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I suppose after the effort I had to write all of this for the Autosport forums (also copied it to that "famous" Guardian article comments box), I might as well copy-paste it here too, for my take on the season. Voted Vettel and Red Bull, as what we saw this year was a dull equation of best car + best driver = boring season.
1. Sebastian Vettel
If in previous title-winning campaigns it felt as if other drivers had done better than him with lesser machinery, this year I have little doubt Seb deserves it as he stepped up a notch in performance. Don't get me wrong Newey & Crew gave him an absolute missile, particularly from mid-season onwards when the new (old?) tyres now allowed Red Bull to put all of the downforce on track, but he absolutely made the most of it, just look at the gigantic gaps he was putting over Webber at a point. He was already leading the pack before the tyre changes, when Red Bull were not noticeably any better than the opposition, and then just simply won 9 on a row when they were. From the top of my mind I don't remember a single mistake this year? Thoroughly deserved title.
2. Fernando Alonso
Still reliably adding up vast amounts of points in an average Ferrari, but the magic of previous seasons has been lost a little - is this Fred just slightly past his peak? Felipe's little run of outqualifying him a few times later in the year shown Fred's pace isn't the absolute benchmark albeit the Spaniard was invariably always quicker in the races. Still a fantastic driver, the 50+ point gap over the Mercedes and Lotus drivers is telling as I don't think the Ferrari was any better than either of those cars, he is comfortably my 2nd placed driver in this list.
3. Nico Hulkenberg
Paired with a total underperforming newbie that hugely flattered him, it is a little hard to judge exactly how good was Hulk's run this season - we know it was some level of good, but is it Alonso-level, Button-level? I can't tell, at all. Nevertheless I have little doubt this was Hulk's finest year in F1 yet as he was absolutely convincing from the first to the last race weekend, increasing his performance when the Sauber came good sure, but he was already a highlight if you paid close attention in the early stages of the season as he dragged that thing into the points. In his previous F1 years he'd shine only in certain parts of the season - massive improvement there. It is this level of consistency that made me put him ahead of Raikkonen, Hamilton, Rosberg - just. I'm eager to see him in a top car sooner or later.
4. Kimi Raikkonen
Flattered by the Lotus, or flattering the Lotus? Again I cannot tell for sure and my suspicion is that at different points of the season, both of those statements would be true. It's easy to forget how good his string of results was early in the season when those Pirellis were cheese - a win and many, many 2nd places kept him close to Vettel in the title chase for a long time as his racecraft excelled. And Grosjean was absolutely nowhere near (just check out the Melbourne and Shanghai results). But as the season progressed he started to disappoint a bit and the Frenchman, rejuvenated by new found form, even out-performed him a bit later in the year. Was it the hurting back, or could he just not be arsed anymore with the late paying Lotus? Does it matter, as we are ranking performance, not excuses here? Still outscored Romain by 50pts despite missing 2 races.
5. Lewis Hamilton
On raw speed I certainly rate him above post-McLaren-days Kimi, but did he unleash his raw speed here and translated it into points? His performance vs Nico was super close, it was practically a tie between both really. He was a consistent points scorer all year long, regardless of the fluctuations in Mercedes form, which is a very good sign, but the days Nico was on top, he was nowhere. Even in qualifying, where you'd expect Lewis to shine the most, it was almost a tie. It looks as if these tyres and style of racing just don't suit him, and his mind perhaps isn't in the right place - he remains a top, top driver, but unable to extract his full potential.
6. Nico Rosberg
What can Nico do to get some respect? He beat a 7xWDC for several years, people didn't rate him, now he basically ties with a current top driver (ran him certainly closer than what Button - another WDC - did recently), grabs 2 wins with a car that wasn't the outright best, and still doesn't move further than 6th in my list! What's wrong? Well for a start I'd like some consistency. It's no good having those big fat 25-point scores if you're going to grab just 2 or 4 points next race. He'd outperform Hamilton grabbing a sensational win, and then be mistifyingly plain average the next race. He did so much better than people expected yet puzzlingly, it feels as if he's also confirmed he's not a top driver, too, if very close to it. I think we might very well have seen Nico's very best this year.
7. Jenson Button
A wildly under-rated season, which is what you get when you're given a car far below the team's expectations as people blame the drivers for it. People are giving him crap for not having scored a podium but realistically could that be achieved? When there's constantly 8 cars on track quicker than him, potentially 10 when Force India was quicker at the start of the year, or 9 when the Hulk/Sauber combo was quicker at the end? Was that really his fault? It feels as if he was very consistent and extracted almost the maximum of his machinery, but we know from previous years his raw pace is not the greatest, and Pérez did match/beat him on pace in several occasions. The Lewis/Nico/Jenson triangle of cross-team-mate comparisons is also favourable to Nico, which is why it'd feel wrong to put Jenson higher than him in the list. Well done Jenson, but it wasn't an outstanding season.
