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rjbetty
25th November 2014, 05:59
As is maybe now a tradition I will post my driver rankings. Please feel free to add your own, in as much or as little detail as you want.

Bear in mind, I'm busy, haven't even watched the races, but followed online many of them. I haven't got as much time to consider, so please try not to take it too personally if your favourite drivers aren't where you'd like. Unfortunately, someone has to fill the bottom spaces.

I have also included a small rating, up to 10.0 to help give an idea of how I compare them to other drivers. This is by no means definitive, as this is meant to just be a bit of fun.

I have however tried to be as impartial as I can, in the interests of fairness. It is very hard to do.

This season is harder than any others as the major new regs look to have made experience of less use, so inexperienced drivers have been able to compare better than normal.


Ok then...

24.Marcus Ericsson - 3.6
Nice to see a Swedish driver around, the first I´ve witnessed. Wasn´t amazing I´m afraid, like Max Chilton but more crashy. Race pace was alright though and got Caterham's best result this year.

23.Max Chilton - 4.5
A nice improvement over his debut season in every way except the spotless finishing record being spoiled.

22.Esteban Gutierrez - 4.8
Very even with Sutil in qualifying, though this may be to a possible 0.4sec advantage due to being lighter! Even so, improved over last year but maybe not enough. In any case, the car was too poor to tell.

21.Will Stevens - 5.0
Great job in the Abu Dhabi circumstances!

20.Adrian Sutil - 5.4
Sad to say this, cos I do like Sutil, but I think he's the epitome of a standard journeyman PR bland driver. Should have capitalised more on opportunities given his experience since that was what he was signed for. His attitude was the most disappointing though, so to that end, time to be shown the door.

19.Andre Lotterer - 5.8
A German driver from sportscars shining on his debut at Spa, in a striking green car, then retiring almost immediately after the start? Sounds familiar! Great job though.

18.Pastor Maldonado - 5.8
Yup, pretty poor, but surely nowhere near as awful as made out to be. Little went right and he still had fairly good pace when the car allowed. Took his situation with a decent attitude which provides some hope.

17.Kimi Raikkonen - 5.9
Oh dear. Well clearly he's better than this, but I felt he was a bit overrated in his comeback, as I think his speed was actually some way pff the best, though had a fast car. That is understandable after 2yrs in rallying but his consistency and racecraft was mega. This year was poor, but I really do think Alonso was always just better all along. Hopefully he can improve and have a decent send off.

16.Kamui Kobayashi - 6.4
How good is Kamui Kobayashi? Very hard to assess, but he seemed consistent and often outqualified the not terrible Ericsson by big margins so he must have done pretty well. I still feel many others are similar or slightly better, hence being in my very tight midfield again. Beats Raikkonen as he came back from a year out, which is never a good thing.

15.Kevin Magnussen - 6.5
I won´t trust all the other fans hype again - everyone promised another Hamilton, to the point I felt what do I know? They must all be right. I was going to sign Ricciardo for FGP, but because of the hype, chose Magnussen instead! Qualified well, though this strange season saw experience be much less of an advantage for other drivers. People may be expecting too much, since Hamilton redefined what a rookie can do, having had lots of testing that K-Mag never had the chance to emulate.

14.Daniil Kvyat - 6.8
For a 19yr old rookie, what a season! Hard to tell how well he coped after the radio ban though. How do we think he compared to Alonso in 2001?

13.Jules Bianchi - 6.9
A great job to score an 8th place on the road for Marussia, who I felt were wrongly done by being penalised 5sec twice brcause the badly written rule left them no possible way to escape a penalty. Most unfair.

12.Felipe Massa - 7.0
Pretty good, and early on edged Bottas for pace. However his points haul was poor for quite some time, almost costing Williams 3rd in the championship. This did improve but cost him in my standings. Nice podiums though!

11.Sergio Perez - 7.2
An up and down season, scoring a podium was fantastic. Very even with Hulkenberg in races, and generally quite close for pace. Didn´t outqualify him much though and scored much less points, not all his fault though. Inconsistency cost his team the chance to beat McLaren in the points.

