A look at the WEC

The next Formula 1 race is still a week away. In the meantime the fantastic LMP1 cars of the WEC are racing in the six hours of Belgium at the challenging Spa-Francorchamps circuit. The pole time was not far away from the times of Formula 1 race pace, these are seriously quick cars. Combined with LMP2 and the two GT classes this is a series which provides a taste of the Le Mans 24 hours, which starts in just over a months time.

I've already been able to experience watching these machines at Silverstone a few weeks ago. With many an ex-Formula 1 drivers including Mark Webber, Alexander Wurz and Anthony Davidson in the ranks as well as current Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg racing in Belgium and Le Mans, it was quite the mesmeric watch, especially as the LMP1 cars sliced through the GT cars. And although it's not easy to follow without a radio plugged into your ear, there was some good action. For a six hour race the LMP1 cars kept close to each other throughout with only 15 seconds separating the top three by the end. 

Here's a few pictures of a fine if windy race day at Silverstone.

The number 2 Toyota on the formation grid

Number 7 Audi getting a few last minute checks

Wurz gracefully getting out of his Toyota

World Champion Anthony Davidson calming everyone down

Mark Webber heads over to his pole sitting Porsche

Webber getting ready to lead the grid away

Sebastien Buemi taking the first stint in the No. 1 Toyota

Racing under way, the GT cars provided a lot of close action

No. 2 Toyota still with Wurz at the wheel.

Buemi staying near the front

It was close for a long time in the LMP1 class.

No. 8 Audi would fall back later on after challenging at the front.

Webber led the early going but a problem took the car out of the race

The Toyota didn't look as fast as the Audi or Porsche.

No. 7 Audi would swap the lead for a long way into the race.

The LMP1 cars just cut through the back-markers.

No. 18 Porsche kept the race alive.

Gulf sponsored Aston Martin looks great.

Davidson pushed hard to stay in contention.

Another look at the Aston.

No. 7 Audi despite late pit stop and penalty kept the lead.

No. 1 Toyota managed to get on the podium.

But the No. 7 Audi won, ahead of the 18 Porsche and 1 Toyota.

Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer & Benoit Treluyer take their rewards.

Michelin man watches as it's time for Champagne.

Sebastian Vettel fighting back

“When he [Vettel] will have a car like the others, if he wins, he will have a great recognition and be one of the legends in F1… When one day he has a car like the others and he is fourth, fifth, seventh, these four titles will be bad news for him because people will take these four titles in a worse manner than they are doing now.”

There’s a German leading the championship in the best car in 2014. It’s not Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull though. However, the Red Bull team have mostly been the second best out there and have taken two victories so far this year, but neither was scored by their four time champion. Two facts which make the above quote from Fernando Alonso at the tail end of last year stand out just a little bit more.

At the time of Vettel’s victorious years many in the F1 world wondered whether it was just the car catapulting him to win after win. Could it be that he was merely a good driver piloting an exceptional car? I wondered during winter testing when it became apparent that Red Bull would be facing an uphill battle if Vettel would struggle when confronted with a car which wasn’t an immediate front runner.

In brief I speculated that with the banning of blown diffusers, something Vettel had exceptional technique with and a major advantage of the Red Bull if he’d full back in the pack. Further to that the conservatism with which Pirelli approached this season because of the huge torque coming from the new for 2014 hybrid turbo power units, and the fact that I think they were fed up with their tyres being blamed for everything took another advantage of Vettel’s away. He was brilliant at getting the best out of those more brittle tyres, better than anyone else.

Two major elements had been taken away along with a whole chunk of downforce and one major addition of a power unit where the throttle pedal is extremely sensitive, unlike in the blown diffuser era where you practically stepped on it and let the aero sort you out, it would stick in the corner, now it won’t. It doesn't help that his Renault power unit is the worst in the field as much as 90bhp down on th Mercedes.

