By Ben Anderson | |
Grand Prix Editor |
Nico Rosberg finally toppled Lewis Hamilton, as their personal rivalry for Formula 1's top prize reached its last conclusion this season. Mercedes dominated F1 technically again, for the third year in succession, so these two monopolised the podium, winning 19 of the 21 races held between them. But that doesn't necessarily mean Rosberg and Hamilton were definitely this year's standout performers. Autosport's Grand Prix Editor, BEN ANDERSON, looks beyond the headline results to bring you his top 10 F1 drivers of 2016. 10. SERGIO PEREZ This was another excellent campaign from Perez, who scored more than 100 points in a single season for the first time in his career, and achieved a career-best seventh place in the final standings. His form has been consistently excellent since the middle of last season, when he made a set-up breakthrough with his engineering team at Spa, and he continued in that vein this year. Team-mate Nico Hulkenberg performed slightly better overall, but Perez pushed him hard. He lost the intra-team qualifying battle 12-9 to Hulkenberg, but in 14 of the 21 races the gap between them was two tenths or less, indicating how far Perez has progressed as a qualifier since his Sauber days. Qualifying the VJM09 second fastest in Baku, where he also finished on the podium, was outstanding, showing impressive resolve after crashing at the end of final practice and copping a grid penalty for a gearbox swap. Perez has matured into a fine all-rounder in grand prix racing. He is rarely spectacular, but has upped his game in qualifying, and added a methodical and self-analytical approach to the tyre management skills that make him almost metronomic in races. He is nearly always there to take chances when they present themselves, and was a key component of Force India's best ever season in F1. 9. NICO HULKENBERG Nico Hulkenberg has driven enigmatically during his time at Force India, showing only sporadic flashes of the form that made him a Ferrari target at the back end of F1's V8 era. The first five races of this season were pretty underwhelming too, but Hulkenberg came alive following the final major upgrade to the VJM09 after May's Spanish Grand Prix, and there were some outstanding displays - particularly in qualifying, where overall he enjoyed the edge over team-mate Perez. Hulkenberg qualified a brilliant fifth in Monaco, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari, and probably would have finished on the podium there instead of Perez with a better strategic call by the team. He was third fastest in mixed conditions in Austria, and his Q3 laps in Austin and Mexico were stunning, suggesting he found a new gear after agreeing to move to Renault for 2017, though he disagreed with that assessment. Hulkenberg didn't always achieve the results his performances merited this year, but he was eliminated from five races through no fault of his own, and was unlucky not to bag at least one podium. The championship table suggests Hulkenberg was well beaten by Perez, but that is not a fair reflection of how well Hulkenberg drove. It was close, but he was narrowly the better Force India driver in 2016. 8. VALTTERI BOTTAS Williams slipped back from being among the three best teams during the previous two seasons to being only the fifth best this year, and consequently Bottas found it more difficult to hit the same heights he reached in 2014 and '15. The FW38 was limited in potential, and its aerodynamic development was troubled, but Bottas made the most of the tools at his disposal. The peak results were sparse, but Bottas did what he could, scoring points regularly and executing a brilliant strategic podium finish in Canada, beating the Red Bulls, a Mercedes, and Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari to the punch. But Bottas's real strength remained in qualifying, where he pulverised team-mate Felipe Massa 17-4 in the intra-team battle, the largest margin between any driver pairing on the grid this year. Bottas made Q3 14 times in 21 races, and his average qualifying position across the season was 8.3 - near enough a match for Force India's Nico Hulkenberg (8.29), and better than Sergio Perez (9.4) and Massa (10.5). Pretty decent considering Bottas's car was not definitively among the four best on the grid. It was a difficult year for Williams, but in his typically understated way Bottas showed again that he is among the most capable and reliable drivers in F1's midfield. 