Poll 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend.

Driver of the Weekend: Malaysia

  • Vettel

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Webber

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Button

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Hamilton

    Votes: 3 5.1%
  • Alonso

    Votes: 22 37.3%
  • Massa

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Schumacher

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Rosberg

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Raikkonen

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Grosjean

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Di Resta

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Hulkenberg

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Kobayashi

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Perez

    Votes: 30 50.8%
  • Ricciardo

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Vergne

    Votes: 1 1.7%
  • Maldonado

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Senna

    Votes: 2 3.4%
  • Kovalainen

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Petrov

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Glock

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Pic

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • De La Rosa

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Karthikeyan

    Votes: 1 1.7%

  • Total voters
    59
Alonso Qualified 12th at Aus and P8 in Malaysia. The car was pretty good today, at least for the first 10 laps or so after the restart but i think the pace shown by Alonso today actually flattered the car more then anything

What about the pace that he showed in all of the practice sessions? The car will only go as fast as the car will go. A driver cannot drive it any faster than that. He may have got the most out of it which is commendable but the car was certainly not slower than the pace it was being driven at. That wouldn't make any sense. The qualifying position is also not necessarily indicative of race pace and the differing conditions must also be taken into account.
 
I thought that there were a few good performances this weekend.

Lewis, on pole again, and a strong performance in the race, let down by the pit work.
Alonso drove a strong race, and the Ferrari pit work made a huge difference.
Perez put a big smile on my face, watching him chase down Alonso, and despite his mistake, to finish second in a Sauber is a fantastic result, so he got my vote.
 
I have gone for Alonso. Just when I think he may be slightly past it, he puts in a great drive and forces me to rethink.

Kudos to Webber, whom a large number of people on this site were writing off as over-the-hill, and a waste of a good ride just last year! I guess a re-think is due on their part.

Finally, a great job by Perez! If not for his mistake, he would have gotten my vote.
 
Sorry to buck the trend and although tempted to go for Perez or Alonso my vote for driver of the weekend has to go to Hamilton, He dominated practise and qualifying. He also made a decent start to lead the race and a led after a good restart after the safety car only to be let down by a dodgy pitstop and delayed release thanks to traffic in pit-lane. Looked after his tyres for the rest of the race to finish on the podium scoring healthy championship points in a race in which it could have gone horribly more wrong - as demonstrated by the fortunes of his equally talented and somewhat more experienced team-mate.

Drivers of the day were for me Raikkonen, Perez and Alonso. - not necessarily in that order. :)
 
Only one vote for Bruno? I voted for Perez but I've got no idea who I'd choose for second between him and Alonso. This is the first and only time so far that he's really impressed me and also justified his place on the grid.

Williams could have a chunk of extra points but for the grace of God, yet they're still 7th in the standings. I'll be interested to see what happens when Bruno and The Pastor both have a good day simultaneously.
 
I have to go along with Fenderman regarding driver of the.....weekend, but for the day.....Fernando, who put in a fantastic drive in that truck, to pull off a totally unexpected win.
 
I actually (as usual) have a few candidates:

There's the main ones, with Alonso, Perez and Senna, but I thought Vergne, Raikkonen and Maldonado (yes Maldonado) drove very well too.
Here's why:

Alonso - Like Monaco 2011, I did not consider him for the race victory at all even when he was leading until the latter stages, I thought Hamilton and the Red Bulls would gain on him, but they never did. Qualified 9th? Or 8th? Or was promoted to 8th after the penalty?

Fernando Alonso was 7th in the Fastest Lap standings and 8th in Qualification. He finished 97 seconds clear of his team-mate. He leads the Championship in a car that has been ridiculed for the first fortnight of this season. He was in a car that was at no point the fastest, but he won. Incredible! I really cannot vote any other way.
- Tetley's Teabag yokel.
Perez - Got into the top 10, this is just a wee bonus point for me, unlike other midfielders that usually get into the top 10, he actually set a qualifying lap in Q3. Astonishing pace, like Alonso, I did not consider him for victory or a even a podium when he was up in second, thought it was a lucky strategy call and he would undoubtedly slip back. But he proved The Sly wrong (getting proved wrong happens constantly to me LOL ) , really should have won the race, but he just pushed too much and got excited, a bit like Grosjean although to a lesser extent. Not only that, he was apparently told by his "future employers to stay put", yet he still closed the gap to his "future team-mate" :p

Senna - Out qualified by Frankenstein, but his pace like Perezezezez was great, was dead last for the first 13 laps, came through the field charging (HE WAS ON A CHARGE!!!) completing some nice overtakes and earned himself his best finish in F1 to date.

Maldonado - Out-qualified Senna, had a great start and was up into fifth, lost out in the pistops and was fell down to 14th, made his way up to 10th, either he collided with someone, or it was him missing his pitbox entry (I did not see it, but Galahad and TBY mentioned it) which contributed him being in 19th, nevertheless he made his way through the field and was up in to tenth lapping faster than his team-mate until his egnine problemo.

Vergne - Well the Toro Rosso's looked strong in practice, but the opposite in qualifying for whatever reasons, started 18th, made his way up into 10th, then stayed out brilliantly on the intermediates, and never left the track unlike those on full wets going off even when the safety car was out! Managed to stay calm and scored his first ever world championship points finishing in 8th.

Raikkonen - Started 10th, on the backfoot throughout the weekend, out qualified his team-mate, and never used the intermediate tyres or wet tyres before, yet he managed to finish in 5th comfortably, even with a KERS issue at the start of the Grand Prix. Got the fastest lap of the race, elevating him to 3rd in the all time fastest laps, rather than joint 3rd with Alain Prost.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought some drivers may have been overlooked, and I am struggling on who to give it to.

Alonso or Perez?

Think I will give it to Jean-Eric Vergne. :)
 
Rain is a great leveler of car performance but it doesn't turn good cars into bad ones and there were at least six, possibly eight cars on the grid that were better than the Ferrari, including the Sauber. Great drive from Perez but the driver of the GP has to be Alonso. Will anyone see which way he went if Ferrari can put the car under him he deserves. There's no doubt in my mind he's driving better than he's ever driven before.
 
Candidates are
Lewis, aced quali, good start and put Button in his place on track, only to lose the place to him off track. This might have had the contrivance of his team to thank however if I had suspected something like that would happen then Lewis should have also and shouldn't let his team continue to give him second class service. However he did seem to go into 'stay out of trouble, nick some points' mode. So he did very well but this time it's hard to give it to him as other drivers had more effective races

Alonso, did the best he could, shows his class. Can't give it to him because of the déjà vu feeling, maybe wrongly, invoked by the FISTY (Fernando is slower than you, do you understand?

Perez, made me smile, this is what we want to see, real drama and a young Turk defying the odds and showing us something new and exciting, his tyre management and calmness. Clear mistake with the off which could be down to the fact that he is not as good as Massa at bending over, also his car was by far the fastest in those conditions for some period

Button, oops sorry wrong thread LOL

Senna, answered his critics the only way possible, to carve through the field cleanly in those conditions, where WCs with experience are quick to tangle with slower drivers is commendable, it's the type of drive that could have a team principal blushing and gushing with tears, describing it as the most fantastic drive in the history of F1

So because of the pressure on Senna to be worthy of the name and because of the marker he put down which can no longer be ascribed to luck, it's got to be Senna
 
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