Vettel voted Number 1 of 2009 by Teams
Discussion
Sebastian Vettel may have lost out on the world title in 2009, but he has been rated as the season's best driver by team bosses in AUTOSPORT's annual top ten.
AUTOSPORT once again enlisted, in total privacy, the driver ratings from all ten of the current team principals to figure out who the key men in the paddock believe was the star driver of the year.
With the rankings then converted into points (on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis), the results were collated and have been published for the first time in AUTOSPORT's F1 Season Review, on sale in newsagents now.
And it is Vettel who has come out on top, over world champion Jenson Button - with last year's number one rated driver, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, coming a close third.
The full AUTOSPORT F1 Team Principals' top ten results for 2009 are:
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
Vettel was clearly delighted about being ranked as the best driver by team principals, but equally knows that the real target is to achieve the number one spot on track.
"It's an honour to be recognised after such an exciting season with many ups and downs," he told AUTOSPORT. "However, the votes won't help me be faster on the track next year and it will still be down to me to prove myself again next season."
Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner, who joined in fellow team principals in contributing his own rankings for the vote, was equally happy with the outcome.
"Sebastian had a great year in 2009 and I am certain he has the makings of a future world champion," Horner told AUTOSPORT.
"It's easy to forget how young he is sometimes. He's very mature in how he works with the car and his engineers - and it's remarkable to think that he can only just hire a rental car.
"It's great to see that his talent has been recognised by others and we're very much looking forward to working with him again in the coming seasons."
AUTOSPORT once again enlisted, in total privacy, the driver ratings from all ten of the current team principals to figure out who the key men in the paddock believe was the star driver of the year.
With the rankings then converted into points (on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis), the results were collated and have been published for the first time in AUTOSPORT's F1 Season Review, on sale in newsagents now.
And it is Vettel who has come out on top, over world champion Jenson Button - with last year's number one rated driver, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, coming a close third.
The full AUTOSPORT F1 Team Principals' top ten results for 2009 are:
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
Vettel was clearly delighted about being ranked as the best driver by team principals, but equally knows that the real target is to achieve the number one spot on track.
"It's an honour to be recognised after such an exciting season with many ups and downs," he told AUTOSPORT. "However, the votes won't help me be faster on the track next year and it will still be down to me to prove myself again next season."
Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner, who joined in fellow team principals in contributing his own rankings for the vote, was equally happy with the outcome.
"Sebastian had a great year in 2009 and I am certain he has the makings of a future world champion," Horner told AUTOSPORT.
"It's easy to forget how young he is sometimes. He's very mature in how he works with the car and his engineers - and it's remarkable to think that he can only just hire a rental car.
"It's great to see that his talent has been recognised by others and we're very much looking forward to working with him again in the coming seasons."
Whats to be surprised about.
Any team manager would give his eye teeth for Vettel, young, talented, aggressive, mechanical etc etc
They are going to rate the one they want the best and ignore the mistakes which can be ironed out.
Seems to be better controlling the dummy spitting to.
Regards
TJ
Any team manager would give his eye teeth for Vettel, young, talented, aggressive, mechanical etc etc
They are going to rate the one they want the best and ignore the mistakes which can be ironed out.
Seems to be better controlling the dummy spitting to.
Regards
TJ
It's a little surprising given it was Vettel's own mistakes that cost him the WDC - Turkey and Monaco spring immediately to mind.
Consistency and pace together are what win championships. I think he'll learn a lot from this year and be right up there next season.
Regardless of Raikkonen's reputation to turn up and drive what he's given, I thought he'd be a little higher despite the Ferrari's poor pace, especially in the latter half of the season.
I wonder if he lost points by being beaten by Massa, who never does seem to be rated THAT highly. Kimi only came alive when Massa was injured, and then Ferrari stopped development completely. He certainly wasn't in the headlines much, but you'd expect team managers to be looking a lot further than press comments. So maybe he simply did just underperform. Or not perform often enough.
Consistency and pace together are what win championships. I think he'll learn a lot from this year and be right up there next season.
Regardless of Raikkonen's reputation to turn up and drive what he's given, I thought he'd be a little higher despite the Ferrari's poor pace, especially in the latter half of the season.
I wonder if he lost points by being beaten by Massa, who never does seem to be rated THAT highly. Kimi only came alive when Massa was injured, and then Ferrari stopped development completely. He certainly wasn't in the headlines much, but you'd expect team managers to be looking a lot further than press comments. So maybe he simply did just underperform. Or not perform often enough.
TJD2003 said:
Whats to be surprised about.
Any team manager would give his eye teeth for Vettel, young, talented, aggressive, mechanical etc etc
They are going to rate the one they want the best and ignore the mistakes which can be ironed out.
Seems to be better controlling the dummy spitting to.
Regards
TJ
Fair enough but were the ratings based on the season's performance, or the driver's potential?Any team manager would give his eye teeth for Vettel, young, talented, aggressive, mechanical etc etc
They are going to rate the one they want the best and ignore the mistakes which can be ironed out.
Seems to be better controlling the dummy spitting to.
Regards
TJ
The pitlane consensus appeared to be that the Red Bull was the car of the season, so Vettel not winning the WDC in it but winning this rating would appear to show that the scoring wasn't at least wholly on the season's performance.
obob said:
Wanta996Gotta said:
Great to see that Kimi is not as highly rated as some people on here think he is.
Anyone else getting bored of this?? Did you catch Kimi f
king your missus?SoliD said:
I'm surprised at this, due to the number of mistakes he made which lost him the championship!
Indeed, it also proves the phenomenon that a driver is only as good as their last races. Had Vettel been mighty at the start of the season, then made the mistakes and struggled to overtake, would he have topped the list?I think their choice is understandable (even though I would have personally voted for Button) if we are willing to accept the probable fact that the team principles have greater direct knowledge about the manner in which the drivers perform and work. They'd probably be thinking not only in terms of race positions, but also each drivers' work ethic, interaction with other members of their respective teams, and the comparative performance of the cars on the grid.
Pundits like us can only judge by what is apparent on the surface, which isn't much material to base any fair judgement on.
Pundits like us can only judge by what is apparent on the surface, which isn't much material to base any fair judgement on.
Edited by Jungles on Thursday 19th November 14:19
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