7. SEBASTIAN VETTEL The honeymoon is most definitely over between Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel, after a brilliant first season together in 2015. There were no more race wins to add to the three they took last season, and Vettel also slipped to a distant fourth in the championship, having threatened to steal second from Nico Rosberg the previous year. The SF16-H was meant to be the car that transformed Ferrari from occasional race winner into title contender, but it performed inconsistently. Vettel coped well in the face of adversity initially, finishing on the podium five times in the first nine races, but he overdrove as Ferrari got sucked back into a fight with a resurgent Red Bull. He was outqualified by revitalised team-mate Kimi Raikkonen 9-3 over the final 12 races, including the last five consecutively, and there were murmurings of a rift with team boss Maurizio Arrivabene, who suggested Vettel was trying to do too much behind the scenes at Maranello, rather than focusing on simply driving the car. Vettel at least kept his race form up to outscore Raikkonen 116-90 over those final dozen grands prix, adding two more podiums in the process, but he is right when he says this was a season about which Ferrari cannot feel proud. Neither, for that matter, can Vettel. 6. CARLOS SAINZ JR Amid the meteoric rise of Max Verstappen it's been all too easy to overlook the form of Carlos Sainz Jr, who enjoyed a terrific second season of his own at this level. This year's Ferrari-engined Toro Rosso was much more reliable than its Renault-motivated predecessor, which allowed Sainz to better express himself. He says his approach did not change after Verstappen left for Red Bull four races into 2016, but the team felt Sainz came out of his shell with Verstappen out of the picture. He fought with the Ferraris and finished a season's best sixth in his first race without Verstappen in the team in Spain, a result Sainz repeated twice more in the latter part of the year, despite the STR11 fading in competitiveness thanks to stalling aerodynamic progress and no development on its year-old power unit. Sainz felt battling that disadvantage made him a better driver. He is occasionally a little over-aggressive in battle, but showed a tenacity in races that is reminiscent of his hero Fernando Alonso. He showed again that he is a superb qualifier, making Q3 nine times, and the fact Red Bull felt the need to renew his contract in June to ward off potential suitors indicates what a hot property Sainz has become in his own right. 5. FERNANDO ALONSO Fernando Alonso felt he didn't drive particularly well for much of 2015, as he struggled to find the motivation to perform at his best amid McLaren-Honda's woeful level of performance and reliability. But even Alonso half-baked was still comfortably among the 10 best drivers on the grid. This year the car was better, and consequently so was Alonso, who made Q3 eight times in 20 attempts. He finished inside the top 10 in the drivers' championship, destroyed team-mate Jenson Button in qualifying (after a close battle the year before), and scored over half as many points again than Button managed. And Button is a world champion too, remember. Alonso finished a superb fifth in tricky conditions in Monaco, where the car really wasn't working at all well on the sensitive Pirelli tyres, and produced brilliant charges from the back row of the grid to finish inside the top seven in Belgium and Malaysia. There were still a few occasions (Germany and Monza) where he let frustration at McLaren-Honda's ineptitude get the better of him, but in fairness the present car/engine package is a waste of the talents of someone who remains one of the absolute best drivers on the grid. Alonso has made no secret of his dissatisfaction with the slow-going, tyre-saving nature of current Formula 1 racing, but the regulations are changing in a way that should better please him next year. At 35 he still looks more than capable of fighting with the best drivers in the field, if McLaren-Honda can produce a car worthy of his ability. 4. NICO ROSBERG Nico Rosberg finally realised his life's ambition by winning the world championship this year, but as wonderful an achievement as that is for a driver who has shown impressive resolve in the face of repeated defeat at Lewis Hamilton's hands, Rosberg must accept he did not win the title by being out-and-out better than Hamilton. He was generally slower than his main rival, lost the intra-team qualifying battle 12-9 (12-6 if you discount the races Hamilton didn't take part in qualifying properly), and won fewer races. But he scored five more points than Hamilton did, and that's the only statistic that really matters in the end. The unreliability of Hamilton's Mercedes helped Rosberg enormously, but he