My Driver Ratings for 2010
27.Sakon Yamamoto
It's entirely predictable that poor Sakon should end up at the bottom of this heap. But truth be told, he really wasn't that shabby at all. Called up at short notice to race in F1 for the first time in almost 3 years, and into the worst car on the grid at that, for a team in its' first season which was both underprepeared and underfinanced, Sakon did not disgrace himself. Jumping into the number 20 car recently vacated by Karun Chandhok (who's money had dried up!), Yamamoto qualified last and ran last in the race as expected, but all within a respectable distance of his team-mate Bruno Senna. On several occasions in the following races, he qualified very closely or even ahead of Senna. All in all, he actually showed pretty well, and does not deserve to receive such lowly reviews, for he is no Jean-Denis Deletraz. When he drove for Super Aguri in 2006, the team and Takuma Sato scored a much talked about 10th place at the final race in Brazil, especially by setting 9th fastest lap. What is less talked about from that day was that Yamamoto recorded the 7th fastest lap...
Speed : 2 Racecraft: 3 Consistency: 2 OVERALL: 7
Speed : 2 Racecraft: 3 Consistency: 2 OVERALL: 7
26.Karun Chandhok
Signed up with days to go till the first race in Bahrain, Karun Chandhok was really thrown in the deep end. So much so, that he hadn't even driven the car before qualifying! Given those circumstances, perhaps then he did a great job to set a time only 1.7 seconds off Bruno Senna. Spinning out on a bump on lap 3 of the race wasn't a good start. But then Karun went on to deliver a succession of finishes for the team, including 14th in Australia - just what they needed, some sort of stability and actual results. In one of these races, he finished ahead of Senna. Because of these early season results, coupled with the fact Senna was having trouble reaching the end of races and getting results on the board, a perception materialised that Chandhok was the better driver. Pretty soon, there was a bandwagon going for him, which many jumped on. A giant factor of this was Karun's personality, which charmed many fans. He got to show this for example, as a guest commentator for BBC 5 Live alongside David Croft and Anthony Davidson. Also consider the fact that Chandhok's family is very well connected with Bernie Ecclestone, and things do look bright for him.
All this contributed to the perception that Karun was doing a better job than Senna. Unfortunately, many people seem to be missing the facts. Senna qualified on average at least 0.3s ahead of Chandhok and qualifying fell about 7-3 to Senna. It appears that conclusions have been jumped to too soon, especially taking into account Chandhok and Senna were team mates in GP2 in 2008. Senna finished 2nd in the championship that year - Chandhok was 10th...
Although Chandhok has a great personality and is a reliable driver, and there is a place for him in F1, the fact that Force India owner Vijay Mallya has shown a consistently shy attitude towards signing him, citing doubt over Karun's ultimate potential, says it all.
Speed : 2 Racecraft: 4 Consistency: 4 OVERALL: 10
All this contributed to the perception that Karun was doing a better job than Senna. Unfortunately, many people seem to be missing the facts. Senna qualified on average at least 0.3s ahead of Chandhok and qualifying fell about 7-3 to Senna. It appears that conclusions have been jumped to too soon, especially taking into account Chandhok and Senna were team mates in GP2 in 2008. Senna finished 2nd in the championship that year - Chandhok was 10th...
Although Chandhok has a great personality and is a reliable driver, and there is a place for him in F1, the fact that Force India owner Vijay Mallya has shown a consistently shy attitude towards signing him, citing doubt over Karun's ultimate potential, says it all.
Speed : 2 Racecraft: 4 Consistency: 4 OVERALL: 10
25.Lucas di Grassi
The 2010 season was for Lucas di Grassi a perfect demonstration of anonymity. Unfortunately, in the harsh world of F1, di Grassi made no impact whatsoever. Though he did a respectable job, respectability is not enough - there has to be something more. In their 2010 F1 review, www.f1rejects.com spoke of him thus:
"...Unless you were a diehard F1 follower, you would not have known that Lucas di Grassi had been a Grand Prix driver this year..."
Di Grassi's season reminded me a lot of Allan McNish's in 2002. Both started out at a new team, and both outqualified their quick, but not megastar team-mates just twice. It has to be said Timo Glock performed strongly and was quite merciless towards Lucas in this respect. But it was very disappointing that the gap between the two did not narrow markedly as the year wore on, as you'd expect it to. Di Grassi's grid position was very easy to predict - 24th.
