F1 as a front race, a middle race and a back race and this year Kovalainen did the same at the tail end of the field as Vettel, Button and Alonso at the front; he dragged every ounce of performance out of his car and you cannot ask for more than that from a driver.

The 2011 Lotus was a step forward but was still a second off the pace the team had hoped for if it was to challenge the midfield. That Kovalainen was able to dominate the other new team cars by a big margin and battle with a Williams and other midfield cars some times says a lot about his ability and character. When you have a career setback, as he did when he was dumped by McLaren, it’s easy to feel sorry for yourself.

But F1 is about adapting and overcoming and Kova has shown his quality this year. The experience will have made him a much stronger competitor.


5. Jaime Algeursuari

This final spot could have gone to Nico Rosberg or Adrian Sutil, both of whom had some great days in 2011. Or maybe even Paul di Resta, who had several good weekends in a strong Force India car.

But I’ve picked out Alguersuari because you always have to improve as a Grand Prix driver and he showed tremendous growth this year, which you can’t say about Sutil or Rosberg. After a shaky start he just got better and better to the point where you had an eye on him in every race in the second half of the season, as he took the improved Toro Rosso and made some bold strategies work for him. The key was his strong pace on worn soft tyres, which he pushed for long middle stints. Because we really went into the Race Strategies in depth with the UBS Strategy Reports this year, we could see close up what he was doing.

From Canada onwards he was in the points 7 times in 13 races, with outstanding drives in Italy and Korea and strong runs in Canada, Valencia and India. He scored 63% of his team’s total points which is a strong sign.

I don’t think he’s the next Vettel, but he’s a good racer and still only 21 years old. He’s started 46 Grands Prix now, so he’s got some experience. I’d expect him to really kick on in 2012 with the possible incentive of a 2013 Red Bull seat if he keeps growing. Let’s hope he does.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/12/my-top-five-drivers-of-2011/


I pretty much agree with them, apart from Algeursuari who I felt really just benefited a lot from rubbish qualifying so he had more fresh tyres. Don't know who I would of put in 5th place, maybe Perez or Rosberg.

 

DJ God is a weird choice for #5,

obviously Massa, Webber and hamilton were not up to par of a top 5 spot.

Koba and petrov were good to start but went of the boil. Perez and Di resta were pretty constant.

Buemi, Rubens, Maldo, Glock, Narain, Tonio, Custard, Sutil, Trulli were poor.

Senna and Ricciardo came late in and had to learn the car.

well ok I see Algae seems the best of a poor midfield but its a bit iffy

 

I'd put Sutil in for Alguersuari, with the other 4 in the same spots!

 

I'd probably agree with that, like the others here #5 is a bit iffy but I don't think I could put up a better argument for someone else.

 

I agree with Alonso and Kova in his choices.

 

actually what about Rosberg?

 

Why?
Because he consistently beat a 42 year old driver in qualifying and only pushed ahead of him by around 10 points in the WDC at the end of 19 race season?
When in 2010 it was around 70 points, in fact.. he has done worse.

 

He would of finished even further in front of Schumacher if the Mercedes was not in such a large performance gap, they were much slower than Ferrari but were much faster than the midfield. So the natural high was 7th place and the natural low was 8th place, while usually it is larger eg. For Mclaren the high was 1st but the low was 6th, or Sauber 9th/17th. The same thing is relevent to Massa.

 

So you would put him in the top 5 drivers from being in the top 50% of what the car could extract, where as Michael was only 1 place behind in the bottom 50% of what the car could optimally extract.
Basically you are praising him for being worse than last year in terms of inter-team battles as well as praising him for doing nothing special at all.