also helped himself. He was more aggressive in battle, bumping Hamilton aside to ultimately win the season opener in Australia, and he was quicker than Hamilton before mechanical trouble struck in qualifying in Russia. He was generally superior to Hamilton in getting off the startline under F1's new single-clutch, minimal communication rules, which proved decisive in overturning qualifying deficits to win in Australia, Bahrain, and Italy. Rosberg drove very well this year, which meant he could capitalise fully whenever Hamilton wasn't at his best. In Baku and Singapore Rosberg was clearly the better driver at the crucial moment, and he rose to the occasion brilliantly to take full control of the title race by winning from pole in Japan, and to withstand the pressure that created during the run-in. Rosberg is nothing if not resilient, a living lesson for everyone in the power of self-awareness, the quest for self-improvement, and a pure will to win. He can retire proud of all he has achieved. 3. MAX VERSTAPPEN Max Verstappen is not yet the absolute best driver in Formula 1, but he most likely will be one day soon. In the races he is utterly relentless, capable of turning unfavourable circumstances to his advantage. Like Nigel Mansell or Ayrton Senna, Verstappen is a driver who makes things happen. That makes him exciting to watch, and consequently good news for Formula 1. Of course history will remember his debut victory for Red Bull in Spain, making him F1's youngest ever race winner, but his most outstanding drives came in the wet, in the British and Brazilian Grands Prix. The way he carved through the field from 14th to third over the final 16 laps at Interlagos deservedly drew comparisons with the wet weather wizardry of Senna and Michael Schumacher in their pomp. Superb tyre management skills in the dry also allow Verstappen to make alternative strategies work, a major part of his success in Spain and Austria (where he finished second), and his recovery from last to fourth after a first-corner spin in the Abu Dhabi finale. There are still some rough edges. Verstappen's particularly aggressive brand of defensive driving prompted justified criticism from his peers (and a rules clarification from the FIA), and he is often too impulsive when trying to recover from setbacks. He also needs to improve further in qualifying, though it's interesting to note he beat Ricciardo more often than not once he started going his own way on set-up from Malaysia onwards. Such is the magnitude of his impact already it's easy to forget Verstappen has only just completed his third season of car racing of any kind. He is naturally still a work in progress, but is showing all the signs of becoming a genuine megastar. 2. LEWIS HAMILTON Lewis Hamilton could make a very convincing case for arguing that he should have won a third-consecutive world championship this season. He had unquestionably the fastest car in the field at his disposal again, and he was again unquestionably the better of the two Mercedes drivers over the balance of the campaign in pure performance terms. Hamilton was certainly the faster of the two, taking 12 pole positions to Rosberg's eight, despite taking no meaningful part in three qualifying sessions due to engine problems on his Mercedes. He also won 10 races to Rosberg's nine, and scored 17 total podium finishes to Rosberg's 16. But this ultimately wasn't enough to get the job done. Hamilton missed out by five points this year, and though he can rightly suggest unreliability thwarted his cause, he also contributed to his own downfall by making too many mistakes. Repeated poor starts theoretically cost him two more points than the engine failure he suffered while leading the Malaysian Grand Prix. Hamilton did not cope as well as Rosberg with mandated changes to Mercedes' start procedure and clutch, and paid the price. He also crashed uncharacteristically in Baku qualifying, and was nowhere near Rosberg's level in Singapore. Rosberg taking the title race out of Hamilton's hands in Japan seemed to lift the burden of injustice from Hamilton's shoulders, and the form he showed in closing out the season with four straight wins was vintage Hamilton. Sadly for him, it was too little too late. 1. DANIEL RICCIARDO Mercedes title rivals Rosberg and Hamilton topped the championship table again this year, and Verstappen attracted most of the headlines these two didn't with his occasionally dazzling displays of brilliance, but Verstappen's Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was the best driver in Formula 1 this year. After a troubled 2015, when Ricciardo struggled to process Red Bull-Renault's