10.Jean-Eric Vergne - 7.3
Given JEV was always pretty well matched with Ricciardo, Dan's success reflects well on Vergne too. Often qualified in the top 10, which given a Toro Rosso with a completely rubbish Renault was no mean feat. Grabbed the higest number of points by a Toro Rosso driver under the post-2009 system since Alguersuari, despite losing a stack more with misfortune. Outqualified too often by Kvyat though.

9.Jenson Button - 7.9
Did his best in the final races, scoring good points. However maybe it was too late since he seemed a little demotivated mid-season and had to be admonished by Ron Dennis. This drops him just behind some other drivers and appears to have cost him. Harsh, but that's F1... :(

8.Romain Grosjean - 8.0
Probably the unsung driver of the season for me. Consistently drove to a high standard and didn´t put many feet wrong in a terrible car, in stark contrast to Maldonado. In a top car, we´d have been fairly raving about him in the manner of say Bottas.

7.Nico Hulkenberg - 8.1
One of the top 8 drivers in F1, started brilliantly making the best use of his car to grab as many points as he could. Faded badly thereafter and outshone by Perez at times. This dropped him just behind Bottas. May have been massively handicapped by weight however.

6.Valtteri Bottas - 8.2
If the Williams had been as bad as last year and Valtteri had driven just the same, few would have noticed. Shame how fickle many fans are. I think he's been incredible given his inexperience. Apparently Frank Williams basically said he has been touched/gifted by God. He also said Bottas is as good as anyone who's sat in his cars (and that includes Senna, Prost and Mansell above others). I rate him extremely highly and expect he can be an all time great with several championships if circumstances allow. Let's see! (btw this is how I felt last year too).

5.Sebastian Vettel - 8.2
Hmmm I don't know if he should be this high, since he didn't improve his season. He seemed to fall out with his team, but don't remember Alonso doing so badly in 2007. Given he is supposed to be the best driver and wasn't changing teams, this was quite poor really. A better driver would have overcome things a little better was my conviction, especially since
Ricciardo was the new guy settling in. However, a bad year for Seb is still a good year for most others, and he impressed me by still always getting the best result he could rather than self destructing, and this was probably key in getting 2nd for Red Bull. Really does need to prove himself (amazingly).

4.Nico Rosberg - 8.9
Much stronger than most of us thought, though I always rated him very highly. I think he surpassed even my expectations. Pole trophy, regardless of his team-mate's circumstances was a feat. Relentless bagging of the best result possible kept him in the fight, though he did have the luxury of being "allowed" to finish 2nd, even a lot, in public perception terms. Don't wanna talk about Monaco and Spa much, except to be fair, Nico was always criticised for being 'too nice and soft' etc. Guess he was just trying to be more ruthless, but maybe going too far at times? Just shows you can't really win sometimes with the public...

TOP 3 TO FOLLOW...

jens
29th November 2014, 00:42
Great review, Rj. The exact order of drivers is always questionable, but it can't be far off any sensible suggestions. I am personally tempted to put Button higher, but acknowledge there is some pretty close competition between drivers from 4th to 9th and on top of that they were all driving different cars, so try to compare that!

Button - very consistent and good season, got lots of points and decent 4th and 5th place finishes, beat his rookie team-mate.
Grosjean - took some points for Lotus and beat Maldonado most of the time - basically the best he could do in that rubbish car.
Hülkenberg - another consistent point-machine and beat Pérez.
Bottas - also very consistent, in a very good car got lots of podiums and beat Massa.
Vettel - blew hot-and-cold, in the end got beaten by Ricciardo and maybe lost motivation towards the end.
Rosberg - great qualifying, but got beaten by Hamilton in most races.