The problem was that regarding di Grassi's season, all I remember was his astonishing crash on the warm-up lap in Japan. The team said they found no mechanical failure, clearly inferring the driver was at fault. He followed this up by sliding off into the wall at Korea. He did score the team's best finish early on - 14th in Malaysia, but this was equalled by Glock late in the season. Di Grassi was by no means terrible, but neither did he show any sort of spark - at all, as far as I could see - and in this business, that's just not good enough. It's no surprise that unfortunately, Lucas finds himself out, and is unlikely to be able to find his way in again. In what will surely be his only season in F1, unless he is able to find a mountain of cash from somewhere, di Grassi truly did just make up the numbers.
Speed : 3 Racecraft: 3 Consistency: 4 OVERALL: 10
"...Unless you were a diehard F1 follower, you would not have known that Lucas di Grassi had been a Grand Prix driver this year..."
Di Grassi's season reminded me a lot of Allan McNish's in 2002. Both started out at a new team, and both outqualified their quick, but not megastar team-mates just twice. It has to be said Timo Glock performed strongly and was quite merciless towards Lucas in this respect. But it was very disappointing that the gap between the two did not narrow markedly as the year wore on, as you'd expect it to. Di Grassi's grid position was very easy to predict - 24th.
The problem was that regarding di Grassi's season, all I remember was his astonishing crash on the warm-up lap in Japan. The team said they found no mechanical failure, clearly inferring the driver was at fault. He followed this up by sliding off into the wall at Korea. He did score the team's best finish early on - 14th in Malaysia, but this was equalled by Glock late in the season. Di Grassi was by no means terrible, but neither did he show any sort of spark - at all, as far as I could see - and in this business, that's just not good enough. It's no surprise that unfortunately, Lucas finds himself out, and is unlikely to be able to find his way in again. In what will surely be his only season in F1, unless he is able to find a mountain of cash from somewhere, di Grassi truly did just make up the numbers.
Speed : 3 Racecraft: 3 Consistency: 4 OVERALL: 10
24.Bruno Senna
One of the most interesting additions to F1 in 2010; it was hard to know what to expect from Ayrton's nephew. I always found it quite incredible how he came back from an astonishing 11 year absence in racing at the end of 2004, and has mixed it at the front of the junior series since.
Senna was one of the first drivers to be signed for 2010, by Campos Meta 1 Team. It wasn't a secret that instead of Bruno paying money, the team would trade on his famous name instead. I too found that the resemblance between Bruno and his uncle was at times even chilling. Martin Brundle used the word "scary" when seeing Bruno in the car with his visor up.
Driving the worst car on the grid, he was never going to get that far. And so it proved, only qualifying twice in the top 20, and that was only because of penalties for others who had been faster. So the only point of reference was against his team mate Karun Chandhok. Senna would have been expected to be the better of the two, given that he and Chandhok had already been team-mates in GP2 in 2008. That year, Senna came 2nd in the championship with Chandhok 10th, with qualifying 7-3 in Senna's favour. Given that, and the fact that Chandhok was a very late signing, Senna would be ahead.
That is how it played out. However, while Senna consistently failed to finish races early on, Chandhok was bringing the car home more often than not, with a peak result of 14th in Australia. Unfortunately this, combined with the fact that Chandhok had made a real impact with F1 fans, showing a personality that impressed many, caused most to actually rate Chandhok as the better driver! What's more, he qualified very close behind Senna in Malaysia, and actually started ahead in Australia. In the remaining 7 races they did together, Chandhok outqualified Senna on to further occassions, contributing to the now widely held perception that Chandhok was better!
The facts however go in a different direction to that bandwagon. Qualifying was again 7-3 in Senna's favour, with the gap if anything larger than it was in GP2 - around 3 tenths or more. So then, Bruno was the victim of the inconsistency between perception and reality.
Races like Spain didn't help, when Bruno, having made a rocket start, slid straight off the road at turn 3 and out of the race. Worse still, when Chandhok was replaced by Sakon Yamamoto, Yamamoto outqualified him on one occasion, and got close to him once or twice besides that. Senna again suffered from perception, as the truth is that Sakon Yamomoto is actually not a hopeless case, and much of the criticism he receives is unfair. The killer though, was when a rusty Christian Klien took over from Yamamoto in Singapore, promptly blowing Senna away by around a second in qualifying. Senna also didn't compare favourably to Klien in qualifying in Klien's other two races either. Adding insult to injury was that Yamamoto's first race was in Senna's place, Senna having been dropped for an unknown reason. Apparently, he had been having a proper go at team principal Colin Kolles, ripping in to his management style in particular, to his friends by email. Trouble was, he then sent that email to Kolles by mistake! Oh well, we've all done something like that, eh...?