dip in form following his breakout winning campaign of the previous year, the amiable Australian was back to his very best this season. Having previously got a little too hung up on world championship ambitions made unrealistic by Red Bull's current competitive standing, Ricciardo re-focused on the job at hand this year. The result was a truly outstanding level of performance, achieved consistently through the campaign. True he only won once, a victory inherited when Hamilton's engine blew up in Malaysia, but Ricciardo could easily have won in Spain and Monaco too, had Red Bull completed sharper strategic pit work on his behalf. Verstappen joining the team from the Spanish Grand Prix onwards forced Ricciardo to raise his game, but he did just that, beating Verstappen 11-6 in the intra-team qualifying battle, and outscoring the Dutch teenager 220 points to 191 in the 17 races they did together. Race form swung back and forth between the two, but Verstappen might be one of the most instinctively brilliant racers Formula 1 has ever seen. Nevertheless, Ricciardo's more measured approach was at least a match for Verstappen in this respect. Where Ricciardo was truly exceptional was in qualifying. Time and again he delivered scintillating laps at the crucial moment in Q3. Before Renault had even introduced its major in-season update Ricciardo was fifth on the grid in Bahrain, and a quite brilliant second in China. He kept debutant Verstappen in check with a stupendous final run in Spain, was on pole in Monaco, and on the front row again in Baku and Singapore. Double world champion Alonso was certainly impressed, declaring Ricciardo the best driver in Formula 1 right now in an interview with the BBC. On this year's evidence Autosport is inclined to agree. THE REST Several other drivers could make a strong case for inclusion in the top 10, particularly the resurgent Kimi Raikkonen, and Manor's star rookie Pascal Wehrlein. Raikkonen was underwhelming in 2014 and '15, but much better this year, benefiting from improved communication with his Maranello engineering team. After Ferrari announced his contract renewal at Silverstone, Raikkonen had the measure of Vettel in qualifying more often than not, but struggled to translate that form into hard results, and his underwhelming Sunday form over the final 12 races is ultimately why he didn't quite make the cut. Wehrlein reached impressive peaks in the Mercedes-engined Manor, making Q2 five times in a car that was ostensibly the slowest on the grid at most circuits. He ultimately lost out on a 2017 Force India seat to Esteban Ocon – who pushed Wehrlein hard after replacing Rio Haryanto mid-season – but Wehrlein's performances certainly merited a promotion, which may yet come following Rosberg's shock retirement. Jenson Button was occasionally superb, particularly when qualifying and finishing inside the top six in the underpowered McLaren-Honda in Austria. But hanging on to Alonso's coat tails sapped Button's energy, and his form tailed off after announcing his sabbatical ahead of September's Italian GP. Felipe Massa announced his retirement from F1 at the same race. He started the year strongly, but was ultimately well beaten by Williams team-mate Bottas. Romain Grosjean achieved some extraordinary heights with newcomer Haas, but found it difficult to achieve the consistency that made him such a formidable force at Lotus, while team-mate Esteban Gutierrez reminded F1 of his speed over a single lap, but struggled to string together a complete weekend. Gutierrez left Haas unconvinced by his potential, so will be replaced for 2017 by Kevin Magnussen, who didn't quite do enough to convince Renault he was worth a long-term deal, with performances that were occasionally brilliant but ultimately inconsistent. Rookie team-mate Jolyon Palmer improved steadily, and after the summer break was the better Renault driver in qualifying, making Q2 five times in the final nine races. A driver who has benefited enormously from steady self-improvement is Sauber's Marcus Ericsson. He didn't achieve the beleaguered Swiss team's standout result, but he was its most impressive driver. Felipe Nasr bagged those two crucial points for Sauber by finishing ninth in his home race in Brazil, but that was a rare bright spot in a disappointing season of struggle for the Brazilian. Daniil Kvyat endured more disappointment than anyone when Red Bull replaced him with Verstappen just four races into the season. Kvyat struggled to process this rejection while trying to mend his reputation at Toro Rosso. His form was patchy, but still enough to convince Red Bull to keep him at STR for 2017. |