 

No I am saying that because the Mercedes was so isolated in terms of performance competition the difference between Rosberg and Schumacher has been artificially minimised. The Mercedes was the 4th fastest car and so normally 7th places is the highest it could on average really get which is what Rosberg usually did, so for the majority of the time Rosberg got the most out of the car and placed it as high as it could be. Because the Mercedes was miles behind the Ferrari and miles infront of the midfiled the lowest on average it should be is 8th which is about where Schumacher usually came. If the Mercedes was more competitive with either the front of the grid or the midfield then the difference would increase because hypothetically the highest it could get then could be 4th and lowest it should get is 9th, then the difference between Rosberg and Schumacher would of been greater, like last year where it was capable of getting 5th/6th place and thus because Rosberg was getting the most out of the car unlike Schumacher he finished with much more points.

 

The fact is Rosberg did well but only marginally, and Michael backed the Mercedes pace up to bring them home with a solid WDC ranking.
Rosberg did worse than last year - Michael did better (inter-team wise).
Michael brought the best result home for the Mercs in Montreal off his own back - in extreme weather, as well as this Monza could have been an opportunity of a podium finish if Hamilton did not cry to the stewards and get escorted past unlike an F1 driver.
Rosberg did well for Mercedes agree, but he did not improve on his points difference compared to 2010, to be frank with you Michael has caught up and not many people have noticed this behind the exaggerated drama of the top 3 teams and 5 of their drivers.

 

The reason why Rosberg has not got as many points as last year and is closer to Schumacher is because the 2011 car was not as good as the 2010 car. The 2010 car could sometimes compete with either the Ferrari or Mclaren while the 2011 car has not been able to. So the 2011 car has only been able to score a narrow band of points (7th to 8th on average), while the 2010 car could score a larger band of points (6th to 8th on average). So in 2010 Rosberg was on average getting 6th place points (the highest the car could get on average) while Schumacher was getting on average 8th place points (the lowerst the car should get on average). In 2011 Rosberg has again been getting on average the most points the Mercedes has been able to get (7th) while Schumacher has again been getting on average the lowest amount of points the car should get (7th), it is just because the Mercedes has not been as competitive and not been able to compete for as many points as last year that Rosberg is not further in front of Schumacher like he was last year. If the 2011 car was more competitive and could compete for 6th place then I am sure that Rosberg would be getting on average 6th place points while Schumacher would still be getting 8th place points and thus the gap between them would be bigger.

 

I think the gap with Nico and Schumacher was manipulated because of the tyre problems they had all year. It wasn't a fair crack with each other as when one of them were going to get a decent result, tyres sent them backwards and the points they should of got never came. And the fact the car just wasn't good enough.

For me it's still 1-0 to Nico and 2012 should be a better showing as Mercedes looked to have got over the tyre problems towards the end.

 

Funny how this was said about Hamilton vs. Button before the 2011 season, then look what happened.

I agree with the point that a better car may motivate them more. Because this year, nothing was up for grabs.

 

When you going to update your sig

 

Dont know, got the option to stop looking at sigs a while back so it's crossed my mind many times, but quickly forgotten to delete it.

Edit: Deleted, was pointless being up there anyway.

 

Maybe Di Resta should have got a shout too? Good solid rookie season.

Still slightly suprised not to see Hamilton in there at no.5, especially when everyone bleats on about Allen's apparent favouritism towards him. Did have 3 wins after all so puts him 2nd equal with Button on wins for the season.

 

Vettel, Alonso, Button, Kovalainen, Sutil for me.

Alguersuari seems a strange pick but his justification of it is valid.

 

I really can't understand Alguersuari's position. He was destroyed by Buemi in qualifying and when both TR drivers finished, it was 6-6 (and that's taking into account the fact that his poor qualifying rewarded him in many races). Jaime wouldn't even be in my top 10.

 

James Allen's top three are exactly my choice, with Button just edging Alonso. Thereafter, it all becomes rather more murky.

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However, I have picked up on an interesting point about the Mercedes drivers, argued by Mifune; three posts of which I quote below:

I think you have argued your point very well here, Mifune. It is therefore very difficult to present a logical disagreement.