I thought back in February that if Vettel were to struggle it would be an ideal opportunity for his new team mate Daniel Ricciardo, promoted from Toro Rosso, to take advantage. But Vettel is a four time world champion, so I dismissed this as a possibility but highly unlikely. As has become quite clear during this season, never dismiss Ricciardo for the young Australian is a brilliant talent.

He leads Vettel in qualifying by 6-5 which should actually be 7-4 as Ricciardo suffered a 10 place grid penalty in Bahrain which put him behind his team mate. In the races he is even further ahead. When both cars have finished Ricciardo has beaten Vettel 6-1.

Ricciardo has scored five podiums of which two were wins and this is not including the second place he was disqualified from in his home race. Vettel has managed to get on the podium just twice this year and each time it was the bottom step. For all the world to see these statistics provide a compelling case, when he’s finished it’s been mostly fourths and fifths, kind of what Alonso said might be the case if Vettel were to sit in a car which wasn’t the best, you know that’s what the Spaniard was implying.

First of all that shouldn’t take anything away from Vettel’s achievements of the previous four years, it was a different era of Formula 1, one in which he exploited the potential of the machinery available to him to the full. In that era, with that technology he was unsurpassed. This is a very different Formula 1, one in which he hasn’t yet got used to. 

Alonso is a brilliant driver, probably the best all-rounder in the business, he can adapt to anything that comes his way, to me that makes a great driver. His current team mate Kimi Raikkonen was meant to challenge him but Alonso has wiped the floor with him, I don’t think that means Kimi is suddenly a bad driver. He has been brilliant these past few years, but something about this new era doesn’t sit well with him a bit like Vettel.

Vettel is sensitive to change, he needs a car where the back end will stick, something that the cars are not capable of doing to the extent they have been in the recent past. Vettel has not been able to change his style and feel comfortable in the car whereas Ricciardo has jumped in straight from Toro Rosso which didn’t have as advanced blown diffuser technology and straight away adapted to this new Formula. He is a team mate who is eager for success, something Vettel has not had to put up with for a while as probably since 2011 Mark Webber was demotivated a lot of the time after losing his one shot at the title.

This doesn’t mean he won’t learn how to deal with these cars or that success has somehow dulled his driving when he’s got to fight harder for it. If anything his frustrated radio messages this year show just how much more he wants, just how annoyed he is at being beaten. This car and this team mate is the toughest time he's ever had in Formula 1, even though he denies this. Ricciardo has been constantly shading him in qualifying. Just when you think Vettel might have the beating of the Aussie, Ricciardo pulls a lap out of the bag. In the races Ricciardo is feisty, attacking, amazingly consistent, including the Mercedes drivers, he has probably been the most impressive driver of the season so far.

Vettel is up against a star of the future, just like Alonso was when Lewis Hamilton got his chance at McLaren when the Spaniard was beaten. This is plainly not some journeyman driver who has turned up at Red Bull, he’s been through the same young driver program Vettel himself went through, there is little doubt that Vettel is up against a future world champion.

Having said that, there are signs that Vettel is turning a corner, especially since FRIC suspension was banned, he looked strong in Germany and out-qualified Ricciardo in Hungary. But even before then, he hasn’t been quite as trounced by Ricciardo as it might seem; it could be argued that both Ricciardo’s wins could have been Vettel’s. Delays in traffic meant he exited behind Ricciardo after pit stops in Canada when he was running in front for most of the race. It could well have been him who took advantage of the struggling Mercedes.

In Hungary he was in third when the safety car came out as he was passing the pit lane, just behind Ricciardo was one of the first into the pits which put him into the lead at the restart. Circumstance has not gone his way nor has reliability, it’s like they’ve given him Webber’s car.

So yes, Vettel has been out performed this year, he hasn’t made the best of the equipment at his disposal, so he’s certainly not out-performing the car like a great can. However, he has out-performed the car in previous years (Red Bull never had an advantage like Mercedes have this year), he is improving in this era and he is beginning to match an exceptional young driver.