8. Romain Grosjean
Wow, just wow. I thought he was a total lost cause, clearly not as his improved form later on the season was just spectacular. If I'd be rating drivers on the past 3 months he'd easily be in my top 4, and he looks to be coming into 2014 with fantastic momentum. Absolutely deserves a win by now. Thing is, 2013 was a 19-race season where every one counts the same, and in early season he was scoring 9th and 10th places whilst Kimi was scoring wins and 2nd's. A 4-race hiatus without a single score was a pretty low point as well. He might be on superb form at the moment, but averaging things out I cannot place him any higher on this list.
9. Paul di Resta
A case of bad PR and an unlikeable personality, makes everyone remember the lows and mock him for it, forgetting the highs. This was a really rather decent season by Paul, out-scoring, out-racing and out-qualifying Adrian Sutil, if not by a great amount. Having a car that started out the season with outstanding pace, but then progressively lost out to McLaren and Sauber, also made him look bad as it made him unable to meet expectations. It appears he's about to lose a seat in F1 next year and that is a shame as he has evidently the ability to outperform half the grid - even if as we've known from previous seasons that he's not as good as Nico Hulkenberg; and as good as this season was I also feel he didn't show top class consistency.
10. Daniel Ricciardo
Looking at statistics it's somewhat funny to see he doesn't appear to have done any better than last year, yet ended up with an awful lot more points. What is telling is that those points were spread out all year long, instead of flattered by 1 or 2 good races. We already knew he could extract far more from the Toro Rosso than Vergne in Saturdays, but this season he confirmed he could consistently turn his good Sundays into results. That being said, there still remains a worrying element of going backwards in the races sometimes and Vergne ran him close there. He is worthy of a chance in a better team yes, but probably not an outright top seat in Red Bull - let's see how that goes.
11. Sergio Pérez
If we were to sum up his season in one word it'd be "try-hard". Overdriving cost him a big bag of points early on, as he seemed shocked by McLaren's poor car, and also unable to deal with the fact Button generally appeared to be marginally quicker than him, when he had been hired to replace the quicker Hamilton as a lead driver. This is the reason McLaren sacked him as they need someone better than the 11th best driver in F1. That being said he is hardly poor, did match Button's pace on numerous occasions and his points defficit to his team-mate was more rooted in mistakes than slowness, which can be worked on. I am convinced he has the potential to be a regular top 10 driver in this list, as shown by a stellar final 2 races of the season which probably sealed him a deserved spot in the F1 midfield for next year. The chance at reaching the top might be gone, but the door for a nice journeyman career is still open. The guy is still very young, remember. And even if he never improves, he could do far worse than to merely repeat the excellent highs he shown for Sauber last year.
12. Mark Webber
This was the year Mark's form tanked, and whilst coming 3rd in the championship is a dignified send-off, I can't help but feel that greatly flatters him. Even if your team-mate's a monster driver winning his 4th title on the run, you cannot routinely finish races 30 seconds behind him. Malaysia or not, you cannot lose 13-0 on wins neither. The reason he still salvages a decent-ish spot on my list were the odd weekends he still came reasonably close to Vettel, like in the final race, and that is an achievement many other drivers in F1 wouldn't be capable of. And to be fair whilst slow he was a very consistent points finisher. I do understand his poor performance, his mind wasn't on F1 anymore. Wish him the best at Porsche.
13. Felipe Massa
A curious case of performance only appearing when his career is on a knife-edge. 2012 had been utterly dismal, so he badly needed results to shake off that perception, and there you go, he scored a nice start to the season with a couple strong points results. But then when Alonso kept on scoring podiums as the season progressed, why was Felipe wandering around 7th, 8th position? Of course, when it emerged he was without a seat for 2014, suddenly he started outqualifying Alonso on a consistent basis! Even then, at his best all year, he still invariably lost out on race pace every single weekend to Alonso, and finished the season with less than half of his points. I think if he drove with full concentration and motivation he could still be a top 10 driver, but I sadly don't think Williams is getting a motivated driver for next year.
14. Valtteri Bottas
I had a very hard time separating the Williams drivers - Bottas had a slight upper hand in qualifying, but also had a slight defficit in the races which are far more important in this era in F1. But he also had a higher high in Austin, which ultimately gave the team more points. That just about nudged it for me in favour of the Finn. Lack of race pace for most of the season was worrying, but he clearly finished the season on good form, and that progression is a positive sign for a rookie driver who had been 1 year out of racing. Lack of mistakes all year long, another positive sign. 14th place in this list may not look great but it's a good start to your F1 career. Might have a fair bit of potential, and I'll back him to beat Massa next year - just.