Based on this comparison doesn't look good for Vettel, but he and Rosberg also had the best team-mates, from who they got the beating. The other blokes had a slightly lower-class team-mate, who they could manage to beat.

dj_bytedisaster
29th November 2014, 05:52
5.Sebastian Vettel - 8.2
Hmmm I don't know if he should be this high, since he didn't improve his season. He seemed to fall out with his team, but don't remember Alonso doing so badly in 2007. Given he is supposed to be the best driver and wasn't changing teams, this was quite poor really. A better driver would have overcome things a little better was my conviction, especially since
Ricciardo was the new guy settling in. However, a bad year for Seb is still a good year for most others, and he impressed me by still always getting the best result he could rather than self destructing, and this was probably key in getting 2nd for Red Bull. Really does need to prove himself (amazingly).


You forget some things:

First of all, the claim that he didn't improve is not accurate He was much stronger in the second half of season:

Belgium: was nowhere, chassis was changed afterwards
Italy: Was faster than RIC, but team gave him an overly ambitious strategy that failed and apologized afterwards
Singapore: Finished in front of RIC
Japan: Finsihed in front of RIC
Sotchi: Finished seconds behind RIC. RIC finished where he started, Vettel made up 3 places (RB generally was nowhere)
Austin: Had to start from pits and was called into the pits after point of no return, no real comparison possible. Collected Fastest lap.
Brazil: No comparison possible. RIC had DNF
Abu Double: No comparison possible as for no apparent reason team took the relatively fresh 6th engine from Austin out and fitted the car with a turned-down pre-Barcelona junk-heap.

It's pretty obvious that the team fucked with him badlysince he announced his departure, but saying he didn't improve is wrong. He was definitely stronger in the second half and RIC didn't look half as dominant as he looked early season.

jens
29th November 2014, 10:49
Actually I don't get the impression Vettel was stronger in the second half compared to first half. Just looking back - Vettel was outracing Ricciardo in Malaysia, also in Monaco before hit by car issues. In Canada they were neck and neck before Vettel lost out with strategy games.

The difference is that early in the year Vettel had so many car problems his performance was hard to read, while in the end he had less problems. What is clear is that Vettel didn't perform well in Bahrain, China (early year), Hungary, Belgium (mid-year), UAE (late year) - compared to team-mate anyway.

rjbetty
7th December 2014, 17:34
I can't decide who to put no. 1...

3.Daniel Ricciardo
Not much more can be said. Gets 3rd cos I'm not yet sure he's actually better than Alonso and Hamilton yet. His consistency rather than his performance surprised me. He always had the potential to be amazing cos of qualifying 6th at Bahrain in 2012.

Tazio
7th December 2014, 17:56
I can't decide who to put no. 1...

3.Daniel Ricciardo
Not much more can be said. Gets 3rd cos I'm not yet sure he's actually better than Alonso and Hamilton yet. His consistency rather than his performance surprised me. He always had the potential to be amazing cos of qualifying 6th at Bahrain in 2012.
Rj, I don't mean to be a an Ish Kabibble, but it is time to pay the piper. Are you prepared to honor the terms of the sig bet that you lost to me? :smokin:

rjbetty
7th December 2014, 18:08
Um ok.

Say... what were the terms?!

Tazio
7th December 2014, 19:41
Come on mate we have a sig bet!! Baggie lost one to me and he got to use a very benign sig, because I was feeling benevolent, and he used it all year. I will give youy an opotion. I can give you a benign semi suggestive sig that acknowledges that I whupped you, and you can fly it for a period of not less than the midpoint of the 2015 a F1 season, or I can spank you with a good one that you would only have to fly for like preseason testing, and the first 2 races. Or as rather unique solution, you could be my agent for securing me at leas an "honorary" membership to the Anglo - Mafia if Fred gets that ride with McLaren.... That is very important to me "brotha-from anotha' motha'" :kiss: :dork: :angel:

heliocastroneves#3
7th December 2014, 21:03
In fact, at the end of the season, Maldonado and Grosjean were pretty close to each other and a couple of times Pastor just beat Romain, which is a good thing since Romain is already driving for Lotus a couple of years. Romain is overrated and Pastor underrated.