By Ben Anderson | |
Grand Prix Editor |
Nico Rosberg finally toppled Lewis Hamilton, as their personal rivalry for Formula 1's top prize reached its last conclusion this season. Mercedes dominated F1 technically again, for the third year in succession, so these two monopolised the podium, winning 19 of the 21 races held between them. But that doesn't necessarily mean Rosberg and Hamilton were definitely this year's standout performers. Autosport's Grand Prix Editor, BEN ANDERSON, looks beyond the headline results to bring you his top 10 F1 drivers of 2016. 10. SERGIO PEREZ This was another excellent campaign from Perez, who scored more than 100 points in a single season for the first time in his career, and achieved a career-best seventh place in the final standings. His form has been consistently excellent since the middle of last season, when he made a set-up breakthrough with his engineering team at Spa, and he continued in that vein this year. Team-mate Nico Hulkenberg performed slightly better overall, but Perez pushed him hard. He lost the intra-team qualifying battle 12-9 to Hulkenberg, but in 14 of the 21 races the gap between them was two tenths or less, indicating how far Perez has progressed as a qualifier since his Sauber days. Qualifying the VJM09 second fastest in Baku, where he also finished on the podium, was outstanding, showing impressive resolve after crashing at the end of final practice and copping a grid penalty for a gearbox swap. Perez has matured into a fine all-rounder in grand prix racing. He is rarely spectacular, but has upped his game in qualifying, and added a methodical and self-analytical approach to the tyre management skills that make him almost metronomic in races. He is nearly always there to take chances when they present themselves, and was a key component of Force India's best ever season in F1. 9. NICO HULKENBERG Nico Hulkenberg has driven enigmatically during his time at Force India, showing only sporadic flashes of the form that made him a Ferrari target at the back end of F1's V8 era. The first five races of this season were pretty underwhelming too, but Hulkenberg came alive following the final major upgrade to the VJM09 after May's Spanish Grand Prix, and there were some outstanding displays - particularly in qualifying, where overall he enjoyed the edge over team-mate Perez. Hulkenberg qualified a brilliant fifth in Monaco, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari, and probably would have finished on the podium there instead of Perez with a better strategic call by the team. He was third fastest in mixed conditions in Austria, and his Q3 laps in Austin and Mexico were stunning, suggesting he found a new gear after agreeing to move to Renault for 2017, though he disagreed with that assessment. Hulkenberg didn't always achieve the results his performances merited this year, but he was eliminated from five races through no fault of his own, and was unlucky not to bag at least one podium. The championship table suggests Hulkenberg was well beaten by Perez, but that is not a fair reflection of how well Hulkenberg drove. It was close, but he was narrowly the better Force India driver in 2016. 8. VALTTERI BOTTAS Williams slipped back from being among the three best teams during the previous two seasons to being only the fifth best this year, and consequently Bottas found it more difficult to hit the same heights he reached in 2014 and '15. The FW38 was limited in potential, and its aerodynamic development was troubled, but Bottas made the most of the tools at his disposal. The peak results were sparse, but Bottas did what he could, scoring points regularly and executing a brilliant strategic podium finish in Canada, beating the Red Bulls, a Mercedes, and Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari to the punch. But Bottas's real strength remained in qualifying, where he pulverised team-mate Felipe Massa 17-4 in the intra-team battle, the largest margin between any driver pairing on the grid this year. Bottas made Q3 14 times in 21 races, and his average qualifying position across the season was 8.3 - near enough a match for Force India's Nico Hulkenberg (8.29), and better than Sergio Perez (9.4) and Massa (10.5). Pretty decent considering Bottas's car was not definitively among the four best on the grid. It was a difficult year for Williams, but in his typically understated way Bottas showed again that he is among the most capable and reliable drivers in F1's midfield. 