Might you have expected more from a four time champion? Yes, quite probably, but this car doesn’t suit him, but it’s coming to him and I will not be surprised to see him match and beat Ricciardo more often after the summer break. He won’t dominate him like Webber, he may not even beat him overall this year, but he’ll match him. He is a very intelligent driver, very mechanical minded and he won’t leave a piece of telemetry unturned until he’s worked out how to succeed once again.

It’s not all lost for Vettel, he’s only just turned 27, he is still learning himself and sometimes it does you good to experience losing. But he won’t want it to last for long. He has achieved great success, but is he a great yet? Greatness is too often bandied around, greatness is earned, it’s about how you achieve success, how you exploit it when the opportunity arises and how you get it back when times are tough. Vettel is going through those hard times, but as the season continues and turns into 2015 I won’t be surprised to see him standing atop the podium once again. He’s turning a corner, adjusting, and it may take until next year, but it’s coming to him, and he’ll make sure it does.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Silverstone 50: The Best British Grand Prix

It’s that time of year, Wimbledon is into its second week, a major Football tournament is going on, Tour de France is about to start, so it must mean the British Grand Prix is on its way. It has such a great atmosphere come rain or shine, or actually usually bits of sun and very windy! The crowd is enthusiastic and friendly, the racing is usually pretty decent, the Grandstands and general admission mostly give a good view of the track and the weather always gives it that air of unpredictability.

I’ve been lucky enough to attend several Grand Prix at Silverstone since 1995, many of them have been exceptional races, so as this year it is a celebration of Silverstone’s 50^th Grand Prix I’m going to give my five best races that I’ve attended. Just so you know I’m not deliberately leaving races out which should be regarded as classics so here’s the years I’ve attended; 1995, 96, 97, 98, 99, 2003, 04, 07, 10, 11, 12.

There’s a few good races I’ve left out, but here’s my five that were the best to me at least.

2004

It wasn’t the best race in the world, but it was a decent one. As a Schumacher fan back then I enjoyed it immensely, mainly because it was an uncontroversial win and he just drove the car hard all the way to the flag despite some intense Kimi Raikkonen pressure.

Schumacher started fourth on a full tank of fuel. Back then you qualified with your race fuel load, his had been more than anyone’s. At the start he circulated in fourth just behind the pole sitting Kimi, Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button. As one by one they came into the pits, Schuey was released and put the hammer down. You could see just how hard he was pushing. He exited the pits in the lead. But it wasn’t the end, a late safety car put Kimi back onto him, and he harried Schuey to the flag.

It was a year Schumacher won pretty much everything, he was in the middle of a seven race winning streak, I’d have felt a bit cheated if he hadn’t managed Silverstone too!

2010

‘Not bad for a number 2 driver’. Yes, I thought about whether to put this or 2012 in, but I preferred this one. Mark Webber had suffered in qualifying after having his newer front wing taken off his car and given to his team mate Sebastian Vettel.

At the start Webber charged ahead of Vettel forcing him wide. Lewis Hamilton made minor contact with Vettel giving the German a puncture. He fell to the back of the field and was only three seconds ahead of Webber on the road before a safety car allowed him to catch the back of the pack.

What followed was a fantastic charge through the pack to end up seventh, with some particularly forceful moves going on. At the front Webber held off Hamilton by just over a second as they fought to the flag. But it was the way Webber battled against the suggested favouritism that Red Bull showed Vettel. It was a stirring drive full of Aussie Grit and a satisfying riposte to the events of the previous day.

1995

We were at the height of the Schumacher and Damon Hill rivalry here. Hill lead away from pole position while Schumacher fell to third behind Jean Alesi. Hill tore away from Alesi but was on a two stop strategy. While everyone came into the pits, Schumacher marched on until half distance and took the lead when Hill made his second stop. Hill quickly caught Schumacher and attacked him for several laps, the tension was immense. It ended when Hill dived for a gap that was always going to close taking them both off.

