[mnmracer]

Sebastian Vettel has been voted the clear winner in AUTOSPORT’s annual Team Principals’ Top 10 Drivers poll.

In what has become an end-of-season tradition, AUTOSPORT once again enlisted the help of Formula 1’s 11 team principals to get their views on which drivers they thought had done the best job in 2013.

Each team principal provided a secret top 10 list of drivers, with points being awarded using the current F1 scoring system (25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1) to come up with an overall winner.

…

AUTOSPORT’S TEAM PRINCIPALS’ TOP 10 DRIVERS 2013
1. Sebastian Vettel – 248 points
2. Fernando Alonso – 213 points
3. Kimi Raikkonen – 158 points
4. Lewis Hamilton – 117 points
5. Nico Rosberg – 95 points
6. Romain Grosjean – 76 points
7. Nico Hulkenberg – 68 points
8. Mark Webber – 66 points
9. Jenson Button – 24 points
10. Felipe Massa – 14 points

As the exact votes are secret, I used a little bit of math to calculate how many votes for which ranks the top 5 drivers have been given.
Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso are the only drivers who have been voted as best: Vettel by 8 team bosses, Alonso by 3.
Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen are the only drivers who have been voted as 2nd best: Vettel by 2 team bosses, Alonso by 7, Räikkönen by 2.
Kimi Räikkönen and Lewis Hamilton are the only drivers who have been voted as 3rd best: Räikkönen by 8 team bosses, Hamilton by 3.

This year is the 6th year the team bosses have voted.
In those 6 years:
Sebastian Vettel was voted best 3 times and 2nd best twice. In 2008, he was voted 5th best.
Fernando Alonso was voted best 2 times, 2nd best once, and 3rd best twice. In 2009, he was voted 4th best.
Lewis Hamilton was voted best once, and 3rd best three times. In 2011, he was voted 4th best.

The 6 year running total top 10 (2008 & 2009 adjusted with factor 2,73):
Sebastian Vettel: 1215
Fernando Alonso: 1142
Lewis Hamilton: 1029
Jenson Button: 597
Kimi Räikkönen: 489
Mark Webber: 430
Felipe Massa: 344
Robert Kubica: 293
Nico Rosberg: 283
Nico Hülkenberg: 136

The 6 year running total top 10 average per season:
Sebastian Vettel: 203
Fernando Alonso: 190
Lewis Hamilton: 171
Kimi Räikkönen: 122
Jenson Button: 99
Robert Kubica: 98
Mark Webber: 72
Felipe Massa: 57
Nico Rosberg: 47
Nico Hülkenberg: 45

[magon4]

Surprised by how low Hülkenberg was viewed, and how high Webber was seen, which really makes Vettel even better.
No rookies in the Top 10, and also no Dan Ricciardo.

[mnmracer]

Yeah, I was especially surprised by Daniel missing from the list. Though with Webber and Massa, I think it’s fair to have them in the top 10 considering who their team-mate was. It’s not like they were beaten silly by di Resta or something.

[magon4]

I don’t think Felipe Massa deserves to still be mentioned as a Top 10 driver in F1 right now. Mark Webber did enough to deserve it, IMO.

[Kingshark]

I don’t think that Webber deserves to be top 10 in 2013, he scored less than half of Vettel’s points and failed to win a single race in an RB8. Not to mention that he was beat by Alonso in the standings, who drove an F138 for goodness sake.

I have no doubt that there are at least 9 other drivers who could have won at least one race if they drove the Red Bull (IMO).

[Steven]

Autosport may as well have written an article informing us that the sky is blue or that water is wet at room temperature.

[mnmracer]

That’s why we read Keith’s articles :)

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