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Couple of points to state up front –
1. Am considering the whole season so a strong or weak end to the season won’t change my ratings drastically.
2. A driver losing to his teammate will definitely to be placed below him in the ratings.1. Vettel – No point in even justifying his place in the list !
2. Raikkonen – Consistent and quick in first half of the season with crazy number of moves in non-DRS zones due to low top speed of Lotus in many races. Could have been better in last few races before injury especially in qualifying.
3. Hulkenburg – Great qualifier. Could possibly challenge Vettel and Hamilton over 1 lap. Has steadily improved his race craft too.
4. Alonso – Relentless once again. Made more mistakes this year than previous 2 years combined. Also was matched in general by Massa in qualifying though on race day there was huge difference.
5. Hamilton – Inconsistent but fast on his days(like all his seasons except 2007 and 2012)
6. Rosberg – Nothing much to choose between the teammates though overall Hamilton does seem faster of the two.
7. Button – Not that quick in qualifying but has been very consistent in races. I don’t believe any of the big 4 would have got a podium this year in the Mclaren as the gap between Mclaren to the higher placed cars was too much for the driver to make the difference.
8. Grosjean – Very quick and seemed to have really improved in consistency. One to watch out next year.
9. Webber – Unlucky to be paired with Vettel. Was good in qualifying even though beaten by Vettel regularly. Race pace varied pretty often.
10. Di Resta – His overall personality seemed to have resulted in everyone underrating him. Had a very good start to season and beat his teammate fair and square. Force India made a lot of mistakes which robbed him of lot of points.
11. Perez – Similar pace to Button over one lap and not much slower in races as well but nowhere as consistent.
12. Ricciardo – Good qualifier but very inconsistent in races. I think the gap between him and Vettel will be at least as much as it is between Webber and Vettel if not larger in their first year.
13. Bottas – Has shown glimpses of greatness in qualifying. Race craft is suspicious as yet.
14. Massa – In general matches Alonso in qualifying but always goes behind in races. Has been beaten by Button too often in races in a car significantly slower for me to rate Massa higher.
15. Bianchi – Beats Chilton comfortably. Tough to judge him beyond that in a marussia.
16. Gutierrez – Vastly outpaced in first half but seemed to have come closer to Hulk towards the end. Still not really at a top runners pace.
17. Maldonado – For a qualifying expert, to be beaten by Bottas doesn’t serve well though to his credit he typically had better races than Bottas
18. Sutil – Not many memorable races to be honest. Occasionally fast but too many mistakes for a person with 100+ starts
19. Pic – Clean racer
20. Vergne – Fairly disappointing end to the season with him barely matching Ricciardo in any of the races.
21. Van Der Garde – Seemed to be matching Pic in 2nd half of the season.
22. Chilton – Improving but still 1 sec off Bianchi pace.Its always tough in F1 to rate drivers considering the importance of performance of the car. Its even more so this year as every race we have had a different pecking order. So my ratings is based on the following assumption of car performance (on an average):
Mclaren > Red Bull > Ferrari > Lotus > Mercedes > Sauber > Williams > Force India > Torro Rosso > Caterham > Marussia > HRT
(I believe as of the moment alone Lotus is faster and mercedes is slower than this average rating i have come up with).1. Alonso : This along with 2011 are his best years. Due to strong end of 2010, people conveniently forgot the string of errors he made in early part of 2010 and he didn’t deserve the championship then. But in 2012 he has been unparalleled and perfect in every sense.
2. Vettel : Am sure he is the most underrated 2 time champion ever. He has made only one mistake this year (overtaking button from outside the track) and could have possibly lead the championship if not for valencia and karthikeyan. Though not as cool-headed as alonso, still has been consistent and i believe Alonso’s biggest threat will come from Vettel.
3. Raikkonen: Slightly tentative with overtaking at the beginning of the year(understandably) but has been awesome of late with both clean overtaking and fantastic race pace when needed. I expect him to be ahead of Webber in the final championship but Top 3 might be slightly difficult. Need to improve his qualifying slightly though and he could be in podium in every race. Lotus have not been very strong in strategies and that is a dampener.
4. Hamilton: Has drove very consistently this year and lost lots of points due to team errors. But i feel he has not been as fast as he used to be. He is one point ahead of Raikkonen in a car i believe was faster over the course of the season(except in 2-3 races where lotus were faster). He still will challenge Alonso for Championship but might need Button and Grosjean to be ahead of Alonso consistently to help him.
5. Webber: Has been much stronger in qualifying against Vettel than previous years. On races though he has been inconsistent. Still nice to see Webber high in the championship, though Vettel most likely will have the upper hand at the end of the year.
6. Perez : Surprisingly fast but still maintains tires very well. Drives like Raikkonen of the old charging through the field in 2nd half of the race. But has been inconsistent and had many poor weekends too.
7. Rosberg: Have been slightly disappointed with him this season. Mercedes have dropped pace but what i expect from Rosberg is consistent point scoring however bad the weekend is. He seems to not have as much hold on his Mercedes in qualifying as he normally as and their race pace is generally weaker. Still he is 6th in Championship and way ahead of his teammate.