Behind, the Benetton and Williams battle continued as David Coulthard fought with Johnny Herbert, a penalty dropped Coulthard out of contention, and it was a popular first win for Herbert at his home Grand Prix.

Right in front of me though was a spectacular accident between Mark Blundell and Rubens Barrichello on the last lap as they battled for fifth, which ended the race in a lively fashion.

1998

Rain, lots of rain. It’s always fantastic to see Formula 1 cars in the wet even if the weather conditions don’t exactly make it the most comfortable viewing conditions. Sitting on the top of the hill by Club corner, we had a spectacular view as the drivers strove to keep the cars on the track, their hands dancing on the steering wheel.

Mika Hakkinen lead at the start, but spun off allowing Schumacher to take the lead. He edged away but was handed a stop go penalty for overtaking under yellows. He attacked to pull out a gap, but Ferrari were smart and pulled Schumacher in to the pits to serve his penalty on the last lap. He crossed the line to win before taking his penalty. It was in the rules and this crazy win was allowed.

But what really makes this special is the ability of these drivers controlling 800bhp cars in pouring rain. It was incredible.

2003

Rubens Barrichello won a dramatic race which had so many drivers out of position due to an early safety car as a mad catholic priest ran out on to the track. The two Toyota’s of Olivier Panis and Christiano da Matta lead for a long time as the big guns tried to fight back through the field.

It was Rubens day though, his passing was incisive and fast and he rose to the front of the field brilliantly to lead from Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya. Schumacher had got back up to fourth but it was his Ferrari team mate who stole the day with a fantastic performance.

There was action all the way down the field, not a single driver was left to race on his own as the entire grid put on a show to remember.

all photo's taken from autosport.com apart from 1995 GP taken from grandprix247.com

Will Vettel struggle in 2014?

With the racing yet to even start, the leaders of Formula 1 for the past four years already find themselves on the back foot. Red Bull completed just 20 laps in the first test at Jerez and just 116 laps at the next test in Bahrain. In comparison the leaders of the winter, Mercedes, completed 309 and 315 laps respectively.

It doesn’t help that there hasn’t even been a hint of the pace we’ve come to expect from Red Bull in recent times while Mercedes have been toward the top of the charts in practically every day of testing so far.

These problems have mostly come down to the new turbo Renault power unit which has suffered from heating issues amongst other things while Adrian Newey has once again made the Red Bull as compact as possible to the exclusion of cooling which apparently the Renault needs a fair amount of.

Obviously these problems are being sorted as quickly as possible, but even if the team sort out their car, Renault say they are weeks behind the development of Ferrari let alone the pace setting Mercedes powered teams. Rumours go they may be even further behind than that.

It’s not often that Sebastian Vettel has had to struggle in his Grand Prix career, or worse be faced with a car that might not be competitive. This situation could about to become a reality as he tries to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of five titles in a row.

At times when the car has not been fully optimised Vettel’s former team mate Mark Webber was often able to equal or better the German. Certainly in 2010 they were matched for almost all the season until the exhaust blown diffuser came on stream to give Vettel a decisive advantage as only he could fully exploit the driving style required.

After dominating 2011, 2012 started out with Red Bull struggling slightly and again Webber was back on terms after being comprehensively outperformed the previous year. What I’m suggesting is that when the car is less able to perform at its maximum, Vettel is not as able to drag that car to results as well as others like Fernando Alonso or Lewis Hamilton might. On the other hand when a car is performing well, I don’t think anyone can get the best out of it as well as Vettel.

But it’s all change in 2014, the blown diffusers are a thing of the past. What made Vettel so special in these years was that he was perhaps the finest in the art of counter intuitive driving, getting on the throttle to blow the exhaust gases on to the diffuser to create more downforce while usually you wouldn’t be touching the right pedal.