7. SEBASTIAN VETTEL The honeymoon is most definitely over between Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel, after a brilliant first season together in 2015. There were no more race wins to add to the three they took last season, and Vettel also slipped to a distant fourth in the championship, having threatened to steal second from Nico Rosberg the previous year. The SF16-H was meant to be the car that transformed Ferrari from occasional race winner into title contender, but it performed inconsistently. Vettel coped well in the face of adversity initially, finishing on the podium five times in the first nine races, but he overdrove as Ferrari got sucked back into a fight with a resurgent Red Bull. He was outqualified by revitalised team-mate Kimi Raikkonen 9-3 over the final 12 races, including the last five consecutively, and there were murmurings of a rift with team boss Maurizio Arrivabene, who suggested Vettel was trying to do too much behind the scenes at Maranello, rather than focusing on simply driving the car. Vettel at least kept his race form up to outscore Raikkonen 116-90 over those final dozen grands prix, adding two more podiums in the process, but he is right when he says this was a season about which Ferrari cannot feel proud. Neither, for that matter, can Vettel. 6. CARLOS SAINZ JR Amid the meteoric rise of Max Verstappen it's been all too easy to overlook the form of Carlos Sainz Jr, who enjoyed a terrific second season of his own at this level. This year's Ferrari-engined Toro Rosso was much more reliable than its Renault-motivated predecessor, which allowed Sainz to better express himself. He says his approach did not change after Verstappen left for Red Bull four races into 2016, but the team felt Sainz came out of his shell with Verstappen out of the picture. He fought with the Ferraris and finished a season's best sixth in his first race without Verstappen in the team in Spain, a result Sainz repeated twice more in the latter part of the year, despite the STR11 fading in competitiveness thanks to stalling aerodynamic progress and no development on its year-old power unit. Sainz felt battling that disadvantage made him a better driver. He is occasionally a little over-aggressive in battle, but showed a tenacity in races that is reminiscent of his hero Fernando Alonso. He showed again that he is a superb qualifier, making Q3 nine times, and the fact Red Bull felt the need to renew his contract in June to ward off potential suitors indicates what a hot property Sainz has become in his own right. 5. FERNANDO ALONSO Fernando Alonso felt he didn't drive particularly well for much of 2015, as he struggled to find the motivation to perform at his best amid McLaren-Honda's woeful level of performance and reliability. But even Alonso half-baked was still comfortably among the 10 best drivers on the grid. This year the car was better, and consequently so was Alonso, who made Q3 eight times in 20 attempts. He finished inside the top 10 in the drivers' championship, destroyed team-mate Jenson Button in qualifying (after a close battle the year before), and scored over half as many points again than Button managed. And Button is a world champion too, remember. Alonso finished a superb fifth in tricky conditions in Monaco, where the car really wasn't working at all well on the sensitive Pirelli tyres, and produced brilliant charges from the back row of the grid to finish inside the top seven in Belgium and Malaysia. There were still a few occasions (Germany and Monza) where he let frustration at McLaren-Honda's ineptitude get the better of him, but in fairness the present car/engine package is a waste of the talents of someone who remains one of the absolute best drivers on the grid. Alonso has made no secret of his dissatisfaction with the slow-going, tyre-saving nature of current Formula 1 racing, but the regulations are changing in a way that should better please him next year. At 35 he still looks more than capable of fighting with the best drivers in the field, if McLaren-Honda can produce a car worthy of his ability. 4. NICO ROSBERG Nico Rosberg finally realised his life's ambition by winning the world championship this year, but as wonderful an achievement as that is for a driver who has shown impressive resolve in the face of repeated defeat at Lewis Hamilton's hands, Rosberg must accept he did not win the title by being out-and-out better than Hamilton. He was generally slower than his main rival, lost the intra-team qualifying battle 12-9 (12-6 if you discount the races Hamilton didn't take part in qualifying properly), and won fewer races. But he scored five more points than Hamilton did, and that's the only statistic that really matters in the end. The unreliability of Hamilton's Mercedes helped Rosberg enormously, but he