Now the 2011 season has drawn to a close, it’s time to
reveal my top ten drivers of the season, taking into account their past
performances and the machinery at their disposal.
10. Paul Di Resta Force
India F1 Team, 13th, 27 points
It was a tight contest between Di Resta, Sergio Perez and
Jaime Alguersauri for the final spot on this list, but the young Scotsman just
about gets the nod on the basis of his better consistency. Di Resta kicked off
his season by joining the exclusive club of drivers to score points on their
debut (albeit only after the two Sauber drivers were excluded from the
results), and immediately posed a threat to his more experienced teammate
Adrian Sutil. There was inevitably the occasional rookie error (hitting the
back of Nick Heidfeld at Canada springs to mind), but in general the mistakes
were less frequent than the other first-year drivers on the grid. Once the
revised version of the Force India came on stream mid-season, Di Resta was a
regular visitor to the points-paying positions, his drives at Hungary and
Singapore in particular turning the heads of the F1 paddock. If he is indeed
paired with Nico Hulkenberg in 2012 as we expect, it will be fascinating to
observe how Di Resta rises to the challenge. There may well only be room for
one of them as a top-flight driver in years to come.
9. Heikki Kovalainen Team
Lotus, Unclassified
Arguably, the biggest injustice in F1 at the moment is the
fact that a driver as talented as Kovalainen is saddled with as uncompetitive a
car as the Lotus. It’s all too easy to forget that the mild-mannered Finn was
every match for Nico Rosberg in GP2; that he out-scored Giancarlo Fisichella in
his debut season at Renault; that he stood atop the podium at the Hungarian
Grand Prix just three years ago. He may have been no match for Lewis Hamilton
during his tenure as his McLaren teammate, but then how many drivers on the
grid would have been? Over the course of the last two seasons, his points total
has been equivalent to the square root of zero, yet at just about every race this
year, he has wrung as much speed out of the Lotus as possible, out-qualifying
teammate Jarno Trulli on all but two occasions. It’s not hard to see why Lotus
team principal Tony Fernandes is so keen to hang on to him – let’s just hope
that Kovalainen’s herculean efforts with the team next year don’t go unrewarded
as they have been up to now.
8. Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP Petronas F1
Team, 8th, 76 points
When it comes to the comeback of the most successful man in
the history of the sport, it has to be said that things are looking decidedly
rosier than they were twelve months ago. Where Schumacher barely scored half of
teammate Rosberg’s points in 2010, he was just thirteen points in arrears this
year. Admittedly, the Mercedes has been further from the front-running pace
than last season, and there were perhaps one or more two more collisions than
the German may have liked, but they don’t detract from what has to be regarded
as a much-improved year for Schumacher. The occasions on which he outperformed
Rosberg were far more regular with impressive fifth places at Spa, Monza and
Suzuka as well as coming heartbreakingly close to the podium at Canada. These
results as well as some electrifying starts serve to remind us that Schumacher
still has the wherewithal to succeed if the team can provide the car. A
ninety-second win cannot be ruled out if Mercedes does just that next year.
7. Adrian Sutil Force India
F1 Team, 9th, 42 points
With Di Resta impressing so much in the other during his
maiden season, the performances of the man from of the other side of the Force
India garage are easily overlooked. However, the record books will indicate
that it was Sutil, who has just come off the back of his fifth F1 season, that
scored the lion’s share of the points for the Silverstone-based team. With the
notable exceptions of Hungary and Singapore, Sutil by and large held the upper
hand when it came to race pace, his sixth places at the Nurburgring and the Interlagos
finale being particular stand-out performances. In spite of that, he looks set
to leave the team with which he has driven since the start of his career, with
the possibility of occupying vacancies at either Williams, where he would
partner Pastor Maldonado, or Renault, where he would have the far sterner
challenge of lining up alongside returning former champion Kimi Raikkonen. At
twenty-eight years of age, this next career move has the potential to make or
break Sutil’s up-to-now promising career.
6. Mark Webber Red Bull Racing,
3rd, 258 points, 1 win
In a sport where equipment is so paramount to success, it’s
a given that any F1 driver will be compared to their teammate. After all, ten
podium finishes in a season is pretty good by most people’s standards, but when
compared to the imperious form of Sebastian Vettel at the wheel of the sister
car, Webber’s achievements of one win and three pole positions are rendered
rather negligible. Perhaps the most damning indictment of the Australian’s
season was the way he was often racing the McLarens and Ferraris whilst Vettel
was in a league of his own out front; clearly, Mark was not getting the best
out the vehicle at his disposal. The comparisons with Nigel Mansell’s Williams
teammate during his dominant 1992 season, Riccardo Patrese, are irresistible –
Webber’s failure to get to grips with the new Pirelli tyres this season is very
much reminiscent of Patrese’s struggles to accustom himself with active
suspension, in stark contrast in both cases to their respective teammates. Though
his end-of-season triumph in Interlagos may have only come courtesy of gearbox
gremlins for Vettel, it will have hopefully given Webber the lift he needs to
get back on terms with his teammate in 2012.