This technology is gone and with it one of the biggest advantages Red Bull and Vettel had. He was also the best at using the high degradation Pirelli tyres. With the new engines having so much more torque Pirelli have rightly gone conservative for this year, so another advantage of Vettel has been taken away.

It’ll be interesting to see how his new team mate Daniel Ricciardo gets on. He is there to make an impression, it’s the biggest opportunity of his career so far and he’ll want to make the most of it. If Vettel struggles, Ricciardo could well take advantage. However, I just can’t see this happening.

Let’s not get carried away with the Red Bull struggles just yet, this is a mere hypothesis about what could happen. Red Bull have Newey and a great team which will be working on how to solve their current problems 24/7, if they’re not competitive now, they certainly will be at some point.

And as I have written before, to me Vettel more than proved he had learned to get results from a less than perfect car, like in the first half of 2013 where let us not forget it was a lot closer than the end result would have you believe. Vettel was never out of the top four in that first half and scored wins he really shouldn’t have. That part of the season really showed that perhaps the issues that were once there had been eliminated.

The year is all up in the air still, but one thing is certain Red Bull are not going to be cruising away with this one and Vettel will be tested to the limit but there’s little doubt that he’s more than up to the task. If anything it’ll make him better and more determined to get back to the top such is his will to win and when Red Bull get it right, which they will, Vettel will be there to exploit it.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Drivers of the year 2013 - The Top Ten

For the first two parts please click here for 23-17 and here for 16-11.

We've reached the top, I'm not sure all will agree, but surely no one can deny who is number one...

10. Jenson Button (McLaren)

In his McLaren years and many before that too, Jenson has never been a great qualifier so perhaps it is unsurprising that he was out-qualified by his team mate Sergio Perez. Having said that Perez wasn’t thought of as a great qualifier either…

However, Jenson proved many times over that he can still bring the car home where it should be, and his race to fourth in Brazil deserved to be a podium. I wonder sometimes if Button needs extra impetus, I feel sure we’d have had more of those races if he’d still had Lewis Hamilton alongside him pushing him. With Kevin Magnussen joining McLaren and being touted as a rookie that will make as much of an impression as Hamilton, Button is sure to have his hands full. But I’d expect far more inspirational performances from him next year as a result as I’m sure he felt he didn’t have to overly extend himself to get one over Perez. This season he sparkled on occasion but too much did just seem slightly disillusioned.

9. Felipe Massa (Ferrari)

He’s been regularly beaten at Ferrari since Fernando Alonso joined the team so his performance at beating Fernando nine times in qualifying is pretty impressive. Once he learned he wasn’t being kept on he seemed to leap into life a bit more. He managed a podium early on in the year, but his best racing came in the latter half with fourth place in India a particular highlight where he out-qualified and out-raced Alonso pretty comprehensively.

It is time Massa moved away from Ferrari and I think he’ll have a new lease of life with a safe two year contract at Williams. As long as the team progress I think he’ll flourish and certainly show a bit more of the fight that characterised his early years at Ferrari that allowed him to nearly become world champion before his terrible accident in 2009. He was overwhelmed by Alonso, but away from that atmosphere he can show much more of the great racing that we saw only occasionally this year.

8. Mark Webber (Red Bull)

Webber may have finished third in the championship and taken eight podiums and took an astounding pole position in Abu Dhabi that showed total commitment but at other points he seemed decidedly lacklustre. And perhaps the harshest stat available is that his team mate Sebastian Vettel took 13 wins while he failed to take one in his final year of Formula 1.

Admittedly he probably should have had one in Malaysia after Vettel ignored team orders while mechanical failures and poor starts hampered other opportunities, but when you only direct comparison is your team mate he had one of the worst records in 2013. That’s no shame to a driver who seems to be getting better and better as he was still very close quite often and could often pull off some fantastic overtakes.