Tazio
7th December 2014, 21:34
Come on mate we have a sig bet!! Baggie lost one to me and he got to use a very benign sig, because I was feeling benevolent, and he used it all year. I will give youy an opotion. I can give you a benign semi suggestive sig that acknowledges that I whupped you, and you can fly it for a period of not less than the midpoint of the 2015 a F1 season, or I can spank you with a good one that you would only have to fly for like preseason testing, and the first 2 races. Or as rather unique solution, you could be my agent for securing me at leas an "honorary" membership to the Anglo - Mafia if Fred gets that ride with McLaren.... That is very important to me "brotha-from anotha' motha'" :kiss: :dork: :angel:

Tazio
7th December 2014, 21:38
Dp on purpose my brothas!Come on mate we have a sig bet!! Baggie lost one to me and he got to use a very benign sig, because I was feeling benevolent, and he used it all year. I will give youy an opotion. I can give you a benign semi suggestive sig that acknowledges that I whupped you, and you can fly it for a period of not less than the midpoint of the 2015 a F1 season, or I can spank you with a good one that you would only have to fly for like preseason testing, and the first 2 races. Or as rather unique solution, you could be my agent for securing me at leas an "honorary" membership to the Anglo - Mafia if Fred gets that ride with McLaren.... That is very important to me "brotha-from anotha' motha'" :kiss: :dork: :angel:

kfzmeister
8th December 2014, 06:17
TOP 2 TO FOLLOW...

Can't wait......

rjbetty
8th December 2014, 14:14
While I´m deciding, I´ll do the teams

11.Caterham
disappointed In Tony Fernandes tbh. He gave the team an ultimatum at the start of 2014 saying he'd given them the best of everything, when he clearly hadn't. It was great seeing Kobayashi line up 14th (qualified 15th) in Melbourne and he had a great moment overtaking Vettel in China, but was unfortunately largely invisible. Clearly the worst car, and one of the less run well teams imo. At least they made improvements after Spa, but I suspect Kamui was given inferior equipment thereafter maybe. Poor job by Fernandes who I largely blame for the employees situation. He clearly lost interest during 2012...

10.Marussia
However, Marussia were an inspiration to me in the way they took so little and made it go so relatively far. It was such a breath of fresh air to see their humble and sensible approach of maximising the cheapest areas (mechanical) and not wasting everything on moving to a Spanish base a la HRT. I am extremely disappointed in Bernie wanting them gone, and a bit disappointed in anyone who says they wont be missed and didn't add anything. That's not the case for this fan! On the surface things looked the same, but closer inspection reveals they have always consolidated and moved forwards though the goalposts relentlessly move too. I will also miss the colour scheme.

9.Sauber
Oh dear, I didn't expect much from this lot, but boy it was bad At least they seemed to improve ahead of Lotus later on. Drivers let them down badly as it was a points scoring car.

8.Lotus
Indeed a Benetton 2001 season. The bad start was to be expected but it was most disappointing they didn't improve as I thought. I think the FRIC ban hurt them very badly. What can be expected chassis side in 2015? How much money do they have now. So many people have left. Even the Merc engine should only get them to where Force India were this year, at best...

7.Toro Rosso
Given they were also lumped with the same Renault engine that ruined Red Bull's season, qualifying in the top 10 so often was a massive achievement. That chassis must have been quite something. It looks like James Key is having his effect again as he proves the go-to man for midfield teams. Maybe they can move forward on the chassis side again.

6.Force India
Did very well to beat McLaren early on. This time however, development dried up due to money woes, which I don't think has happened in recent years. It's the first time due to money, which doesn't look good for 2015 as I fear things might finally be cathing up with them. However, they always confound my expectations by producing a good solid car year in year out, so they will probably produce a decent one to start with. I see them fading overall though.