On the positive side, Senna on several occasions outperformed Lucas di Grassi in the definitely faster Virgin car, and his race drives tended to be more impressive than his qualifying.
All in all, his season did seem to tail off towards the end which was disappointing. Recently, Kolles stated that Senna will "100%" definitely not be driving for Hispania in 2011. So Senna wasn't forgiven for that email then... In fact now I think about it, even though Senna continued to drive for the team after being rested for Silverstone, relations between boss and driver must have been awful, and it could be that this undermined Bruno's performance, explaining why his end of the season was less impressive than the first half...
So does Bruno Senna have what it takes to be great? It's hard to tell how much of an effect that astonishing disadvantage of 11 years out of racing must have. And he was driving the worst car of all. But then in 2001, when Fernando Alonso drove the worst car of all in similar circumstances to Bruno, he was clearly able to display his talent. A better example is when the original Senna drove a Toleman to podium places in his first season in 1984, and would have beaten Prost who was driving a McLaren at the Monaco GP. So it does seem that if greatness is there, it can't be hidden forever.
Speed : 3 Racecraft: 3 Consistency: 4 OVERALL: 10
Senna was one of the first drivers to be signed for 2010, by Campos Meta 1 Team. It wasn't a secret that instead of Bruno paying money, the team would trade on his famous name instead. I too found that the resemblance between Bruno and his uncle was at times even chilling. Martin Brundle used the word "scary" when seeing Bruno in the car with his visor up.
Driving the worst car on the grid, he was never going to get that far. And so it proved, only qualifying twice in the top 20, and that was only because of penalties for others who had been faster. So the only point of reference was against his team mate Karun Chandhok. Senna would have been expected to be the better of the two, given that he and Chandhok had already been team-mates in GP2 in 2008. That year, Senna came 2nd in the championship with Chandhok 10th, with qualifying 7-3 in Senna's favour. Given that, and the fact that Chandhok was a very late signing, Senna would be ahead.
That is how it played out. However, while Senna consistently failed to finish races early on, Chandhok was bringing the car home more often than not, with a peak result of 14th in Australia. Unfortunately this, combined with the fact that Chandhok had made a real impact with F1 fans, showing a personality that impressed many, caused most to actually rate Chandhok as the better driver! What's more, he qualified very close behind Senna in Malaysia, and actually started ahead in Australia. In the remaining 7 races they did together, Chandhok outqualified Senna on to further occassions, contributing to the now widely held perception that Chandhok was better!
The facts however go in a different direction to that bandwagon. Qualifying was again 7-3 in Senna's favour, with the gap if anything larger than it was in GP2 - around 3 tenths or more. So then, Bruno was the victim of the inconsistency between perception and reality.
Races like Spain didn't help, when Bruno, having made a rocket start, slid straight off the road at turn 3 and out of the race. Worse still, when Chandhok was replaced by Sakon Yamamoto, Yamamoto outqualified him on one occasion, and got close to him once or twice besides that. Senna again suffered from perception, as the truth is that Sakon Yamomoto is actually not a hopeless case, and much of the criticism he receives is unfair. The killer though, was when a rusty Christian Klien took over from Yamamoto in Singapore, promptly blowing Senna away by around a second in qualifying. Senna also didn't compare favourably to Klien in qualifying in Klien's other two races either. Adding insult to injury was that Yamamoto's first race was in Senna's place, Senna having been dropped for an unknown reason. Apparently, he had been having a proper go at team principal Colin Kolles, ripping in to his management style in particular, to his friends by email. Trouble was, he then sent that email to Kolles by mistake! Oh well, we've all done something like that, eh...?
On the positive side, Senna on several occasions outperformed Lucas di Grassi in the definitely faster Virgin car, and his race drives tended to be more impressive than his qualifying.
All in all, his season did seem to tail off towards the end which was disappointing. Recently, Kolles stated that Senna will "100%" definitely not be driving for Hispania in 2011. So Senna wasn't forgiven for that email then... In fact now I think about it, even though Senna continued to drive for the team after being rested for Silverstone, relations between boss and driver must have been awful, and it could be that this undermined Bruno's performance, explaining why his end of the season was less impressive than the first half...