But when the Red Bull is as strong as it was this year, he’ll be disappointed he couldn’t push it the way Vettel could. I think Malaysia affected his state of mind and perhaps even a bit of his motivation. Maybe his mind wondered to his new life with Porsche in the World Endurance Championship, whatever though there were moments when you thought why is he retiring, but too often this year he failed to get the better results that he might once have gritted his teeth and dug in for.

7. Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber)

Well at least he’s still in Formula 1. Yes, despite more heroics behind the wheel this year Hulkenberg faced the very real threat that he could end up without a seat for 2014. The fact he’s ended up back at Force India and not moved up the grid is quite the travesty. He should have replaced Kimi Raikkonen at Lotus but unfortunately money talked and they took Pastor Maldonao, someone I’ve ranked 11 places lower.  If he’s not in a top team by 2015 he could well end up missing out.

But let’s hope that doesn’t happen because if he can produce another season with some giant killing performances then surely next year someone will give him a call. The Sauber wasn’t great in the first half of the season, but he still managed to knock out some points with some hard fought drives. The second half the car improved and his results rose as they should.

But nothing beats his drive to fourth in Korea, holding off Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso for lap after lap under constant pressure. It was a drive along with many others this year that merited more.

6. Romain Grosjean (Lotus)

If there was a prize for the most improved driver of the year there is no doubt it would go to this man. Although to start off with he looked tame. Last year ended in a bit of a disaster so this year to combat his wild ways he almost went in the opposite direction. It was as if he feared that to unlock his speed he had to push beyond his control.

Thankfully this turned out to not be the case, he clocked six podiums in total, four in the final six races and was regularly out pacing Kimi by the end of the season. There were some circumstances involved in this, the tyre change mid-season didn’t help Kimi, nor did the introduction of a longer wheelbase car. But Grosjean dealt with it effectively and outshone his Ferrari bound team mate to the point that in the latter third of the season Grosjean looked to be the most likely man to take the fight to Vettel.

Perhaps his sports psychologist helped, perhaps the birth of his first child made him grow up and mature. He’s said that he realised he focused too much on Formula 1 and by releasing himself from that pressure he’s thrived. Whatever it is, he’s matured into a fast, incisive over taker who looks in total control and will lead Lotus into the unknown of 2014 with deserved confidence. I look forward to seeing what he can do next year.

5. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)

Everyone expected Nico to fall to Lewis Hamilton. That he remained strong against him throughout most of the year is a great credit to Nico. In fact there were times when Rosberg had quite a significant edge over his World Champion team mate.

Of course Lewis is one of the fastest out there and that did tell in qualifying, but not by all that much in the end. And in the races Nico won two races to Lewis’ one. Ok the second win was because Lewis and Vettel retired, but the first in Monaco was a masterpiece of control from a great pole position in which he kept the field behind him at a pace he wanted. It was sublime.

I think Nico has an edge with the conservation role in Formula 1 over Lewis. It’s only Hamilton’s brute force that has helped push him ahead, but with more tyres to manage and fuel conservation next year, Formula 1 is no longer about going as fast as you can which I think can help Nico.

He has continued his good form, although he still can have a tendency to fall back in races or just disappear, although that is happening less often.

4. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

Sometimes Lewis is great, sometimes he seems lost. It seems like he can’t maintain focus for a whole season anymore. It seemed like he was the ultimate professional in his first two years in Formula 1 which resulted in his 2008 Championship. Since then there have been lapses and even with a move to Mercedes these lapses continue to happen.

Admittedly in 2013 the Mercedes has not been to his liking. He hasn’t felt completely comfortable in all year, particularly with the brakes, one tool you certainly need for confidence. Despite this he has led the way for the team in the most part, taking five pole positions, a fantastic victory in Hungary and another four podiums too. He has certainly added impetus to a team that stagnated last year.

