Poll Rookie of the season 2012

Rookie of the season 2012?


  • Total voters
    29
  • Poll closed .

landogeorgelewis1

Champion Elect
Who was your Rookie of the season this year?

Your options are:

Romain Grosjean:
A visitor to the podium on a couple of occasions this year. He is still classed as a rookie as this was his first season in F1.

Daniel Ricciardo:
Who may have had half a season under his belt but really this is a rookie season. He's done okay this season and has scored some points this year that has been rewarded with another season for Toro Rosso.

Jean Eric Vergne:
Very much a rookie this year. He has had a decent season and looks slowly like he's becoming the part. He too has also been rewarded with a second season at Toro Rosso.

Charles Pic:
Despite been in an horrific car, Pic has managed to surprise his more experienced team-mate Glock on a few occasions. His form was spotted by rivals Caterham and has signed up with them for the 2013 season.

Who has been your Rookie of the season?
 
Honestly, none of them really stood out. I'd say Grosjean but he has had too many crashes and mistakes to really be the rookie of the season for me.

The two Toro Rosso drivers were both okay but I don't really know who the better of them was this season - they're pretty close imo.

Pic has been impressive at times I guess (that's what I hear) but it's hard to stand out in a terrible car and I haven't really been following him.

I think I'd have to vote for one of the TR drivers but I have no idea who so I'm going to postpone voting for now :dunno:
 
Grosjean's first half was good but after getting the ban it seemed to have knocked his confidence a bit

Pic - He has shown he can match and beat Glock but its very difficult to tell about his potential

Ricciardo - Was expecting a lot more from him having been highly rated by Red Bull and earmarked as a future Vettel replacement and world champion . A return of 10 pts is poor for him. His one true spark was qualifying an impressive 6th in Bahrain but has not come near that form

Vergne - supposedly the most potential in the Red Bull young drivers programme and took a while to get going certainly not a match in quali but more impressive race days and matching Ricciardo

a good psychological blow is he finished above Ricciardo in the battle to replace Mark Webber as Helmut Marko desires
 
No standout really.

Grosjean went from high to low.

Ricciardo's been steady.

Vergne's missing half of the time.

Pic has apparently excelled against Glock and has high praise, no disrespect to him, I've rarely been paying attention to the three new teams, infact, not even Toro Rosso either.

I would give it to Ricciardo, not seen him do many stupid things, been there to pick up the pieces and grab the low end points, if it wasn't for Malaysia and the strategy by Toro Rosso, he would be ahead of Vergne who's been shocking in qualifying, and ok in the races.
 
I'd like to nominate Valterri Bottas for the rookie of the year award.......oh hang on I've put that in a year early haven't I?

I don't think their is really a contet here is there? Even taking into account that he is in a better car than the rest has either of the other 3 come close to the performances that Grosjean has in Canada or Bahrain? Can any of the other 3 match the consistancy of 15 top ten qualis out of 19? Can any of them boast having kept pace in quali with a team mate of Kimi's talent?

Yes he's had some shocking errors and yes as the season came to a close he was driving scared but its the rookie of the season award so give the poor lad his dues.
 
Let's be honest we haven't seen many brilliant rookies for a few years. Maybe Perez been the exception but not since Lewis Hamilton and Vettel has they been an outstanding rookie to enter f1 since.

But I think i'm in agreement with RasputinLives, here and that Romain Grosjean does deserve to be rookie of the year.
 
Not sure why Grosjeans should get it, he's been woeful at times and achieved podiums when the car was at its most optimum.

He's been inconsistent and of the boil, add to that, out of all of them he's had the best car by some margin, and was the only one to get trounced by a team-mate. Although to be fair Kimi is class and a world champion.

If you take into account that Ricciardo's had half a season the same could be said for Grosjean too.

He might look to be the most promising out of them all, but he's had the car to do so, hence why the others have been under the radar as they've all been in cars that aren't competitive.
 
It might be relevant to add Maldonado, Perez, Di Resta and Hulkenberg in to the mix here I think, i.e. the drivers who had completed no more than one full season in F1 prior to this year.

Maldonado has shown the biggest improvement IMO, he's gone from looking slow and reckless last year, to fast and reckless for the first half of this year and finally to fast and verging on sensible in the second half of this year. I was expecting Senna to beat him at the start of the season and was pretty harsh about what I thought of Maldonado keeping his seat. He's proved me wrong. Hulkenberg on the other hand has probably been the most impressive overall thanks to his strong end to the year and the fact he's got in to far less accidents than most of the rest! I find it very hard to analyse the performance of the Toro Rosso drivers and Pic in the cars they were driving, but I do think Ricciardo has the edge over Vergne, at least so far.

That leaves Grosjean, Perez and Di Resta. To compare with Maldonado, I don't think Grosjean has yet progressed beyond the fast and reckless stage but he certainly is fast. I'm not sure whether it's more or less worrying that he seems to be getting in to collisions by 'accident' rather than from malicious intent / the red mist descending like Maldonado 'used' to. Perez was having an excellent season, picking up a couple of very impressive podiums, but as soon as the McLaren announcement was made he seemed to go completely off the rails. I hope for his sake he can turn it around. Finally, Di Resta will be very disappointed with his performances compared to Hulkenberg in the second half of the season. He's still a bright prospect but he'll have to turn things round in 2013 to maintain people's high opinions of him.

It's difficult to put them all in any sort of proper order as there have been such highs and lows for most of them!
 
The only true rookies for this season are Vergne and Pic, and honestly none of them have impressed me, so I'll abstain from voting in this one.
 
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