So does Bruno Senna have what it takes to be great? It's hard to tell how much of an effect that astonishing disadvantage of 11 years out of racing must have. And he was driving the worst car of all. But then in 2001, when Fernando Alonso drove the worst car of all in similar circumstances to Bruno, he was clearly able to display his talent. A better example is when the original Senna drove a Toleman to podium places in his first season in 1984, and would have beaten Prost who was driving a McLaren at the Monaco GP. So it does seem that if greatness is there, it can't be hidden forever.
Speed : 3 Racecraft: 3 Consistency: 4 OVERALL: 10
23.Vitantonio Liuzzi
I would personally consider Vitantonio Liuzzi's 2010 to be maybe the most disappointing of anyone on the entire grid - even more than Michael Schumacher's.
It seemed a slightly strange choice that he was signed in the first place, having had his chance in F1 and failed to make enough of it. It also seemed strange given he was chosen over more promising drivers like Paul di Resta. it turns out that when Force India signed Liuzzi as test driver at the start of 2008, apparently it was on a 4 year contract, with 2 years testing, then 2 racing. I truly cannot understand how they thought so much of Liuzzi they would sign him to that sort of long-term contract in the first place. It is true that he showed very good potential in the junior series, and looked like he could be an F1 star. But it seemed that his turn in F1 has rather shown he isn't really that great. Force India believed in him however and believed that there was a diamond in him.
Liuzzi did impress with his comeback drive at Monza in 2009, but really he was only equally matched with Sutil there, but well off his pace everywhere else. Most raved about his Monza drive, and it's true that he may have finished 3rd had a mechanical failure not put him out, but it's also true that one swallow doesn't make a summer. Well, if he could show in 2010 that he did have what he took, by performing at a similar level to Sutil, then his chance would at least be somewhat deserved. It seemed strange though that if Force India didn't choose di Resta, why they did not retain Giancarlo Fisichella instead. As it turned out, he would have been a much better choice and would have got the team 6th in the championship.
Tonio was well off Sutil's pace in the early races, but while his team mate failed to score in Bahrain and Australia through problems, Liuzzi collected a 9th and a 7th - results for which he was much lauded. I found it difficult to understand what the fuss was about, for if Sutil had enjoyed clean races, he would have scored better results. Over the whole season, Sutil scored more than twice as many points as Liuzzi. What's more, Tonio hardly ever qualified ahead of his fast, but not up with the very best team-mate. In fact, it seemed that it was he more than any other driver who was the one knocked out of Q1 with the new teams.
There was a reason for this he said. It was due to a season-long problem with his car. The team backed him up on this, and he looked to be vindicated when he qualified a superb 6th in Canada. The drive in Canada (an eventual 5th on the grid taking into account Webber's penalty did much to restore faith in Liuzzi, and I was prepared to give him a fresh chance to prove himself. But it never happened, apart from one more good drive in Korea (even that was from another rubbish grid position). Only these highlights, plus actually outqualifying Sutil at Monaco, keep Liuzzi from being ranked even lower down. It's not good enough to put in only a couple of good drives per season, and not world-beating ones at that, while spending the rest of the year being absolutely nowhere.
Even the fact that Liuzzi's 5th on the grid in Canada was spoiled by a first corner collision says a lot about him. These things tend not to happen to the best drivers, such as Alonso. It seems to be true that you do make your own good or bad fortune.
It was the fact that Tonio accomplished so little with what he had that was most disappointing, and it was his fault that Force India lost out on a top 6 finish in the constructors' championship. It was only the drives in Canada and Korea that put him ahead of Senna for me, and maybe di Grassi as well.
Speed : 3 Racecraft: 5 Consistency: 3 OVERALL: 11
It seemed a slightly strange choice that he was signed in the first place, having had his chance in F1 and failed to make enough of it. It also seemed strange given he was chosen over more promising drivers like Paul di Resta. it turns out that when Force India signed Liuzzi as test driver at the start of 2008, apparently it was on a 4 year contract, with 2 years testing, then 2 racing. I truly cannot understand how they thought so much of Liuzzi they would sign him to that sort of long-term contract in the first place. It is true that he showed very good potential in the junior series, and looked like he could be an F1 star. But it seemed that his turn in F1 has rather shown he isn't really that great. Force India believed in him however and believed that there was a diamond in him.