However, I feel like he is not using his full potential a lot of the time. Such is the talent of Lewis Hamilton he doesn’t have to drive to his maximum to be up there, but if he could just feel comfortable and get his head fully focused on his driving again, then we could see something special. Sometimes all it takes is a winning car, and if Mercedes produce the standard bearer many are predicting for 2014, then Hamilton can be something to behold.

3. Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)

He may have not been paid all year, he may have been grumpy, had back problems and left the team two races early to sort said back problems in preparation for his return to Ferrari. He also may have not liked the change of tyres mid-season or the alterations to his car, or the fact his team mate Grosjean started getting the better of him.

But the thing with Kimi is, he just shakes it off, gets in the car and drives it to its maximum potential and that’s pretty much all you can ask. Ok, his qualifying since he’s been back has not been as good as it should be, but overall he was still beating Grosjean and despite his two race absence was still 51 points better off.

Kimi won a great race in Australia and was always up there fighting, no matter where he started from. His move to Ferrari could produce fireworks alongside Fernando Alonso, although I think they’ll get on fine. Kimi is there to do a job. Fernando thinks Kimi won’t be a problem as Massa was often quicker when they were Ferrari team mates. But that was Massa before his accident and Kimi when he was on his way out of Formula 1.

Now the Finn is in the ascendency again, I think Fernando is going to have a lot tougher time than he thinks. Kimi is relentless in his consistency and certainly will not be Fernando’s back up. Maybe not fireworks, but definitely some sparklers.

2. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)

I wasn’t sure who was going to be runner up. It was a tough choice between Kimi and Fernando. They both have qualifying as a weakness at the moment, but they also both have never say die attitude in the races and will always be up there fighting it out whatever. In the end I went for Fernando because he had more of an edge of his team mate and overall just a slightly more consistent year than Kimi did.

Yet again Fernando produced some fantastic drives, his wins in China and Spain were fantastic, his podium in Brazil was another highlight. But unlike in 2012, there seemed to be a few lacklustre displays too such as Monaco or India where he just didn’t seem as on it. And the mistake in Malaysia then Bahrain didn’t seem entirely Fernando. Perhaps even in those early stages that despite having a decent car to start off with he already knew that some developments weren’t working as they should.

Once again Ferrari couldn’t give him the car to take the title and that frustration boiled over in the middle of the year so it’ll be interesting to see how he handles Kimi next season. However, he still managed to find a pace his team mate couldn’t and obtain results which seemed out of reach as he always does. I hope he can challenge properly for the title again next year, he deserves to otherwise I can see his time at Ferrari not ending pleasantly.

1       

           1.  Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull)

Well what can you say about this four time champion that I and many others haven’t already said. He was simply brilliant this year. He topped anything he’d done before. He showed his ruthless streak in Malaysia and so many times he demonstrated his just awesome speed and consistency. He took nine pole positions, his lap in America when he looked out of it was fantastic. His race winning margins in Abu Dhabi and Korea just made it look easy while his defensive victory in Germany was a joy.

This year we watched history be made as he won a record nine times in a row and took 13 wins in total to equal the most in a season. Some will point to the tyre change helping Red Bull unleash more of the potential of their car, but it was updates to the rear of the car too in Belgium that helped optimize the cars potential.

It should also be pointed out that Vettel was a decent points haul ahead at the mid-way point, I’m not sure anyone was about to get on terms with him. Vettel only went two consecutive races without a win in the first 10 Grand Prix. It was under the radar domination but domination none the less. He showed he could produce the results when the car couldn’t in the first half and then exploited everything to the full when the Red Bull stretched its legs in the second half.

Vettel has undoubtedly been the best in the current regulations with his ability to drive counter-intuitively with the blown diffusers being a particular asset and one which his team mate was never able to master. His mastery of the Pirelli tyres has also been second to none, but next year comes a change. I think in previous years this may have been a worry, but I do believe he continues to get better and he learns so quickly I don’t think he has anything to fear. No, the rest of the field need to fear him as I think he proved this year he’s the best in the world. 

all photo's taken from autosport.com