Top 10 drivers of the season

[Spinodontosaurus]

Just realised that I didn't actually post my own Top 10, I only reposted someone else's. Oops. My Top 10 excludes some popular choices so I'll rate all of them instead, with closely fought drivers being grouped together:

1. Alonso
2. Vettel
3. Hamilton

4. Button
5. Ricciardo
6. Kvyat
7. Rosberg

8. Grosjean
9. Bottas
10. Raikkonen
11. Massa

12. Nasr
13. Verstappen
14. Perez

15. Hulkenberg
16. Rossi

17. Sainz
18. Maldonado
19. Ericsson

20. Merhi
21. Stevens
(N/A. Magnussen)

Counting only Australia-Hungary, where the Toro Rosso was superior to the Red Bull in 8/10 races, Ricciardo scored an average of 5.67 points per 'counting' race, Kvyat 5.63, Verstappen 3.14 and Sainz 1.50. 'Counting' race = any where the driver did not suffer a mechanical DNF.
Thus I rated Verstappen's season much lower than Ricciardo/Kvyat. Of course, I also rated the latter pair 5th and 6th, so I am comparing Verstappen as a rookie to two of the best drivers on the grid.
This also reflect really badly on Sainz, scoring less than half of Verstappen's points per race, so I rate his season very poorly. The same relative scoring trends remains if I instead count the whole season (mechanical DNFs excluded of course).

Nasr I feel has been overlooked. He beat Ericcson about as comfortably as Kobayashi did, but Nasr was a rookie whilst it was Ericsson who was the rookie last year when matched against Kobayashi. So Nasr may already be better than Kobayashi, and since Perez was very closely matched with Kobayashi I rate Nasr's season quite highly.
In terms of talent to watch for the future, everybody has their eye on Verstappen, and they should given this was only his 2nd ever year of car racing but Nasr is one to watch too, and his large amount of financial backing makes him a very attractive proposition for midfield teams.

I also consider Perez and Hulkenberg vastly overrated. They've each had 5 seasons in the sport and have demonstrated themselves to be no more than midfielders. Surely it is time to bring in fresh or otherwise unfulfilled talents? Vandoorne, Vergne, Magnussen, Nasr, Frijns and others. I mean, the same obviously foes for Maldonado too, but he clearly doesn't deserve an F1 seat and saying "at least I'm not Maldonado" is not a very good defence.

 

[racecub]

That's some unusual choices there. But each to his own .
I mean, I'm sorry but Alonso first? And Button fourth? I know the McLaren was a dog but even so.......
And VERSTAPPEN 13th!
Hamilton irritates people so I'm used to folk putting him down.
Perez only 14th! Ee gads!
It's subjective, so fair enough. I just struggle with that.

 

[Spinodontosaurus]

Alonso has been the class of field unquestionably in my opinion every year since 2007. This year is harder to judge due to the poor car and horrendous reliability, so him being on top is mostly a holdover from previous seasons, although this wasn't his best season either in my opinion. Button is 4th for much the same reason, with me rating him above Ricciardo/Kvyat due to him keeping Alonso within touching distance, while Ricciardo was much more mistake prone than last season.

I don't see what is outrageous about rating Verstappen 13th. He was spectacular to watch, but that didn't stop him being heavily outscored by the Red Bull boys when they were saddled with an inferior chassis. Besides, 13th for a rookie is very good, especially in the current climate where testing is limited and the talent pool is very deep.

With Hamilton, I rated him 2nd at mid season (after Hungary), and strongly considered keeping him there for the end of year list. In the end though his end season 'slump' convinced me to rate Vettel ahead, but there is very little in it (those two are actually the main reason I split the listing into groups, to highlight the fact I rated them very closely).

I mentioned that I consider Perez overrated. I mean, what has he done in F1? He has been closely matched by two mediocre team mates (Kobayashi, Hulkenberg) and was beaten convincingly by Button. Perez scored 67% of Button's points, the same gap as between Vettel/Webber, and was outraced 11-5. Whilst Grosjean for instance was also badly beaten by a top driver (Raikkonen), he was a rookie in one of those seasons and showed clear signs of improving to the point of matching Raikkonen in the latter stages of 2013. Perez showed no such signs.

 

[Il_leone]

I should add the Autosport list is based on Team Principals ranking them 1 to 10 and they are not allowed to chose their own drivers

So be interesting to see how SKy and BBC rate theirs

 

[racecub]

I can hazard a guess at how Sky and BBC will go.
But Im not going to.

 

[Il_leone]

Top 10 current F1 drivers ranked - where does Lewis Hamilton appear?

