Who was the best driver of 2009? (Poll)
27th November 2009, 6:59 by Keith Collantine 210 Comments »
Name your top driver of 2009
Jenson Button or Sebastian Vettel? Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso?
Who do you think was the best F1 driver of 2009? Cast your vote below to decide the F1 Fanatic driver of the year.
Rob said on 27th November 2009, 7:21
The guy with the most points obv.
KubicaProject said on 27th November 2009, 7:34
Im Polish! I say Kubica!
yosteffen said on 27th November 2009, 8:33
Best driver not favourite =)
Willian said on 27th November 2009, 12:37
My favourite was Barrichello but Hamilton was the best!
He took a poor car and win. If he had a good car he could have beaten Button.
epi said on 27th November 2009, 12:47
Yeah, I gotta say I was rooting for Chello all season, the underdog of the underdogs.
But then, I think that if you had given all the drivers an equal car, Hamilton would’ve won it, so that’s why I voted for him
Damon said on 27th November 2009, 14:39
Sorry, mate, but this is ********. As long as McLaren had a poor car – Hamilton drove poorly.
Let me remind you of how the season looked.
Hamilton was not better than Luca Badoer in his races.
Then McLaren did some fantastic improvements and suddenly had the best car in the field (that suited the tracks):
Mike "the bike" Schumacher said on 27th November 2009, 22:26
People seem to have forgotten about liegate, and altough Hamiltons preformances make him almost desrve top spot, its because of liegate that he shouldn’t be rated No.1 this year. I don’t hate Hamilton, if it was any other driver I wouldn’t rate them either.
The drivers this year made a lot of mistakes. The only ones I can’t remember making mistakes are Kubica, Alonso and Heidfeld in particular. Altough maybe I just didn’t notice cause they were so far back.
Best, most consistent driver with the greatest preformences was Rosberg. If it wasn’t for overstepping the pit exit line in singapore he would hve been flawless.
Patrickl said on 27th November 2009, 22:29
I didn’t make any mistakes in F1 this year either. That doesn’t mean I did anything right either … In fact it doesn’t mean I did anything in F1.
sato113 said on 30th November 2009, 19:09
im sorry Damon, how can you shun Hamilton’s performance from Spain to Britain? he had a truly awful car. Badoer had a solid points finishing car in his hands, so dont compare the two guys.
huh? his car was cra* in melbourne yet he drove it from the back up to 3rd (albeit he was then told to lie by the people he trusted.)
Becken said on 27th November 2009, 21:13
Fair enough!
Journeyer said on 27th November 2009, 7:31
Gotta be Jenson – he’s the World Champion, after all. Even if the equipment was there, he still had to produce the goods to take the title – and he did just that.
wasiF1 said on 27th November 2009, 7:34
I voted Button because as Keith said he made some awesome overtaking maneuver in Bahrain & mainly in Brazil.He kept his head cool & won the championship in Brazil.
hunnylander said on 27th November 2009, 7:41
A Hungarian voted Hamilton.
JV said on 27th November 2009, 7:54
It was very close call my standings.
1.Lewis
2.Sebastian
3.Jenson
4.Mark
5.Rubens
I voted for Lewis because if you compare all the above driver with their partners Lewis simply outclassed Heikki.I know you will argue that Heikki is very poor driver compared to others but even margin was huge.
Ed said on 27th November 2009, 8:18
surely Rosberg should be in your top 5 then, JV?
His gap to Nakajima was 7.5 points more than the McLaren gap.
JV said on 28th November 2009, 6:45
You can’t compare Heikki with Nakajima,who has not scored even a single point in his last 20 GP appearances and has barely scored couple of pts in last 29 GPs.Heikki is far better than Nakajima.
gc.it said on 27th November 2009, 11:06
Yep, but as you told, Heikki is a very poor driver. so I think you’re quite right when you say that we should compare the gap, but Jenson and Seb – although they had strong partners – have been able to beat them with a good advantage in the championship.
Patrickl said on 27th November 2009, 11:27
Heikki is a very poor driver? Are you kidding me?
Compared to Hamilton he doesn’t look so hot maybe, but he destroyed Fisichella in his rookie year at Renault. Even having to change his driving style to cope with a car that was built for Fisichella’s driving style.
In GP2 he was pretty close to Rosberg.
Ace said on 27th November 2009, 14:25
I think ‘destroyed’ might be a bit much…
Patrickl said on 27th November 2009, 22:35
Well, then you would be wrong.
To recap:
- Heikki was a rookie
- The car was built to suit Fisichella
So yeah, Heikki took a few races to get used to the car. From Canada onwards, Heikki was a regular points finisher while Fisichella barely made it into the top 10.
