A pretty self-explanatory thread - with two races to go and both titles wrapped up, I got to wondering how the drivers have performed this season, as relative to how I expected them to perform.
For me, the biggest surprise is Rosberg. I didn't expect him to hold up to Hamilton nearly as well as he has, but he's generally held the upper hand since the summer break and currently sits just 16 points behind him in the standings, notwithstanding the fact that he's had a couple of mechanical DNFs. Indeed, his performance has been so strong relative to Hamilton that 2013 has also seen me re-evaluate Michael Schumacher's comeback
Of the rest, I think Vettel has usurped Alonso as the best driver on the grid, Ricciardo and Bianchi have been a lot stronger than I was expecting (as difficult as it is to evaluate the performance of a Marussia driver), and I always suspected Grosjean had the talent he has shown, but worried he lacked the confidence to show it. So I've been pleasantly surprised by his strong end-of-season form.
It is difficult to name any drivers who have performed worse than I expected them to - Perez and Maldonado haven't really looked as explosive as they did last season, but both have been pretty strong and I still think they have the potential to develop into world class drivers. I didn't really expect Sutil to be as average as he has been, particularly not after his strong performance back in Melbourne. Webber has been dominated utterly by Vettel, but I suspected that was going to happen anyway.
So anyway, I'm interested to hear what you all think - and please don't feel you have to stick to F1!