Liuzzi did impress with his comeback drive at Monza in 2009, but really he was only equally matched with Sutil there, but well off his pace everywhere else. Most raved about his Monza drive, and it's true that he may have finished 3rd had a mechanical failure not put him out, but it's also true that one swallow doesn't make a summer. Well, if he could show in 2010 that he did have what he took, by performing at a similar level to Sutil, then his chance would at least be somewhat deserved. It seemed strange though that if Force India didn't choose di Resta, why they did not retain Giancarlo Fisichella instead. As it turned out, he would have been a much better choice and would have got the team 6th in the championship.
Tonio was well off Sutil's pace in the early races, but while his team mate failed to score in Bahrain and Australia through problems, Liuzzi collected a 9th and a 7th - results for which he was much lauded. I found it difficult to understand what the fuss was about, for if Sutil had enjoyed clean races, he would have scored better results. Over the whole season, Sutil scored more than twice as many points as Liuzzi. What's more, Tonio hardly ever qualified ahead of his fast, but not up with the very best team-mate. In fact, it seemed that it was he more than any other driver who was the one knocked out of Q1 with the new teams.
There was a reason for this he said. It was due to a season-long problem with his car. The team backed him up on this, and he looked to be vindicated when he qualified a superb 6th in Canada. The drive in Canada (an eventual 5th on the grid taking into account Webber's penalty did much to restore faith in Liuzzi, and I was prepared to give him a fresh chance to prove himself. But it never happened, apart from one more good drive in Korea (even that was from another rubbish grid position). Only these highlights, plus actually outqualifying Sutil at Monaco, keep Liuzzi from being ranked even lower down. It's not good enough to put in only a couple of good drives per season, and not world-beating ones at that, while spending the rest of the year being absolutely nowhere.
Even the fact that Liuzzi's 5th on the grid in Canada was spoiled by a first corner collision says a lot about him. These things tend not to happen to the best drivers, such as Alonso. It seems to be true that you do make your own good or bad fortune.
It was the fact that Tonio accomplished so little with what he had that was most disappointing, and it was his fault that Force India lost out on a top 6 finish in the constructors' championship. It was only the drives in Canada and Korea that put him ahead of Senna for me, and maybe di Grassi as well.
Speed : 3 Racecraft: 5 Consistency: 3 OVERALL: 11
22.Sebastien Buemi
Almost totally anonymous, apart from his accident in China and leading Canada when the safety car mixed up the order.
Speed : 4 Racecraft: 3 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 12
Speed : 4 Racecraft: 3 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 12
21.Christian Klien
It might seem a surprise that Christian Klien actually never left F1 after being dropped by Red Bull Racing in the second half of 2006. During the past 4 years, Klien has been busy in the background as a test driver for a number of teams, keeping something of a foot in the door.
In 2010, he was chosen as "3rd driver" for Hispania, though with a ban on in-season testing, and with a drastic shortage of funds in the first place, it was hard to see how he could spend much time in the car, or how useful he could be. It didn't look good when Karun Chandhok reported that Klien, when he had taken the car for a spin, had added nothing extra to what the race drivers had described to the engineers.
But as Chandhok ran out of money and the number 20 car became available, Sakon Yamamoto took in the bulk of the remaining races. But for Singapore, Christian got his chance. And he took hold of it, immediately grabbing attention by blowing Senna away in qualifying by a second. He then got another chance in the final two races, outqualifying Senna again by 0.5s in Brazil.
Klien was widely regarded as having shown a very good account of himself. But maybe that shouldn't be that much of a surprise. In 2006, when he was dropped by Red Bull, David Coulthard publicy spoke out that Red Bull had given young Christian a pretty raw deal, and not given him the time he needed to grow and prove himself. That season, Klien had compared reasonably favourably to Coulthard in fastest laps and was not far off in qualifying. It was only the points tally that didn't look good. What is not very much recognised is that when Coulthard scored that famous 3rd place at Monaco that year, Christian had actually been running ahead of him, until he crashed near the end of the race. It was very nearly he, and not Coulthard, who got to wear the Superman cape...
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 4 Consistency: 5 OVERALL: 14
In 2010, he was chosen as "3rd driver" for Hispania, though with a ban on in-season testing, and with a drastic shortage of funds in the first place, it was hard to see how he could spend much time in the car, or how useful he could be. It didn't look good when Karun Chandhok reported that Klien, when he had taken the car for a spin, had added nothing extra to what the race drivers had described to the engineers.