also helped himself. He was more aggressive in battle, bumping Hamilton aside to ultimately win the season opener in Australia, and he was quicker than Hamilton before mechanical trouble struck in qualifying in Russia. He was generally superior to Hamilton in getting off the startline under F1's new single-clutch, minimal communication rules, which proved decisive in overturning qualifying deficits to win in Australia, Bahrain, and Italy. Rosberg drove very well this year, which meant he could capitalise fully whenever Hamilton wasn't at his best. In Baku and Singapore Rosberg was clearly the better driver at the crucial moment, and he rose to the occasion brilliantly to take full control of the title race by winning from pole in Japan, and to withstand the pressure that created during the run-in. Rosberg is nothing if not resilient, a living lesson for everyone in the power of self-awareness, the quest for self-improvement, and a pure will to win. He can retire proud of all he has achieved. 3. MAX VERSTAPPEN Max Verstappen is not yet the absolute best driver in Formula 1, but he most likely will be one day soon. In the races he is utterly relentless, capable of turning unfavourable circumstances to his advantage. Like Nigel Mansell or Ayrton Senna, Verstappen is a driver who makes things happen. That makes him exciting to watch, and consequently good news for Formula 1. Of course history will remember his debut victory for Red Bull in Spain, making him F1's youngest ever race winner, but his most outstanding drives came in the wet, in the British and Brazilian Grands Prix. The way he carved through the field from 14th to third over the final 16 laps at Interlagos deservedly drew comparisons with the wet weather wizardry of Senna and Michael Schumacher in their pomp. Superb tyre management skills in the dry also allow Verstappen to make alternative strategies work, a major part of his success in Spain and Austria (where he finished second), and his recovery from last to fourth after a first-corner spin in the Abu Dhabi finale. There are still some rough edges. Verstappen's particularly aggressive brand of defensive driving prompted justified criticism from his peers (and a rules clarification from the FIA), and he is often too impulsive when trying to recover from setbacks. He also needs to improve further in qualifying, though it's interesting to note he beat Ricciardo more often than not once he started going his own way on set-up from Malaysia onwards. Such is the magnitude of his impact already it's easy to forget Verstappen has only just completed his third season of car racing of any kind. He is naturally still a work in progress, but is showing all the signs of becoming a genuine megastar. 2. LEWIS HAMILTON Lewis Hamilton could make a very convincing case for arguing that he should have won a third-consecutive world championship this season. He had unquestionably the fastest car in the field at his disposal again, and he was again unquestionably the better of the two Mercedes drivers over the balance of the campaign in pure performance terms. Hamilton was certainly the faster of the two, taking 12 pole positions to Rosberg's eight, despite taking no meaningful part in three qualifying sessions due to engine problems on his Mercedes. He also won 10 races to Rosberg's nine, and scored 17 total podium finishes to Rosberg's 16. But this ultimately wasn't enough to get the job done. Hamilton missed out by five points this year, and though he can rightly suggest unreliability thwarted his cause, he also contributed to his own downfall by making too many mistakes. Repeated poor starts theoretically cost him two more points than the engine failure he suffered while leading the Malaysian Grand Prix. Hamilton did not cope as well as Rosberg with mandated changes to Mercedes' start procedure and clutch, and paid the price. He also crashed uncharacteristically in Baku qualifying, and was nowhere near Rosberg's level in Singapore. Rosberg taking the title race out of Hamilton's hands in Japan seemed to lift the burden of injustice from Hamilton's shoulders, and the form he showed in closing out the season with four straight wins was vintage Hamilton. Sadly for him, it was too little too late. 1. DANIEL RICCIARDO Mercedes title rivals Rosberg and Hamilton topped the championship table again this year, and Verstappen attracted most of the headlines these two didn't with his occasionally dazzling displays of brilliance, but Verstappen's Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was the best driver in Formula 1 this year. After a troubled 2015, when Ricciardo struggled to process Red Bull-Renault's