15. Pastor Maldonado
Oh dear, he clearly isn't a very popular driver at the moment, is he. The wrong attitude is obvious - causing accidents on track, blaming the team for poor performance, coming off as entitled as he believes he deserves a better car. But that has little to do with his actual performance, which was okay, in a car that was admitedly very poor. I am puzzled by the pattern of being beaten by a rookie in qualy but then outperforming him over the races, seems at odds with his reputation of a wild but quick driver. Probably deserves to remain in F1 but probably isn't half as good as he thinks he is.
16. Adrian Sutil
Being slightly more average than Paul di Resta doesn't make him the most exciting driver in the world. You would forgive him for being off the pace in the earlier stages of the season after being a year away, and he did seem to improve a bit after a while. But then he ended the season again behind Paul, which doesn't flatter his ability much. Ultimately was out-qualified, out-raced, out-scored. Still kept himself fairly within reach and didn't disgrace himself, but I'd rather see him out of F1 than Paul, which doesn't appear to be happening. We've seen better years out of Sutil and it's unlikely he'll step up to another level in the future.
17. Jules Bianchi
Entered F1 with quite a bang - out-qualifying his team-mate by a huge amount and winning the backmarkers fight. But then his rather poor team-mate started to get closer and closer as the season went out, which makes Jules' performance less exciting on hindsight. This seems more in line with Jules' reputation gained on the junior series in recent years, of being a good-but-not-great driver. Has a fair bit of potential, but it's also telling that Ferrari isn't rushing him into a better seat and he never impressed as a 3rd driver for Force India. It's disappointing that he appears set to be paired with Chilton next year again, instead of us getting the chance to evaluate him vs a better measuring stick.
18. Jean-Eric Vergne
What the hell has happened to the driver Trevor Carlin rated as one of the best he's ever worked with? We need more wet races. Still looks completely lost in qualifying, and this time couldn't mask his marginal defficit to Daniel in the races with high points scores in the wet, despite a random great race in Montreal. His career seems to have reached a very bad dead-end - do Red Bull believe in him at all anymore, or are they retaining him merely as a measuring stick for Kvyat, and as an element of continuity for Toro Rosso? It's hard to see how can he get out of this. Needs to improve qualifying, fast.
19. Charles Pic
A young paydriver with an under-rated level of talent due to having been fast-tracked through the ladder of series far too quickly, being paired with another paydriver in a terrible car he badly needed to outperform him convincingly to be taken seriously. And he did so for a fair while, until they changed the tyres - and then magically to Pic's horror, VdG started being occasionally quicker. I'm afraid that's a career killer, even if VdG isn't necessarily "slow". He might hang on to a Caterham seat, but I'm not pic-turing Pic making it to a lengthy successful F1 career.
20. Giedo van der Garde
Well, I've pretty much covered him already as I went through Pic's performance. Awfully out of his depth at the start of the season, with his seat even threatened by Kovalainen, Giedo suddenly came alive when they changed the tyres and may have saved his continuity in F1, no doubt helped by a big bag of cash. But I've seen him for far too many years in the lower series to know he's not a future champion, WSR-title-after-zillions-of-years-of-experience or not.
21. Esteban Gutiérrez
51-6 in points, ouch. It'd always be a difficult job to be paired against the Hulk in your debut year in F1, particularly given the sneaky suspicion we all had about him after watching him in GP2 that he wasn't ready. But this was worse than expected, he was just rubbish. Very few signs of the talent he shown winning the GP3 and Formula BMW Europe titles in the past, he was legitimately Latin America's next great hope at a point. He did get better as the season went on and even qualified into Q3 once or twice, but that obviously coincided with an improvement in the car, clearly shown by the Hulk's sensational upturn in form - who continued to finish many places ahead, but now higher up in the results sheet. Has some potential, but won't win races any time soon.
22. Heikki Kovalainen
I always include every driver in these rankings, regardless if they've only done a race or two. And I don't rank excuses or potential, only raw performance, albeit to be fair Heikki had a pretty damn good excuse - it was simply impossible for any driver to be thrown in the same conditions and match Grosjean. I think in normal circumstances Heikki's far better than 22nd, that is highlighted by how Caterham even considered putting him in a race seat to the expense of losing a highly profittable decent paydriver. But he was awfully off the pace for Lotus, more so than I expected even given his handicap.
23. Max Chilton
His lack of pace in Melbourne was a total joke, then progressively improved to be only a fair bit off pace as the season went on. He was never going to be good enough for a F1 seat, but I suppose he's still doing a mildly professional job. I think people have no idea how difficult it is to perform at a level like this, the normal guy cannot approach even what Max Chilton does. That being said, it's criminal that a seat appears set to be wasted on him again next year.
_________________ ma twatter (F1/motorsports, footie, games and general nonsense ramblings)
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