But as Chandhok ran out of money and the number 20 car became available, Sakon Yamamoto took in the bulk of the remaining races. But for Singapore, Christian got his chance. And he took hold of it, immediately grabbing attention by blowing Senna away in qualifying by a second. He then got another chance in the final two races, outqualifying Senna again by 0.5s in Brazil.
Klien was widely regarded as having shown a very good account of himself. But maybe that shouldn't be that much of a surprise. In 2006, when he was dropped by Red Bull, David Coulthard publicy spoke out that Red Bull had given young Christian a pretty raw deal, and not given him the time he needed to grow and prove himself. That season, Klien had compared reasonably favourably to Coulthard in fastest laps and was not far off in qualifying. It was only the points tally that didn't look good. What is not very much recognised is that when Coulthard scored that famous 3rd place at Monaco that year, Christian had actually been running ahead of him, until he crashed near the end of the race. It was very nearly he, and not Coulthard, who got to wear the Superman cape...
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 4 Consistency: 5 OVERALL: 14
20.Pedro de la Rosa
An odd choice to lead the newly independent-ised Sauber team. You would have thought Peter Sauber would have retained his long serving driver Nick Heidfeld, who is better than de la Rosa in every way. But he chose not to, on the grounds that he wanted a fresh start! If not Heidfeld, a great choice would have been Giancarlo Fisichella who drove so well for Sauber in 2004 and who Sauber rated very highly. Even if he was getting on, and proved not to be as good as Fernando Alonso, he was still better than many drivers, including de la Rosa. The reason given for Sauber not choosing Fisichella was that he might be needed as a race driver at Ferrari if anything happened to the race drivers! These reasonings sounded peculiar and didn't quite sit right. It turns out that Pedro was chosen because Sauber wanted to rake from him the leaves of benefit of his extensive McLaren testing experience.
Pedro was understandably very rusty, having not raced since 2006 (and not full-time since 2002!) but in the first half of the season, he shaded the highly rated Kamui Kobayashi in qualifying. Unfortunately, like his Jaguar days, qualifying was as good as it got. His races were never as impressive, with his racecraft patchy, and more so given his lack of recent racing experience. There were too many silly scrapes and mistakes, and circumstances weren't solely to blame for Pedro's lack of results. He did finally get it together to deliver a good 7th place at the track on which he scored his greatest result of 2nd in 2006, at the Hungaroring. But by then, it was too little too late. And his drive at Spa - defined by mistakes again, wheareas Kobayashi came from the back to finish in the points, sealed his fate, and de la Rosa found himself dropped from the Sauber team, his comeback unceremoniously over.
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 3 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 14
Pedro was understandably very rusty, having not raced since 2006 (and not full-time since 2002!) but in the first half of the season, he shaded the highly rated Kamui Kobayashi in qualifying. Unfortunately, like his Jaguar days, qualifying was as good as it got. His races were never as impressive, with his racecraft patchy, and more so given his lack of recent racing experience. There were too many silly scrapes and mistakes, and circumstances weren't solely to blame for Pedro's lack of results. He did finally get it together to deliver a good 7th place at the track on which he scored his greatest result of 2nd in 2006, at the Hungaroring. But by then, it was too little too late. And his drive at Spa - defined by mistakes again, wheareas Kobayashi came from the back to finish in the points, sealed his fate, and de la Rosa found himself dropped from the Sauber team, his comeback unceremoniously over.
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 3 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 14
19.Vitaly Petrov
It says much about how competitive the Formula 1 field is these days that despite a season in which rookie Petrov showed some good promise, he is ranked here in 19th.
Speed : 4 Racecraft: 6 Consistency: 4 OVERALL: 14
Speed : 4 Racecraft: 6 Consistency: 4 OVERALL: 14
18.Jaime Alguersuari
The most improved driver of 2010 by a long way. Scored several 11th place finishes just outside the points in the second half of the season. Put in many racy performances which went unnoticed. Deserves more time to prove his worth.
Speed : 4 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 5 OVERALL: 15
Speed : 4 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 5 OVERALL: 15
17.Michael Schumacher
Coming Soon...
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 5 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 16
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 5 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 16
16.Nico Hulkenberg
Coming Soon...
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 5 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 16
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 5 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 16
15.Nick Heidfeld
Coming Soon...
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 6 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 18
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 6 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 18
14.Jarno Trulli
Coming Soon...