5.McLaren
How did they manage to be so bad again? Well they had the best engine, but Ron Dennis said they lost out badly by not having the latest software to run it. Apparently this could cost a lot of performance, possibly even 0.7sec! Not sure how true any of that is, but it would explain a lot. Peter Prodromou has arrived and is considered very talented having been Adrian Newey's right hand man. He made a front wing later in the season that looked to boost McLaren's performance. Maybe he arrives too late for 2015 but it must help having him. (I am trying to believe the chassis can't have been that awful - almost Lotus bad).

4.Ferrari
Indeed my fears were realised this would be an awful season. The team treated Alonso shamefully imo considering he carried them all these years including this, and saved them huge amounts of embarrassment. Had he not been in that car, Ferrari would have done well to avoid being 6th in the championship... They also acted disgracefully imo in blaming everyone and everything. Sacking the engine chief seemed foolish, since... Who is in charge now? Is the engine going to get better by sacking him. Reeks of the kneejerk sacking of Aldo Costa (now at Mercedes - go figure!) after 2010, after which Ferrari never produced a remotely competitive car again...

3.Williams
Who'd have thought they would have had almost the 2nd best car out there. I don't mind that they were conservative in races and didn't win since I believe you must walk before you can run. Very good approach in just concentrating on bagging 3rd. Smedley and Symonds have clearly had a great effect. We just need Massa to drive like he did in the 2nd half of 2014, not getting caught in costly incidents all the time and they're set. How much can they improve in 2015 though?

2.Red Bull
Considering the pre-season catastrophe, maybe they should be 1st, as their chassis seemed the best out there again. Ricciardo would probably have won the title had the engine been up to the job. However, the possibility of "cheating" having caused the good chassis performance is a bit of a blight. Massive shame on Horner also for sure enough, wanting to change the engine "for the good of the sport".

1.Mercedes
Surprise! Still looked like maybe doing the impossible and throwing the title away at one point! All they need to do is make sure both drivers get completely equal treatment in every way then it's sweet.

btw They did not help Hamilton. All that happened imo was they realised after Spa that helping Rosberg to the title as they had been doing would not be so great publicity after all, so went towards neutral. I don't believe they care about Hamilton, just themselves. They were helping Rosberg for most of the season by giving him "Lewis' guide to driving quick" to study after Malaysia. Not to mention all the suspiciously slow pitstops for Lewis, which I think were solved after Spa funnily enough!! Awaiting your response dj!

Tazio
9th December 2014, 06:19
2014 F1 season review

December 3, 2014 at 3:38 pm by Keith Collantine (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/members/keithcollantine/)
88 comments (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/12/03/winners-team-mate-battles-2014/#comments)

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/start-sepa-2014-9-470x313.jpg (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/03/30/2014-malaysian-grand-prix-pictures/gp-malesia-f12014-37/)Drivers have little room to hide when being compared with their team mate – their only rival who has the same car.
While some drivers easily had the beating of their team mates in 2014, at other teams the two were much more evenly matched.
As a result some teams faced difficult decision over which of their drivers to drop for the squad, keep for next year or – in the case of Red Bull and Toro Rosso – promote to the top team. In the latter case Jean-Eric Vergne (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/jean-eric-vergne/) not only missed out on his chance to move up but lost his seat as well – meanwhile his former team mate will be driving an RB11 next year.
McLaren, however, are yet to confirm whether Jenson Button (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/jenson-button/) or Kevin Magnussen will be retained for 2015 (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2015-f1-season/).
Four key pieces of data have been used below to compare how each pair of team mates performed during 2014: who qualified ahead (ignoring penalties and sessions where one driver did not set a time), who finished the race ahead (ignoring non-classifications), how many racing laps each spent ahead of the other, and who scored the most championship points.
Mercedes: Lewis Hamilton vs Nico Rosberg

Lewis HamiltonNico Rosberg0%25%50%75%100%Qualified aheadFinished aheadLaps spent aheadTeam points


