myurr wrote:In my view the top drivers at the moment are, in order: Hamilton, Kubica, Vettel, Alonso, Rosberg. I think that Kobayashi could join the tail end of that group through sheer fighting spirit but I'm not sure he could quite crack the top 3. Last year I wouldn't have rated Rosberg so highly as he was still a bit hit and miss, but this year I think he's stepped up to the challenge of a prestigious team mate and has raised his game.
The only reason I have Alonso fourth and not second is that I honestly think the pressure has overcome him this year. He went to Ferrari expecting to get back into the championship fight, and it's just not happening for him. The car is merely okay, with flashes of pace but not consistently enough from race to race, and both he and the team are making far too many mistakes.
Webber, Button and Massa are probably best of the rest. All three can be near unbeatable on their day when the car is just right, but they all make too many mistakes (Button more so in qualifying than the race) and aren't good enough when the car isn't quite right. I've placed Vettel ahead of them as I think he has more raw pace, but when things aren't quite right he does seem to lose a lot of his speed. So whilst I've placed him third I think that's still subject to review.
I'm still interested to see where Schumacher can end up in the driver rankings, but so far this season he has done little to justify his drive let alone place amongst the top 5 or so drivers. This is probably due to a nasty combination of being race rusty, his driving style not suiting the current cars and therefore needing time to adapt, and having a mediocre car, but by now he should be at least pushing Rosberg whereas just as often as not he is still several tenths away on pace.
Behind them are numerous fine drivers but no one who stands out. Rubens is a good guy and good fit for Williams as they try to recover, Sutil has a lot of potential and is driving pretty well this year, Petrov has been hit or miss but I think he deserves a second year, I expected more of Hulkenberg but again I think he has done enough to justify a second season, Kovalainen and Glock probably deserve better cars, Liuzzi has had a couple of fairly good races but I'm not convinced he's good enough for F1, Senna and Chandhok both deserve a proper season in a proper F1 car, and de la Rosa is probably playing a large part in Saubers recovery (if his test drivers reputation is deserved) and he faired well against Koby early on, but I think he's fading a little bit. Probably still worth keeping around for Sauber for one last year.
frankly speaking you would not be able to quantify the relative strengths of drivers in different cars.
If one car has a significant speed advantage over the other ,is and the driver with the slower car is able to defend for the whole race without resorting to unfair tactics not the better driver ?
Is a driver failing to score points for some races in a row in the third uickest car without technical issues a top 5 driver?
To me a top driver is extracting the max out of available day in day outcome race day.
so for me the Ranking absolutely clearly is 1.Hamilton ,2.Button ,3.Rosberg /Kubica,5.Webber ,6 Vettel...
Without a doubt a lot of drivers currently in F1 would have ammassed more points driving for RedBull this year..this is my honest opinion.Both Ham and Button would lead ,no doubt about it.