5. Nico Rosberg Mercedes
GP Petronas F1 Team, 7th, 89 points
Since he departed Williams for the then-new Mercedes team at
the start of last season, we have become precious little the wiser as to the
extent of Rosberg’s potential. The fact that Mercedes has slipped away from the
pace has hardly helped matters in this respect, with Rosberg having been unable
to emulate the three podium finishes he bagged last year. Schumacher’s upturn
in form has complicated the picture still further, but two conclusions can nonetheless
be drawn. The first is that Rosberg has been the better qualifier of the two,
evidenced by his out-qualification of Schumacher sixteen times out of a
possible nineteen. The second is that he’s generally been the more consistent
of the Silver Arrows drivers with a run of points finishes stretching all the
way from Valencia to the end of the season, only interrupted by being taken out
by the first-corner chaos at Monza. Rosberg is putting great faith in the
Mercedes team by extending his contract for another two years; let’s hope the
Brackley-based team is able to repay it with a race-winning car next year with
which Rosberg can finally break his duck.
4. Lewis Hamilton Vodafone McLaren
Mercedes, 5th, 227 points, 3 wins
As ever, it’s been a year of ups and downs for Hamilton in
2011. There have been times when he was impeccable, when there was simply no
equal for his raw speed and amazing ability to overtake. On the other hand,
there have equally been too many times when his aggression and petulance have
gotten the better of him, usually at his own or one of his fellow competitor’s
expense. The fellow competitor on no fewer than five occasions happened to be a
certain Mr. Felipe Massa, but this so-called ‘feud’ was in reality somewhat
overblown by the British press. It’s still fair to say however that his
mistakes at Canada, Hungary, Belgium, Singapore and India all cost him a
considerable amount of points, whilst his wins at China, the Nurburgring and
Abu Dhabi merely made the spectating experience all the more frustrating as he
showed what kind of performances he is truly capable of. It has been this
maddening inconsistency that has allowed his teammate Jenson Button to gain a
definite edge over him this year, a trend he will have to reverse if he is to
add to his solitary world title he won three years ago.
3. Fernando Alonso Scuderia Ferrari
Marlboro, 4th, 257 points, 1 win
Though this year’s Ferrari car was from the outset never going
to be a likely title winner, Alonso debatably drove better during 2011 than at
any other point in his F1 career. The Spaniard demonstrated, in terms of sheer
points scored, the biggest margin of superiority over his teammate of all the
drivers on the grid, Massa becoming the first full-time Ferrari driver to fail
to reach the podium all year since Ivan Capelli’s disastrous 1992 season. By
contrast, Alonso managed to finish in the top three ten times, his sole win at
Silverstone standing out as a particularly commanding drive which neatly
commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Ferrari’s first ever F1 win. His
starts at Catalunya and Monza were also dazzling, incidentally both executed to
the delight of his adoring home fans and the ever-passionate tifosi respectively. It was of course
disappointing to see Alonso not involved in the title fight after coming so
close to glory last year, but the combination of a re-arranging of the
technical department and an early switch of focus to next year’s car should yield
palpable results when it comes to Maranello’s 2012 challenger. One thing is for
certain – Alonso is more than capable of delivering a third world title.
2. Jenson Button Vodafone McLaren
Mercedes, 2nd, 270 points, 3 wins
If Button surprised the majority of onlookers last year by
coming as close to teammate Hamilton as he did, then he must have caused even
more astonishment this season by outscoring him by a margin of forty-three
points. This gap may have materialised largely as a result of Hamilton’s own
blunders, but whichever way you look at things, 2011 was a blistering season
for Button. His three wins at Canada, Hungary and Japan were all testament to
his outstanding ability to deal with adverse weather conditions and master the
nuances of the new Pirelli tyres. Furthermore, he visited the podium twice as
often as Hamilton, twelve times to six, and in the final nine races, the tally
was eight to two in favour of the Frome
Flyer. His qualifying record may have been less impressive than Hamilton’s,
but the harsh reality is that points are awarded on Sundays, not Saturdays. On
the strength of this season, one would have to say that, if the McLaren is up
to the challenge of competing for the title in 2012, Button is the more
likely of the McLaren duo to capture a second title.
1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing, World
Champion, 392 points, 11 wins
Accuse me of being unadventurous if you wish, but when it
comes down to it, who else is there that can really stake a valid claim to the
top spot? The numbers speak for themselves – eleven wins, fifteen pole
positions, seventeen podiums, eighteen front row starts, 392 of a possible 475
points, 739 laps led of a possible 1139. Did he have the best car? Yes. Did he
make the best use of the best car? Absolutely – just look at Webber’s
performance in the other Adrian Newey-designed car on the grid. In fact, if you
omitted Vettel from all this season’s race results, Webber would have lost the
title to Button by thirteen points. From this perspective, Webber’s performance
could be reasonably interpreted as the ‘true’ performance level of the Red Bull
RB7, with Vettel’s genius transforming it from a regular front-running
contender to the dominant package of the 2011 season. In 2001, Schumacher
secured his second title for Ferrari in far more dominant style than the first
before going on to lock away three more titles. Could Vettel be about to do
likewise ten years on?
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