The Complete F1 Fanatic 2014 season review

2014 F1 season review

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Did you miss any of F1 Fanatic’s 2014 season review? Catch up on it all here.

The F1 Fanatic 2014 Driver Rankings

Team-by-team reviews

Mercedes: F1 wins as Mercedes lets Hamilton and Rosberg fight
Red Bull: Red Bull show their strength despite engine troubles
Williams: Williams’ best year since ’03 not just due to Mercedes
Ferrari: Win-less season prompts revolution at Ferrari
McLaren: Questions hang over McLaren as 2014 ends
Force India: Force India’s best season could have been even better
Toro Rosso: Tough choices at Toro Rosso after Vettel’s Red Bull departure
Lotus: Lotus split from Renault after dire season
Marussia: A cruel end to Marussia’s F1 hopes
Sauber: Sauber’s growing plight should set alarm bells ringing
Caterham: Caterham’s future doubtful after last-race comeback

Community highlights

The funniest Caption Competition winners of 2014
Rate the Race Results: F1 defies critics as fans praise 2014 racing
Your verdict on 2014: The season in polls
Eight different Driver of the Weekend winners in 2014
Top ten passes of 2014

More on the 2014 season

Take F1 Fanatic’s new 2014 season quiz
20 things that made F1 great in 2014

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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29 comments on “The Complete F1 Fanatic 2014 season review”

  1. Thanks Keith for all your hard work on the site this year. Have a wonderful 2015!

    1. @ambroserpm You’re welcome! Glad you’ve enjoyed it.

    2. +1,
      Outstanding job Keith!

  2. Thanks also from me Keith, but I still disagree about the rankings. I put Lewis Hamilton 1st. Looking forward to the pre-season testing and seeing the new cars for the first time. Can’t wait to see how Honda get on, will they match up with Mercedes, or will Mercedes ramp up another step and leave everyone behind as they did in 2014? If McLaren/Honda for example are close to Mercedes, will team orders come to play with Lewis and Nico? We’ll find out soon enough!

    1. I also disagree with the top 3 ranking somewhat. I can understand Ricciardo being driver of the year but Alonso above Hamilton is a bit of a strech. Did he challenge for the title or even come close? NO! Did he finish higher than expected in the standings? NO! He finished 6th. Did he win races? NO! Did he get poles? NO! Did he put in an extraordinary drive? NO! What exactly did he do that eclipses winning 11 races and the WDC? In my eyes nothing. And I don’t believe Vettel and Hulkenburg performed better than Massa too.

      1. Funny, seeing as Massa finished behind Alonso in the championship in a much better car. I completely disagree with Alonso not having any extraordinary drives, what about China or Hungary? He scored almost three times as many points as Raikkonen, who is arguably a better driver than Rosberg.

        The Mercedes was 1sec/lap or more faster than any other car for most races this year, Hamilton was always going to finish in the top two, while the Ferrari was stuck in the middle of the mid-field for most of the year.

        I don’t mean to take away from Hamilton’s achievement because he did have a good year, but he made more mistakes and was outperformed by his team-mate more than Alonso was.

        1. I disagree with you in some points:

          About China. Yes, It was a very good performance from Alonso, but Ferrari was the 2nd best car of that weekend, alongside with Red Bull + The Austrian team did a very bad job in pit stop strategy for both cars.

          About Alonso thrasing Raikkonen, for me It’s more because Raikkonen had a very bad year. I don’t think Raikkonen had chances of beating Alonso, but this huge gap isn’t talent alone.

          I think Alonso deserves to be in 4th position in the drivers raking.

      2. @blackmamba

        Did he challenge for the title or even come close? NO!

        Absurd. Schumacher didn’t even come close to challenging for the championship in 1996, yet he was undoubtedly the man of the season. Sometimes, the car is simply not good enough to challenge for the championship.

        Did he finish higher than expected in the standings? NO! He finished 6th.

        Ferrari had on balance the 5th best car of the season, or joint 4th best with McLaren, clearly inferior to Mercedes/Red Bull/Williams. The 4th-5th best car should finish between 7th to 10th in the standings, he finished 6th, so yes, he did finish higher than his car should have allowed him to.

        Did he win races? NO! Did he get poles? NO!

        Neither did Kubica in 2010, so what?

        Why did Vettel win so much less this season than he did last year? Why did Hamilton win so much more than he did last year? Simple: The car.

        Did he put in an extraordinary drive? NO!

        Hungary was easily on par with any of Hamilton’s drives this year; China and Silverstone were also brilliant, so was Austria.

        What exactly did he do that eclipses winning 11 races and the WDC?

        Yes, Hamilton won 11 races, with the most dominant machine since the 1992-93 Williams cars; and he made countless stupid errors along the way (unlike Alonso).

        In my eyes nothing. And I don’t believe Vettel and Hulkenburg performed better than Massa too.

        Vettel finished quite a bit ahead of Massa in the championship with a roughly equal car; and at least Hulkenberg beat his teammate.

        1. @kingshark I get that you think Hamilton is stupid, but that still does not adress the point that although Alonso put together a stellar season as usual, there is nothing that stands out for me. In years to come this season will be remembered as the season Lewis won 11 races and Ricciardo won 3 races and beat 4 time world champion Vettel. Nothing Alonso did will stick out, unlike his 2012 performance which for me is still the single best performance by any driver in the last 5 years.