Lewis Hamilton

Nico Rosberg



Qualified ahead

38.89

61.11



Finished ahead

71.43

28.57



Laps spent ahead

49.18

50.82



Team points

54.78

45.22






45.22



http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/hami-m1-208x117.jpg (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/08/24/2014-belgian-grand-prix-pictures/hami-m-5/)Mercedes were so far ahead of their rivals, and their racers were so evenly matched, the battle for the drivers’ championship seldom involved any other competitors. And while the team were concerned unreliability might play a deciding role, that turned out not to be the case (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/11/25/hamilton-vs-rosberg-unreliability-decide-title/).
Nico Rosberg (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/nico-rosberg/) became the first of Lewis Hamilton’s team mates to out-qualify him over the course of a season since Fernando Alonso in 2007 – and that was back when drivers qualified with their starting fuel loads. However Hamilton was usually he quicker of the two on race day, and often made that advantage count: hence his eleven wins to Rosberg’s five.




Williams: Felipe Massa vs Valtteri Bottas


Felipe MassaValtteri Bottas0%25%50%75%100%Qualified aheadFinished aheadLaps spent aheadTeam points


Felipe Massa

Valtteri Bottas



Qualified ahead

31.58

68.42



Finished ahead

53.33

46.67



Laps spent ahead

52.42

47.58



Team points

41.88

58.12






41.88



In his second season of F1 Valtteri Bottas (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/valtteri-bottas/) showed up very well once again. However towards the end of the season Felipe Massa looked to be back to his best and finished ahead of his team mate in the last three races.


One driver ahead

Red Bull: Sebastian Vettel vs Daniel Ricciardo


Sebastian VettelDaniel Ricciardo0%25%50%75%100%Qualified aheadFinished aheadLaps spent aheadTeam points


Sebastian Vettel

Daniel Ricciardo



Qualified ahead

36.84

63.16



Finished ahead

21.43

78.57



Laps spent ahead

48.12

51.88



Team points

41.23

58.77






Daniel Ricciardo



http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/vett3-208x117.jpg (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/10/12/2014-russian-grand-prix-pictures/f1-grand-prix-of-russia-13/)Daniel Ricciardo’s (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/daniel-ricciardo/) successful first season at Red Bull and the defeats he inflicted on four-times champion Sebastian Vettel made him one of the most talked-about drivers in 2014, and deservedly so.
The contest between the two wasn’t quite as one-sided as it might have seemed – Vettel defeated Mark Webber (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/mark-webber/) at the same team much more emphatically last year (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/12/11/who-won-the-team-mate-battles-in-2013/). But nonetheless Ricciardo more than justified his promotion to the four-times champions – a move which some questioned when it was announced last year




Ferrari: Fernando Alonso vs Kimi Raikkonen


Fernando AlonsoKimi Raikkonen0%25%50%75%100%Qualified aheadFinished aheadLaps spent aheadTeam points


Fernando Alonso

Kimi Raikkonen



Qualified ahead

84.21

15.79



Finished ahead

93.75

6.25



Laps spent ahead

84.64

15.36



Team points

74.54

25.46






6.25



http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/1970/01/ferr-alon-montr-2014-4-208x117.jpg (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/06/09/2014-canadian-grand-prix-pictures/gp-canada-f12014-17/)The most one-sided team mate battle in 2014 occurred at the only team with two world champions in its line-up. Fernando Alonso (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/fernando-alonso/) was rarely headed by Kimi Raikkonen, who despite a couple of false dawns never got the Ferrari F14 T handling to his liking.
It would have been fascinating to see whether Raikkonen might have fared better against Alonso with the benefit of a second season at Ferrari, or whether he would have been humbled by Alonso in the same way Massa was during their four years as team mates (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/12/04/vettel-vs-webber-and-alonso-vs-massa-2009-2013/).
But with Alonso moving on, Raikkonen will now go up against another champion – Vettel – in what promises to be one of the most absorbing driver duels of 2015.---Spanky, spanky! :angel:
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/12/03/winners-team-mate-battles-2014/

What I find very interesting about these statistics is that at Williams, when Felipe's rig was running he slightly spanked Bottas in laps lead and finishing position. :idea: