Terrible. Just terrible......

KIMI 8 and Kubica 5?????? Kimi IMO 1 or at least in the top 3. This is a disgrace.

Yes, I'm sorry for the rest of the world that British drivers have such world title pwnage.

Kubica is the only major anomaly on that list. I suppose it depends who compiled it. If it was Mark Hughes he is a huge Kubica fan so that may explain his high ranking.

I'm having a good chuckle at those getting so hot under the collar at the list though. It's the opinion of one man. I'm sure on this forum we've already had a top 10 driver thread and I doubt anybdoy had the same list.

Personally, I've always found their top 50 drivers of the year list to be more of a bad joke than their F1 list.

*Edit- I wouldn't put Webber so high either...

Oh come on, Autosport in the past always put British drivers like Schumacher as their number 1.

This is an opinion.

They didnt make the progess they did last year because renault stopped developing the car at mid season to focus on the 2010 car. Its a bit hard for Alonso to put the work in when the team stops developing the car.

A team mate is always the best yard stick. If not what is.

At silverstone I remember him having massive battles with Heidfeld and Hamilton as he tried to overtake them, driving all over the track. Not exactly the type of behaviour from someone who didnt want to be around.

It was upper mid pack for a few races earlier in the season, but only a few. On average it was one of the worst with only force india consistently worse.

You would be mistaken.

The Heidfeld vs Kubica (or Räikkönen etc.) comparison keeps coming up in every second thread. Can't we at least agree that both are very consistent and fast drivers? Each side can find arguments why "their" driver is better, but as someone who follows them quite closely I honestly believe that there is not much between them. They are different in their style and strengths, but overall have similar performance.

Barrichello 9th is just disrespectful.

You will never be able to get the Polish brigade to agree to this.
Nor Autosport. Ranking RK 5th and NH not at all.

1. Hamilton Amazing 9
2. Raikonnen Where did he pull that from??? 9
3. Vettel Will he be the complete package soon? 8.5
4. Rosberg Maybe I'm blinded 8
5. Button Just give me a decent car! 8
6. Massa (unlucky loss of points 8+?)
7. Webber Typically determined Aussie 8
8. Barrichello On his day 7.5
9. Sutil Much promise 7.5
10. Heidfeld Ever delivering 7.5

The Autosport journos have paid the Williams car a huge compliment by placing Rosberg so low IMHO. I believe it to be about the 5th or 6th best car of the year overall but maybe it was 3rd best and Nico was rubbish and should have ended up 5th.

Rosberg was vying for 5th in WDC behind the Brawns and the RedBulls until the wheels fell off the team at Monza, Spa and Abu Dhabi and so on. From having a good midfield car through much of the season Williams ended up with a back of the grid car which was frankly awful. Rosberg made one little but costly driver error all season at Singapore costing him 8 points. Nakajima scored zero. I have been a cautiously impressed fan of Nico because he hasn't had a teammate of measure since Webber when he was a promising rookie.

Webber earned my displeasure by at least twice driving another driver off the track in a questionable move. Drive of year was Kimi at Spa for driving a POC Ferrari to the win under extreme pressure from Fisi. (any of the top 6 would have been capable of taking the FI to victory that day)

Honorable mention Seb Buemi for Rookie of Year.
Heidfeld for perseverance in a bad car.
"Goodbye, time to move on" prize to Fisi for proving to be the driver with the wrong Latin passion. Winning is everything Giancarlo, hope you find a nice village to retire to.

I agree. Different types of driver. Heidfeld consistent, Kubica blindingly quick on some days, possibly a bit lazy, I had him 11th a poofteenth behind NH. KR is like that aspect of RK but a level up IMHO.

Yep and to add insult to injury they promote a liar to the top of the list..................

You're brave to dismiss Alonso's 2009 where his fans are so strong in their shouting down. But I totally agree - I thought Fred was frankly uninterested as the season wore on where Hamilton never gave up. (He did have a Ferrari contract in his pocket after all.) Maybe Kimi is lucky to get my nod for runner up given he didn't fare well against Felipe until the car development seemed to come to his style. Will his sacking look like a bad move by Ferrari down the track next year? Maybe.... he was the old Kimi again in the second half.

Disagree on Webber who earned his two wins but blotted his logbook at Interlagos with a very clumsy move on Kimi.
Disagree on Glock who DQed himself from top 10 at Suzuka, a very poor error but still a promising driver of the future.
Disagree on Button displacing Hamilton and Raikonnen and Vettel who are in another level. Jenson's was an excellent but not starring performance in a very good team, the WCCs. He will be made to look second tier against Hamster next year IMHO.
Vettel at RedBull will be a solid contender for 2010 WDC IMO.

Of course nobody will agree with anybody else over a top 10 list but I have to say that our 2009 Voting Championship result http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=118580 looks at least more truthful than the sh.tlist Autosport has produced.

It's very mysterious how Fernando Alonso is so overrated even in official things like this AUTOSPORT's list.

If we look at Kimi's performances with poor Ferrari and Fernando's with poor Renault... Day and night.

After the top 4-5 it can be anybody, button, vettel and lewis all had mixed seasons, going from poor to supreme.

I'd stick them all equal first, below them webber, erm, kimi, Kobayashi and thats about it, except for rubens maybe.

Huh? Last year's best driver wasn't Lewis... it was Alonso (or Kubica, can't exactly remember).

Furthermore, it seems many of you haven't seen the beginning of the season. Hamilton had great drives in Australia (18th, finished 3rd), Bahrain (top 5), Malaysia (from far away to the points), China (6th in a car without any grip in the wet, as we've seen in Brazil). He did have lackluster performances in Spain, Turkey and Britain, but that's mostly due to the car. He was beaten once on track by his teammate, and scored twice as many points, and ended up the highest scoring driver in the second half of the season (bar Abu Dhabi).

There's one important fact about Hamilton... he rarely lost track position, even when the car was poor. He's among the best in terms of gains during the race, along with Button. I don't have the stats, but someone here probably has it.

Rosberg had a far better car than Alonso in 2009, yet only scored 8 more points and unlike Alonso didnt even get a podium, yet your raving about him, and totally ignoring Alonso? You clearly have a strong dislike for Alonso and its clouding your judgment. You claim, Alonso was uninterested, but what do you base this on? He consistently destroyed his team mates and unlike nakajima they were not pay drivers and had successful pre F1 careers. He was visibly on track consistently pushing, fighting the car, and opposition so to claim he was 'uninterested' is laughable, and based on nothing but delusion. Maybe you are just confused and cannot differentiate between a poor car and poor driving. Your opinion has zero foundation, you just plucked it out of thin air. This place is a laugh and your list is a joke.

Their cars were day and night. So were kimis and massa's points totals before massa got injured.

A post said that Heidfeld's second was lucky and in many ways it was, the rain coming down heavy enough with Nick's wets shot. However he had made the right decision to stay on them when others had pitted for inters and then in Brazil, Kubica drove a great race, but also remember that on the first lap, 3 cars in front of him crashed. That is also luck and both times the drivers got the result they deserved through making the right call. I have to agree though that a 10th/11th would be right for Heidfeld/Kubica. There's just not much between them.

The fact that Kimi's teammates from Germany onwards appeared either not to be up to the task or completely ill at ease with the car, makes it hard to quantify the size of his achievment.

1. Button - he might have had a car advantage at the start, but he did almost as much as he could with 6 wins and a third. I believe from Turkey to the end of the season, despite Rubens having the upper hand suposedly, Jenson outscores him. Jenson isn't the quickest or most talented driver on the grid, I don't believe he will become a "great", but he had a chance to win the WDC, perhaps his only chance and he took it.
2. Vettel - took 4 wins, but because they were so spaced out it does seem less than that. Red Bull was undoubtedly a good car, and Vettel made a few too many mistakes, but he also was very quick.
3. Hamilton - Kovalainen was nowhere apart from Valencia whilst Hamilton has multiple poles and podiums. Liegate might have put him down two places, but decided to just go with the actual driving.
4. Kimi Raikkonen - outscored by Massa upto and I believe including Hungary, then notched a run of podiums including one win. His teammates were either hopeless (Badoer) or ill at ease with the car (Fisi), so it's difficult to judge just how good he was and how much was the Ferrari reaching it's peak competitiveness. Woud have considered Fisi for 10th on the list had he stayed and performed with a known Force India rather than the forlorn figure of the last six races.
5. Nico Rosberg - hard one to judge. Was Nakajima just completely hopeless and Nico mediocre with a good Williams. I don't know. With his teammate in 2010 lookkng likely to be a more known quantity, we'll find out, but 34.5-0
6. Mark Webber - was looking good for a title challenge, but then a 5 race streak, half-team, half-Webber induced without points ruined everything. Fact is though is he is now a GP winner etc and all with a mangled leg.
7. Rubens Barrichello - I believe the story was actually in the end better than the performance. He had us believing after 2 wins in 3 races late-mid season and a pole, but in the end his results ended up being not too much better than Button when he needed to be closing and why did he need to close - because he hadn't got things sorted in the first part of the season. I know about the break problems I believe, but everyone has a reason for their performance and the truth is that when he could have been racking up the 2nd's, he was 30 points behind Button.
8. Like Nico, outscored his teammates, so I'm giving Fernando 8th. We know Fernando's good, he's a twice WDC, and missed out on a 3rd by a couple of points. The unknown quanities are his teammates. I have mentioned before that to settle my own curiosity I want to see Nelson get another drive because I believe everything was not well in the Kingdom of Renault.
9. Felipe Massa - though about Jarno as well for this, but decided to give it Massa who had double Kimi's points until he received the whack on the head. You can only judge drivers on the races they drove and the results in those were solid
10. Kubica/Heidfeld - like I said I find it hard to separate them. Kubica appears to be a bit faster, but Heidfeld ultimately got more of what earns the dough. I don't want to say they are the perfect team, because I believe they might both lack something, but they have been a very-very solid pairing.
12. Jarno - great some weeks, hopeless others. Some of it was the Toyota, but when things were off he wasn't as good as Glock. When things were good, he was invariably better than Glock.
13. Fisi - like I said thought about him for the top 10, with some great early season drives in the FI, before that Spa weekend. His Ferrari form was dismal.
14. Glock - those weekends when you sit up and say good result Timo, but there was also a lot of times when Jarno was 3rd and Timo was 10th. Two seasons in a row he's been outscored by Jarno.
15. Sutil - obviously got speed, but do I have the time to list the errors that may have been avoided and could have cost points.
16. Buemi - coming on song at the end of the year. Was a bit unsure of him at the start, but he has more than earnt another year.
17. Kobayashi - two great races, but the small sample ultimately holds him back.
18. Heikki had two good results this season - otherwise it was really disappointing. When your teammate is sticking the car on pole, you really should be 5th upwards and not 10th. Hamilton's good, but at this moment or perhaps never, Heikki just isn't top team material.
19. Bourdais - one of those minor things that ultimately get lost in time, but he did have two 8th's this season. How those below would have wanted two 8th's
20. Liuzzi - the race at Monza where he missed out on points, but otherwise slightly disappointing.
21. Nakajima/Piquet/ Grosjean/Alguesuari - all ended up with 0pts. All slightly incident prone and all out performed by their teammates.
25. Badoer ...em, yes.

Whoever said that this was a list of Top British drivers was absolutely correct.

To give us another perspective, AMuS, probably the best German equivalent of AS, has the following ranking for the 2009 performance.
As expected, you may detect a somewhat German slant.

Rubens Barichello
Jenson Button
Sebastian Vettel
Nico Rosberg
Mark Webber
Felipe Massa
Timo Glock
Kimi Raikkonen
Fernando Alonso
Lewis Hamilton
Nick Heidfeld
Jarno Trulli
Robert Kubica
Adrian Sutil
Heikki Kovalainen
Sebastian Buemi
Giancarlo Fisichella
Kazuki Nakajima
Sebastian Bourdaise
Jaime Alguersuari
Romain Grosjean

and driving less than 1/3 the season
Kamui Kobayashi
Tonio Liuzzi
Luca Badoer



What I find interesting are their explanations:

Barrichello -Has once again given notice of his capability. Only in 2 races did he not score. His consistency was outstanding. He narrowly edged out Button.

Button -Only a hair behind Rubens. The reason is his performance in the second half of the year. During the first half, both scored top marks.

Vettel -The most successful season of his career. He had great form. But his dismal performance in Monaco could not be excused.

Rosberg -Like Barichello, only had 2 bad races. In China and Italy he was far off the points. Otherwise he got the maximum from the car and was in a different class to his teamate.

Webber -Like Vettel, he just missed the grade. Japan was dismal. Thank's to his first two GP victories and strong performances around mid season he ranks near the top.

Massa -Until his accident, he could not deliver the very top results but put in solid and constant performances. In Barcelona he had a great drive that ended with a failure. As a result he only got one podium.

Glock -With a noteworthy effort to catch up, he could somewhat rescue his reputation as a fighter. Until his accident he had a satisfactory performance except Monaco where he was wanting.

Raikkonen -Kimi had more bad races than Glock. Bad performances in Spain and Abu Dhabi were offset by 3 very good races so that he finished higher than his early form indicated.

Alonso -The potent combination of Renault and Alonso could not be demonstrated this year. Although he did not slide down he also dis not advance up. There was not one race where we could say he was outstanding. Overall he was good to satisfactory.

Hamilton -Has just made it into the top 10. His poor performances in Monaco and even worse in Turkey were not rescued by his 3 victories at the end.

Heidfeld -Was just adequet at start of the season so that his 5 good races at the end were not enough to rescue him.

Trulli -Good qualifying is not enough. He was just too unpredictable. Great races in Turkey and Japan and total disasters in China and Singapore, and even worse in Germany.

Kubuca -Stated the year with top marks in Australia where he crashed with Vettel before a good result. His other good race was Sao Paulo. He and his car were just not competitive in the other races.

Sutil -Varied too much by car and track. When the car was bad or the tack didn't suit, he was poor. When he smelled a chance he took advantage. He had outstanding races in Italy and Germany.

Kovalainen -Had only 3 satisfactory races. In the shadow of Hamilton he made way too many mistakes, which ultimately cost him his job.

I can't be bothered translating the others.
AMuS have always been on the Rosberg and Vettel bandwagon.
I also disagree with their high rating of Glock and their low rating of Hamilton.
For the top marks, it is interesting that they just edge Rubens over Jenson due to his consistency.

So there you have it.
Feel free to agree with the Autosport (British) or the AMuS (German) perspective.
Can someone post other published rankings?

Maybe we should have a poll as to which lists are better?

I am sorry I am not tweaking your funny bone, if Max Mosely's lifestyle choices evoked such horror, why doesn't dishonesty and fraud attract the same. Lewis is a very good driver, probably the most talented today. But was he the best of 2009 considering what he did. Sorry if people want to talk sportsmanship they should not let their bias be their compass, to quote NASCAR "it is what it is" I didn't make history Lewis did, I shouldn't feel like a leper just in case I upset a few Lewis fans mentioning something that in my opinion is a significant event that happened this year and I couldn't have him as the best driver this year, as clearly it was Jenson.

I will work on the funnay.

If lying reduces one's position where should Rubens "No, I Am Joint Number One At Ferrari And Am Not Obliged To Step Aside If I Am Beating Michael" Barrichello end up?

AMuS' rankings is even more "homer" and chauvinist than Autosport's.

1. Button
2. Vettel
3. Hamilton
4. Barrichello
5. Webber
6. Rosberg
7. Kimi
8. Sutil
9. Heidfeld
10. Kubica


Please oh please can anyone explain how Vettel or Lewis belong about Button? People are so fickle, when did Vettel win 6 races in 7?

The team bosses got it right. That's a relief:

1. Sebastian Vettel 76
2. Jenson Button 67
3. Lewis Hamilton 65
4. Fernando Alonso 39
5. Rubens Barrichello 35
6= Kimi Raikkonen 30
6= Mark Webber 30
8. Felipe Massa 19
9. Robert Kubica 10
10. Adrian Sutil 8

Personally I would swap Lewis and Jenson, but I don't disagree with having it as it stands.

Nico suprisingly absent however.