Speed : 7 Racecraft: 5 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 18
Speed : 7 Racecraft: 5 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 18
13.Kamui Kobayashi
A pleasant surprise was the fact that one of Kamui's strongest facets, as told by the team, was his ability to stay out of trouble and bring the car home.
Though it seemed disappointing that the rookie should have trailed De la Rosa slightly in qualifying, in fact he actually did very well, as Pedro is not a slow driver, despite being a little rusty. And anyway, in the second half of the season when Kamui was finding his feet, he found more speed and would have matched or beaten de la Rosa for speed in the end, had the F1 returnee not been sacked after the Belgian GP. But where Kobayashi really trumped him was in the races. His racecraft really showed up De la Rosa, and the team trusted Kamui so much, they based their strategies around his racing skill and ability to overtake.
It was noteworthy that in their 5 races together, Kobayashi outqualified Nick Heidfeld in every one. Even though Nick had reasons, the consistency with which Kobayashi was ahead - and stayed ahead in the races - deserves praise.
It was most impressive indeed that just about every one of his audacious manoeveures (spelling?) did actually come off. Very unlike his country's predecessor Takuma Sato, who was lauded for his "overtaking moves", a great many of which only ruined his colleagues' races, and in the cold light of day were only foolish and reckless, rather than brave.
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 19
Though it seemed disappointing that the rookie should have trailed De la Rosa slightly in qualifying, in fact he actually did very well, as Pedro is not a slow driver, despite being a little rusty. And anyway, in the second half of the season when Kamui was finding his feet, he found more speed and would have matched or beaten de la Rosa for speed in the end, had the F1 returnee not been sacked after the Belgian GP. But where Kobayashi really trumped him was in the races. His racecraft really showed up De la Rosa, and the team trusted Kamui so much, they based their strategies around his racing skill and ability to overtake.
It was noteworthy that in their 5 races together, Kobayashi outqualified Nick Heidfeld in every one. Even though Nick had reasons, the consistency with which Kobayashi was ahead - and stayed ahead in the races - deserves praise.
It was most impressive indeed that just about every one of his audacious manoeveures (spelling?) did actually come off. Very unlike his country's predecessor Takuma Sato, who was lauded for his "overtaking moves", a great many of which only ruined his colleagues' races, and in the cold light of day were only foolish and reckless, rather than brave.
Speed : 5 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 6 OVERALL: 19
12.Timo Glock
Coming Soon...
Speed : 6 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 20
Speed : 6 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 20
11.Adrian Sutil
Coming Soon...
Speed : 7 Racecraft: 6 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 20
Speed : 7 Racecraft: 6 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 20
10.Felipe Massa
Coming Soon...
Speed : 7 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 21
Speed : 7 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 21
9.Heikki Kovalainen
Coming Soon...
Speed : 7 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 21
Speed : 7 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 21
8.Rubens Barrichello
Coming Soon...
Speed : 8 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 22
Speed : 8 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 7 OVERALL: 22
7.Nico Rosberg
Coming Soon...
Speed : 8 Racecraft: 8 Consistency: 8 OVERALL: 24
Speed : 8 Racecraft: 8 Consistency: 8 OVERALL: 24
6.Jenson Button
Coming Soon...
Speed : 8 Racecraft: 9 Consistency: 8 OVERALL: 25
Speed : 8 Racecraft: 9 Consistency: 8 OVERALL: 25
5.Mark Webber
Coming Soon...
Speed : 9 Racecraft: 8 Consistency: 8 OVERALL: 25
Speed : 9 Racecraft: 8 Consistency: 8 OVERALL: 25
4.Sebastian Vettel
Coming Soon...
Speed : 10 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 8 OVERALL: 25
Speed : 10 Racecraft: 7 Consistency: 8 OVERALL: 25
3.Robert Kubica
Coming Soon...
Speed : 9 Racecraft: 9 Consistency: 8 OVERALL: 26
Speed : 9 Racecraft: 9 Consistency: 8 OVERALL: 26
2.Lewis Hamilton
Coming Soon...
Speed : 10 Racecraft: 8 Consistency: 9 OVERALL: 27
Speed : 10 Racecraft: 8 Consistency: 9 OVERALL: 27
1.Fernando Alonso
Coming Soon...
Speed : 9 Racecraft: 9 Consistency: 9 OVERALL: 27
Speed : 9 Racecraft: 9 Consistency: 9 OVERALL: 27