          1. @blackmamba
            Hamilton is not stupid, I said that the errors he made is stupid. Hamilton didn’t make a single significant error in 2012, and I’d be the first to give him credit on that. Lewis is one of the most intelligent drivers out there in terms of racecraft, but his qualifying mistakes this season have been embarrassing on more than one occasion.

            Yes, you do make a good point that in years to come, Alonso wont be remembered in 2014 in the same way that Hamilton and Ricciardo will, but that doesn’t mean that objectively speaking he performed any less than the other two. People don’t remember Senna’s 1987 season as well as they remember 1988-1991, but that doesn’t change the fact that Ayrton drove stellar in 1987, every bit as well as he did in his championship years.

        2. @kingshark up to Spa the Ferraris often looked better than the Williams and were battling with the Red Bulls. Istr you posting about their good downforce, in fact.

          Alonso drove a great year but he didn’t drag his car so far out of position. It gets mythically circular how it’s him when the combo is fast but when it’s slow, as it was towards the end of the year, it’s the car. And as usual his mistakes have been erased from history, but for example he hit Massa in iirc China, missed his grid slot, and went deep to let Vettel through at Luffield. I daresay there are others, that could equally be called ‘stupid’ if I had that agenda.

        3. Come on @kingshark, do you ever say anything bad about Alonso at all? It kind of undermines your comments if I’m honest.

          Hamilton was under massive pressure to deliver so its actually an achievement he made so few errors in the season.

          Just to say, I actually rate Alonso #1 for 2014 (ahead of Hamilton) and he had an awesome season, perhaps even his best.

          Anyway, happy new year.

      3. Are you over what Keith decided was his decision? NO!
        Get over it

  3. Keep up the good work Keith. Happy new year!

  4. Great review Keith
    Great Year
    Great Site

    So many of us F1F’s here really appreciate the effort put into this site,

    I often read late into the night on my phone , getting all the updates ,

    Happy New Year to all

  5. I’m already in to 2015! Happy New Year Guys! Great Work Again Keith! Really cool brother!

  6. Best Formula 1 site on the net. I notice other site are frantically copying some of your innovations Keith.

  7. Thanks Keith.

    Happy New Year to all!

  8. Need…

    Help….

    Must….

    have….

    more….

    F1….

    News….

    :)
    Great job Keith + Co – can’t wait for 2015!

    No, really, I. CAN. NOT. WAIT!!!

  9. One of my favourite articles from this year was the one about alternative points scoring systems:
    https://www.racefans.net/2014/11/17/design-points-system-formula-one/

    Thanks Keith for all you do!

  10. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    31st December 2014, 15:22

    Is that photo of Kovalainen on fire? hahaha

  11. Thanks Keith for all your hard work. Best thing in 2014 was that I started following the best F1 site.

    Happy New Year Keith and all F1 Fanatic readers.

  12. Keith your site is very informative and up to date with the F1 news. I might disagree with some of your opinions (eg Alonso being ranked 2nd in the driver of the year rankings) but nonetheless it does not detract from the hard work you put in. Thanks for the articles, wish you a prosperous 2015.
    Regards Dave

  13. Alonso in 2nd? Bottas and Hamilton were better than him in this year. Despite the crap car, Alonso didn’t do anything special, except in Hungaroring.

  14. Have a great year Mr Collantine !
    This is the one site I really look forward to reading and in fact at 63 its one of my few pleasures.

    Saw my first Grand Prix in good ole South Africa , Kyalami 1972 and followed it via Car magazine from ’68 before that. Ahhhhh The Jody Schecktor years ….Damon who was cheated and the Mansell era…who can forget Monaco! etc etc etc. Glorious F1! and Glorious F1Fanatic! to I say!

    Can’t resist and I know many of you will say …yawn…but Lewis should have been 2nd!
    Riccardo 1st I agree and even then not by much. He did not have the pressure Lewis was under and so naturally he was bound to do well given that Vetel was ‘vas aan die slaap’ as they would say in Afrikaans for most of the year.
    That he is going to be be a DWC is almost a given if he continues at this rate and even as an Hamilton fan I believe Lewis would have a rough time against him and Lewis most probably realises it as well.
    Ricardo currently thinks out of the box as Lewis did in 2007/8 hence his amazing overtaking maneuvers.

    As to the criticism of Lewis we cannot underestimate the effect his girl friend had on his career over the last two years in which she messed with his head in my opinion and cost him atleast one DWC.
    The other is Martin Witmarsh. Without a doubt he destroyed Lewis’ self confidence and also cost him a DWC. Maybe Martin did not get on with Hamilton senior and took it out on Lewis and the expense of the team in my opinion. Button was always sublime in his eyes and Lewis was adequate.
    Lets not forget that Lewis was always in contention for DWC even when he was operating below par.
    He is one of those drivers that needs emotional support around him and I don’t see that as a weakness.
    That’s what makes him human and most probably why he has such huge fan base. He is a gifted driver.. period.
    I wonder what Ron thinks of Lewis vs Button. I can only say that Button will never be a Lewis.

    I enjoy the amazing comments I read on this site so to all you crazy F1Fanatics a very Happy New Year to ALL of you …even the Lewis haters!

    God Bless

  15. Thanks for all your hard work Keith. Have a good 2015!

  16. Thank you so much Keith for all the effort you have put into all of this. We cannot fault you in any way. It is appreciated so much by all of us!

    Have a great 2015!

  17. Happy new year! 2014 flew by. Roll on to 2015.

  18. @keithcollantine I really appreciate you amazing efforts, this site is definetly the best out of f1 sites, I love all of the features and people in here are great, happy new year to all F1F !!!

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