Heikki scores 27 points vs Fisichella 8.
ukk said on 27th November 2009, 7:56
Lewis – from pulling together with the team to get the dodgy McL out of the mud and the consolidating the gains into wins
wasiF1 said on 27th November 2009, 8:16
I just hope both Ferrari & Mclaren have a good car next season I am waiting to see both Alonso & Hamilton fighting to dead between them.
Pradeek said on 27th November 2009, 9:21
Badoer has 3 votes.Awesome!!!
Ned Flanders said on 27th November 2009, 13:55
He now has 9- including mine!
(sorry I had to vote for Badoer- my actual choice is Vettel, he is unbelivably fast)
Ned Flanders said on 27th November 2009, 15:15
Badoer currently has more votes than Barrichello, Rosberg and Massa.
Go Luca!
Tiago said on 27th November 2009, 9:26
I like how raikonnen underservingly has so many votes.
My vote goes for Rosberg, because he was consistently faster than his team mate and consistently made the top 5 with a worse car. I think he will be great next year for Mercedes
Katy said on 27th November 2009, 20:51
Good comment. I like this.
Storm said on 30th November 2009, 5:52
What’s Kimi’s fault if others don’t have as big a fan-following as him. Give him a nicer car and Buttons and Hamiltons are pansies.
Slaaaaaash said on 30th November 2009, 13:58
undeservingly? for a while he was the one who had collected the most points and if u have watched f1 then u should know how awful he’s car was during the whole season, and he had like 6 podiums in a row+ 1 victory, so deserves this many votes very much.
Tiago said on 1st December 2009, 9:59
yes, undeservingly
if you want to discuss most points in a period of time, then you’d have to say Jensen, he had the most points in the period of time the poll refered too. And then you’d still have a load of drivers with more points than kimi.
If you are going by having a bad car and making points, like i did, i’d have to go with Rosberg, who had a worse car than kimi but was more consistent
Shagrathian said on 27th November 2009, 9:50
If we consider the whole season that should be JB! Second one is LH. Third one is SV.
PJA said on 27th November 2009, 10:09
A hard decision, but I chose Button for his consistency and lack of mistakes compared to other drivers.
You could argue that Button’s results in the second half of the season were about defending his championship lead rather than going all out for the win every time, something Hamilton was criticised for not doing especially in 2007.
You could also say that some of the other drivers made mistakes because they were pushing their car to the limit to try and catch up, which left no margin for error. For example in the wet at the Chinese GP Hamilton was taking more risks and overtaking, but then lost some of those places because he spun a few times, while Kovalainen in the other McLaren finished ahead because although he wasn’t pushing as hard and he may not have been as fast at times he kept the car on the track.
NomadIndian said on 27th November 2009, 17:06
The guy seized a once in a lifetime opportunity (for him) to win the WDC. Thats enough to be the best of the lot this season.
graham228221 said on 27th November 2009, 10:09
Looks like the Polish contingent are back out in support of Kubica lol =P
Random Chimp said on 27th November 2009, 16:37
Commin over here, takin our votes…
IDR said on 27th November 2009, 10:11
Definetively, Nelsinho is F1F reader!!!!! (or maybe just Nelson Sr.)
Bullfrog said on 27th November 2009, 11:03
might have been Alonso
NomadIndian said on 27th November 2009, 16:59
Nope, it was Max who voted.
James said on 27th November 2009, 10:29
It’s Button hands down. Won the most races, got the most points. I believe that is the critera for the previous champions, and still is now.
Patrickl said on 27th November 2009, 11:29
No that’s the criterium for who drives the best car and scores most points with it.
“Best driver” goes a bit further than that.
James said on 27th November 2009, 12:01
Meh, Button still get’s it hands down for me.
TommyB said on 27th November 2009, 21:35
Best driver is different to the one who gets the most points. Just look where Button was in 2008… now he has the best car he is first.
James said on 27th November 2009, 23:09
Yes, but in 2008 Button was really nowhere. The car was as good as a dog’s backside, and he lost all motivation.
Button has heaps of tallent, just very rarely in his career has had chance to prove himself. Benetton screwed him over, Williams wasnt a good car at the time and the BAR Honda/Honda wasnt the best of cars.
Of all the drivers who completed the FULL season this year, who had that most points, most points finishes, most finishes, most wins? Button.
Button made some of the best overtaking manouveres this year, and probably made the most overtakes this year overall.
gc.it said on 27th November 2009, 11:00
To me it’s quite difficult to decide, because I think all of them did mistakes and came in troubles for different reasons during the season. So I think the best driver of the year is the one – among them – who did less mistakes and this is the reason I think Jenson deserves the title and the “driver-of-the-year-award”. Don’t you think so?