dip in form following his breakout winning campaign of the previous year, the amiable Australian was back to his very best this season. Having previously got a little too hung up on world championship ambitions made unrealistic by Red Bull's current competitive standing, Ricciardo re-focused on the job at hand this year. The result was a truly outstanding level of performance, achieved consistently through the campaign. True he only won once, a victory inherited when Hamilton's engine blew up in Malaysia, but Ricciardo could easily have won in Spain and Monaco too, had Red Bull completed sharper strategic pit work on his behalf. Verstappen joining the team from the Spanish Grand Prix onwards forced Ricciardo to raise his game, but he did just that, beating Verstappen 11-6 in the intra-team qualifying battle, and outscoring the Dutch teenager 220 points to 191 in the 17 races they did together. Race form swung back and forth between the two, but Verstappen might be one of the most instinctively brilliant racers Formula 1 has ever seen. Nevertheless, Ricciardo's more measured approach was at least a match for Verstappen in this respect. Where Ricciardo was truly exceptional was in qualifying. Time and again he delivered scintillating laps at the crucial moment in Q3. Before Renault had even introduced its major in-season update Ricciardo was fifth on the grid in Bahrain, and a quite brilliant second in China. He kept debutant Verstappen in check with a stupendous final run in Spain, was on pole in Monaco, and on the front row again in Baku and Singapore. Double world champion Alonso was certainly impressed, declaring Ricciardo the best driver in Formula 1 right now in an interview with the BBC. On this year's evidence Autosport is inclined to agree. THE REST Several other drivers could make a strong case for inclusion in the top 10, particularly the resurgent Kimi Raikkonen, and Manor's star rookie Pascal Wehrlein. Raikkonen was underwhelming in 2014 and '15, but much better this year, benefiting from improved communication with his Maranello engineering team. After Ferrari announced his contract renewal at Silverstone, Raikkonen had the measure of Vettel in qualifying more often than not, but struggled to translate that form into hard results, and his underwhelming Sunday form over the final 12 races is ultimately why he didn't quite make the cut. Wehrlein reached impressive peaks in the Mercedes-engined Manor, making Q2 five times in a car that was ostensibly the slowest on the grid at most circuits. He ultimately lost out on a 2017 Force India seat to Esteban Ocon – who pushed Wehrlein hard after replacing Rio Haryanto mid-season – but Wehrlein's performances certainly merited a promotion, which may yet come following Rosberg's shock retirement. Jenson Button was occasionally superb, particularly when qualifying and finishing inside the top six in the underpowered McLaren-Honda in Austria. But hanging on to Alonso's coat tails sapped Button's energy, and his form tailed off after announcing his sabbatical ahead of September's Italian GP. Felipe Massa announced his retirement from F1 at the same race. He started the year strongly, but was ultimately well beaten by Williams team-mate Bottas. Romain Grosjean achieved some extraordinary heights with newcomer Haas, but found it difficult to achieve the consistency that made him such a formidable force at Lotus, while team-mate Esteban Gutierrez reminded F1 of his speed over a single lap, but struggled to string together a complete weekend. Gutierrez left Haas unconvinced by his potential, so will be replaced for 2017 by Kevin Magnussen, who didn't quite do enough to convince Renault he was worth a long-term deal, with performances that were occasionally brilliant but ultimately inconsistent. Rookie team-mate Jolyon Palmer improved steadily, and after the summer break was the better Renault driver in qualifying, making Q2 five times in the final nine races. A driver who has benefited enormously from steady self-improvement is Sauber's Marcus Ericsson. He didn't achieve the beleaguered Swiss team's standout result, but he was its most impressive driver. Felipe Nasr bagged those two crucial points for Sauber by finishing ninth in his home race in Brazil, but that was a rare bright spot in a disappointing season of struggle for the Brazilian. Daniil Kvyat endured more disappointment than anyone when Red Bull replaced him with Verstappen just four races into the season. Kvyat struggled to process this rejection while trying to mend his reputation at Toro Rosso. His form was patchy, but still enough to convince Red Bull to keep him at STR for 2017. |