Personally, I basically agree with Autosport's list. The appearance of the two Brits at the top seems incidental to me in this case. Perhaps I'd swap Vettel and Button, but that would be about all.

why the hell you guys rate Nico so heigh? Because he have totaly demolished Nakajima? C'mon, that's Nakajima! I think there aren't many drivers on the grid that would NOT demolish Nakajima.

Even Nakajima seems quite able to demolish himself on a regular basis...

1. Sebastian Vettel : not much comment really
2. Nico Rosberg : impressed me but not too consistent
3. Kimi Raikkonen : very impressive but needed half a season to wake up
4. Lewis Hamilton : excellent, but his teammate's results proved that car prolly became best of field
5. Felipe Massa : not convinced...
6. Jenson Button : nice WDC, but all down to the car. Sure he beat Rubens mostly, but Rubie turned things over 2nd half of season so... look at 2008 for example...
7. Mark Webber : mmm, pff...
8. Buemi : watch this space !
9. Robert Kubica : remains a talent
10. Fernando Alonso : idem, haven't seen much of him though.

Bingo!

a total joke, a disgrace. 8 out of those 10 drivers shouldn't even be in the top 10...

Was the McLaren THE best car of the 2nd half of the season? NO of course not.

Did Lewis Hamilton score the most points of any driver in the 2nd half of the season? YES. From, and including, Germany onwards he scored more points than anyone. This included 4 races which were essentially DNFs. 1 in Germany where he was taken out by Webber. 2nd in Spa where he was taken out by Algueshuari. 3rd at Monza where he threw it away himself on the last lap. 4th at Abu Dhabi with a mechanical failure.

So let's review that again.

1) In a car that was not THE best of all the cars.
2) He scores more points than anyone in 9 races, where 4 of those races were ZERO points out of which 3 of those were not his fault at all.
3) A podium - 3rd in Australia (from a pure racing point of view). Of course he was stripped off that for liargate. 4th in Bahrain. This is in the 1st half of the season in a complete dog of a car.
3) 4 races in the first half of the season, out of a possible 8 where he finished in the points. In a complete dog of a car.

So yes, undoubtedly he was the standout driver of 2009.

How you know it so crearly?

You mean Heikki? The same Heikki who finished the 2nd half of the season in the following positions: 8, 5, 4, 6, 6, 7, 11, 12, 11? How is that the best of the field?

Do you really think the McLaren was THE best car of the second half of the season?

I've read the justifications for each ranking now, and Alonso's has to be one of the most bizarre things I've read from Mark Hughes:



So, the list isn't about potential, but this explanation and ranking is based on potential?

My list is quite similar, but I'd go with:
1. Lewis Hamilton
2. Jenson Button
3. Seb Vettel

Yeah rubbish explanation. If it's really potential he ought to be top three.

Uh, how do you work that out? AS put two home drivers 1 & 2, AMuS put its highest place homer 3rd, despite it being a reasonable thing to put hime frist (eg the team bosses did)

No, as Hughes stated quite clearly, it's about performance. Alonso's performance wasn't up to scratch. What we know of his potentially only helps to put his actual performance in 2009 into perspective.

And as result of that Heidfeld spun behind safety car and he already parked his car in the grass when the race was stopped. The result was taken at the end of the penultimate completed lap - hence Heidfeld's second place. Isn't it luck?

No. The tyre decision was his.
Like Spa.

These subjective opinions are always prone to cause controversy and cause debates. There are no defined parameters set out in choosing why driver A, was better than B. The variables involved will make any top 10 list, almost meaningless. The only real poll that is scientifically sound, would be the inter-team battles, because the variables are known and quantifiable.

No. AS put the WDC in the top 2, and probably the fastest driver of the field in the first spot, whereas AMuS trully overrated Rosberg, and others.

How did they rank the drivers?

People who only see this whole thing from a British perspective (the majority on here I suspect) will dismiss these ratings as those of someone on drugs. But the plain truth is, not everyone who watches F1 is blinded by the hype surrounding certain drivers, and Hamilton in particular. To be fair though, I feel his 3 victories (one less than when he won the title) made him more deserving than a lowely 10th place, behind a driver like Glock for example. Also, Massa didn´t do a whole season, so he´s another who must fall behind Lewis.
Yes, eighth place would be a fairer reflection I think.