This ranking is based on their current abilities - interestingly neither Grosjean, Hulkenberg or Perez feature

 

[Il_leone]

Motorsport.com's Top 10 F1 drivers of 2015 - Part 1

Motorsport.com's Top 10 F1 drivers of 2015 - Part 2

 

[Il_leone]

Top Ten Formula 1 Drivers of 2015

F1 driver ratings: 2015 averages

 

[Il_leone]

Top 10 F1 drivers of 2015 - Read Motorsport
ESPN's Top 10 drivers of 2015

 

[FB]

The Autocourse Top 10 is:

1. Hamilton
2. Vettel
3. Ricciardo
4. Rosberg
5. Grosjean
6. Verstappen
7. Alonso
8. Bottas
9. Kvyat
10. Perez

As chosen by Tony Dodgins, Autocourse Editor.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Clearly I'm missing something about Alonso's season. That's obviously why I'm not a motorsport journo. Apparently pounding around at the back, making sarcastic radio calls and at times, begging to be alowed to park the car, makes you the 7th best driver of the year. Very strange.

 

[FB]

There's an interesting bit in the review of the Japanese GP in Autocourse where Maurice Hamilton describes Alonso's outburst as "petulant" which I think understates it a bit. The comparison with the effect Vettel had on Ferrari compared to Fernando's time there is also quite damning of the Spaniard.

 

[Bill Boddy]

I think you will find FB that the early season's of Alonso's time at Ferrari were extremely cordial in both directions. Ot was only later when it became clear that Ferrari were not going to produce a winner with the team that they had thet things turned sour. If the resu;ts for Vettel go the same way I presume that he would be full of the jpys of spring?

 

[Bill Boddy]

My top 10 drivers of the season.

1. Mercedes factory
2 Mercedes factory
3 Ferrari factory
4 Ferrari factory
5 Mercedes customer
6 Mercedes customer
7 Red Bull Racing aerodynamics
8 Red Bull Racing aerodynamics
9 Mercedes customer
10 Mercedes customer

You can put any driver's name in any position.

 

[Olivier]

Since I'm at work and things are really slow, I've decided to create a summary of all the postings; a little bit like tapping into the Wisdom of the Crowds. I apologize to Road of Bones but his list had only 1 entry and to triart3d as I didn't know what list he was referring to.

Without further ado, this is the result:

 

[RasputinLives]

Riccardo at 3 with his younger team mate who beat him at 9? Have I missed something?

 

[Il_leone]

its easy to point to the points tally but the three races where Ricciardo looked like he could challenge Mercedes he suffered bad luck - Hungary, Spa and Monaco

-------------------------
FB How many drivers would have got the Ferrari to finish 2nd in the drivers championship 3 times in 5 years like Alonso did?

The problem was when Luca decided things must be done the Italian way and it began a slow decline. Vettel with Arrivabene and Marchionne seems to have taken a different approach and its working so far . So lets see how long he can maintain it without the finger pointing/ scapegoating that usually comes with Ferrari for not delivering

 

[Spinodontosaurus]

Riccardo at 3 with his younger team mate who beat him at 9? Have I missed something?

Ricciardo suffered an extra mechanical DNF compared to Kvyat. It is quite likely that Ricciardo could have outscored Kvyat had they had the same number of mechanical DNFs.
Ricciardo scored 5.75 points per 'counting' race (92/16) whilst Kvyat scored 5.59 (95/17), Ricciardo was also ahead 11-7 in the qualifying battle and they tied 7-7 in races.

Ricciardo also suffered slightly worse luck; F1Metrics' attempts to correct this yielded a 9-7 race tally and 130-105 points tally, both in Ricciardo's favour.

The pair were very closely matched, but I believe that Ricciardo had a very slight edge. As for why Ricciardo keeps getting ranked much higher than Kvyat despite this, I don't know. It's probably a visibility thing, where people remember Ricciardo's highlights more due to them being more spectacular to watch. E.g. Ricciardo finished behind Kvyat fair and square in Hungary yet all people remember about the Red Bull pair that race is Ricciardo's overtaking and him being faster than Kvyat.
This same bias more obviously rears its head when we look at Verstappen. He's been ranked ahead of Ricciardo and Kvyat in many ranking lists, but he was heavily outscored by them during the part of the season where he had a faster car. But he's a rookie, and very young, and pulled off a bunch of spectacular moves, so everyone takes notice of him. Then you have the likes of Nasr who quietly did his thing and completely thrashed Ericsson in the process, but he seemed to be invisible to most people.

 

[Titch]

I'm still trying to fathom Alonso appearing so high up in some lists. Is this a top 10 of drivers driving, or a top 10 of "off the cuff" remarks?

 

[Spinodontosaurus]

If you accept that car performance is the primary factor in this sport then Alonso appearing highly on ranking lists isn't hard to believe.

We know that Alonso is one of the best, if not the best driver on the grid right now, that hasn't changed just because the car was terrible this year. Unless he has an absolutely terrible season (akin to Vettel's 2014) then there is very little doubt that he will be in the top 3 best performing drivers in any given season. Whilst he may not have had his best season ever, he was still very impressive and had several very strong races e.g. Japan, Hungary, Singapore, Texas and Malaysia. He also had a fairly large advantage over Button, although the points tally doesn't reflect it.
He had a single bad race in Abu Dhabi, but Hamilton and Vettel both had bad races too (Hungary for Hamilton, Bahrain and Mexico for Vettel). The only other sensible contenders for a Top 3 spot this year are Button and the Red Bull pair.