8. Grosjean: The shock of the season and mighty entertaining. 8 seems slightly low but he is on same points on Button (who everyone claims is having a pathetic season) and behind Rosberg indicating he has been having too many highs and lows. Its nice to have such strong racers entering F1 and a nice pack of next generation including perez, kobayashi, di resta and hulk.
9. Di Resta: Has been inconspicuous in most of the weekends but picking up points very regularly. He is ahead of Massa and just below schumacher and maldanado all in vastly superior equipments. Force india has been a disappointment this year but their drivers have been fairly impressive.
10. Button: Poor middle of the season for Button. But vastly unfair to compare him to Massa just after convincingly beating Hamilton in 2011. As of the moment he is 40 points behind Hamilton compared to Massa who is 140 points behind Alonso and it is conceivable he is going to beat hamilton in some races at the least in 2nd half. He is out of the championship for sure but his recent pace has been healthy and we might have good fight for constructors with his renewed race results.
11. Kobayashi : Again unfairly considered having a bad season compared to Perez. Except the 2 weekends that Perez ended up on podium, Kobayashi if anything has been more consistent and faster than Perez many times. Overall there is nothing much between them on race pace and it is sad that one of the best overtakers in the field is not being spoken off in connection to big teams while Perez seems to be on everyone’s radar.
12. Hulkenberg: Seems to have better qualifying pace than Di Resta of late and having been out of F1 for a year, it was expected Di Resta will outrace in the beginning. Now that he is up to speed we might have very strong fight between teammates in latter half of the season. They are the closest matched teammates and sets up an intriguing battle.
13. Schumacher: Unlucky many times but also as usual(since his return) involved in too many incidents. Rosberg is going to end this year ahead of Schumacher again but does anyone care any longer ? Was nice to see Schumi back on podium but he eats his tires too easily during races to be of threat to frontrunners. If car is improved expect Rosberg to be more on podium than schumi. 13th place was for this pole position (before penalties) :)
14. Kovalainen: I have been surprised by the rating given by other fanatics for him. His qualifying pace has been excellent but many times Petrov has ended up above him in the races. It is tough to rate guys driving bottom-end cars but i find it difficult to rate him higher than this.
15. Maldonado : He did alright against Barrichello last year but has been surprisingly fast this season in qualifying. I get scared everytime someone tries overtaking him though and has been atrocious in his defending/overtaking. Could easily been on par with Saubers and Mercedes if not for his incidents.
16. Senna : Significantly slower than Maldonado in qualifying but not much difference in race pace. Needs to improve quailfying to get consistently into points. I was honestly expecting more from him but it needs to be noted he is driving his first year at Williams compared to maldonado.
17. Petrov : Never liked this guy after Kubica beat him royally in his first year. But vastly improved since then. Has finished ahead of kovalainen few times and deserves close enough ranking to him.
18. Ricciardo: Has good one lap pace but bins it in the race often. I think with respect to this season, Torro Rosso has to be compared to bottom 3 teams and put in the list of guys who cant be rated with much certainty.
19. De la Rosa: Outpaced Karthikeyan whole year. Has been in front of Marussias many times too. Deserves a top 20 rating.
20. Glock: Is no longer spoken of in same breath as Kovalainen and has been mostly absent in the race videos.
21. Pic : Has fared better against Glock than the previous teammates of Glock. But has not really been better than Glock as such.
22. Karthikeyan: Been outqualified by De la Rosa every time but has had decent race pace and has raced with Marussias few times. Was out of f1 for 5 years and never got a penny of benefit of doubt that Schumi got in loads in 2010. If he races the full season for HRT there are lot higher chances of him finishing ahead of de la rosa than massa has in front of alonso.
23. Massa: Woeful this season. Irrespective of how good Alonso is, it is extremely sad to see teammates split by such huge margins. Has been better of late but only if he finishes in top 10 in championship this year i would think of increasing his ranking.
24. Vergne: Seems very slow in quailfying and just about alright in races. He is very rarely fighting with guys above like saubers and williams and fighting more often with kovalainen and petrov and thats the reason for this last ranking in the list.
Uff..this took a lot of time !!
Though a big fan of Raikkonen, I expect vettel and Hamilton to be main challengers of Alonso this year(hope i am wrong) and Raikkonen to be comfortable 4th.
Webber, Button and Grosjean will fight for 5th with poor Rosberg pushed down.
Unless Ferrari has the best car in few races, constructors will be between Red Bull, Mclaren and may be lotus.Lets see how my predictions go for the rest of the season !!
Considering only the drivers i have seen(post 1994), the most impressive driver not win the championship was Jean Alesi. Was mighty unfortunate in several races.
Massa, Barrichello and Coulthard all had championship winning teammates so i would say they had their chances.
I dont think kubica did enough to warrant this claim either. He after all had only 2 very good years in the sport (2008 and 2010) and thats not enough to deserve the best driver who didnt win a championship.
