Vettel and Button take Driver of the Weekend wins

2011 F1 season

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Button beat Vettel to win in Japan

Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button scooped two more wins in your Driver of the Weekend votes.

Vettel was picked top driver for the second race in a row at Singapore, while Button got the nod for his win in Japan.

Driver of the Weekend: Singapore Grand Prix

Driver of the Singapore Grand Prix Weekend poll – top three

1. Sebastian Vettel – 41.8%
2. Paul di Resta – 30.9%
3. Jenson Button – 15.6%

Smifaye summed up why Vettel, Button and Paul di Resta were voted top three drivers of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend:

I voted for Vettel as once again he is proving why he is good enough to win back to back championships. The BBC commentary team said it during the race that he seems to glide through while the others falter. Apart from his final stint where he looked under pressure from Button it was a stunning weekend. I just don’t get how he pulls out these amazing laps week after week, it’s just phenomenal.

An honourable mention to both Button and Di Resta as they are really showing how to drive a mature race. Button started well and maintained the gap to the driver behind and after being unwell was extremely impressive. Button keeps on impressing me week after week.

Di Resta is not driving like it is his first season in F1 and really made it work this weekend.
smifaye

Sebastian Vettel

Vettel had a lights-to-flag win in Singapore

It was a near-perfect weekend for the world champion. Many F1 Fanatic readers did not hesitate when it came to choosing the Driver of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend:

Sebastian Vettel by a trillion miles.

He was nothing short of sublime (again) as well as dominating all of practice and qualifying, and leading every lap.

Yes, I think di Resta, Button and Alonso did well, but Vettel did very well.

This lad just gets better.
daykind

Ben Needham explained how he came to the conclusion that Vettel deserved his vote most:

The in-form drivers at Singapore were Vettel, Button, Alonso and di Resta, and they make up my ‘semi-final’. From them, I think Vettel and di Resta make the final of my Driver of the Weekend vote, and in the end, I had to go for Vettel.

di Resta was superb, but Vettel, again, outclassed the field. He had a solid lead slashed and then built it again. He lead every lap, and I can’t fault him, even if I wanted to. I have literally no criticism.
Ben Needham

Paul di Resta

Di Resta’s path to sixth was eased by team mate Adrian Sutil getting out of his way. But he still scored his best result of the season. Finishing sixth on a circuit as tough as Marina Bay in his rookie year was an impressive result and it was appreciated by several readers:

My vote goes to Paul di Resta, a great performance in an unknown track and don’t forget his team, they provided an outstanding strategy for him. This year in my opinion it’ll be difficult to choose a “rookie of the year” between him and Sergio Perez.
Carlitox

Jenson Button

Button pursued Vettel until the very end in the final stint.

I went for Button. He had a great drive but what’s more important is that he is being consistently good at the moment. I know we should only base this on the race at hand but there is also plenty to be said for remaining so focussed and bringing the points home.

Honourable mention to Vettel too, untouchable.

Of course di Resta did very well also, a great result for him.
AndrewTanner

Button super-pushing to the end. Never give up. Brilliant. Ordinarily this drive by Button would be not just driver of the weekend but something more memorable and special.
bearforce1

Driver of the Weekend: Japanese Grand Prix

Driver of the Japanese Grand Prix Weekend poll – top three

1. Jenson Button – 67.3%
2. Fernando Alonso – 13.3%
3. Michael Schumacher – 6.3%

There were a few outstanding performances during the whole Japanese weekend as Dan Thorn and David A explained:

Immediately after the race I was thinking about this poll and what a hard decision it was going to be.

Alonso drove a brilliant race to hustle his Ferrari into an astonishing second place, and almost a win. Perez overcame the flu wonderfully to progress through the field and score solid points for eighth place. Schumacher did a great job to finish sixth for Mercedes, continuing his great recent form. Ricciardo brilliantly pushed the Virgins on a track where HRT appeared to be much slower.

Then, I realised that it was a Driver of the Weekend poll, not a Driver of the Day poll, and on that basis it can only go to one man: Jenson Button. Fastest in all the practice sessions, denied pole position by a mere nine thousandths of a second and a brilliantly controlled win on Sunday. He put together the weekend wonderfully and never looked like making an error or letting a chance go. Top drawer stuff once again from Jenson.
Dan Thorn

Driver of Saturday: Vettel
Driver of Sunday: Alonso
Driver of the Weekend: Button
David A

Jenson Button

Button's Suzuka win was his third of the year

Button was the fastest man throughout the whole weekend. After leading all the practice sessions he lost pole position by a mere 0.009s. He lost another position at the start trying to pass Vettel.

But he soon regained it and McLaren’s strategy helped him leapfrog Vettel in the pits for the lead. When at the front, he withstood pressure from Alonso to take his third win of the season and his fifth with McLaren.

Jenson Button without a doubt. His race victory on Sunday demonstrated several of his abilities – He was calm, collected, preserved his tyres in the second stint, aggressive in the last stint though running out of fuel.
Icemangrins

Fernando Alonso

Alonso was out-qualified by Massa for the third time this year, but passed his team mate early in the race. He moved ahead of the tyre-troubled Hamilton and his team managed to put him in front of Sebastian Vettel in the pits.

In the dying stages of the race, he pushed Button for the win to eventually settle with second place – which he felt was the maximum he could have achieved with the Ferrari.

For the second time this season I’m going to say Alonso. Ferrari and Alonso really worked alongside their problems and managed to make the perfect race set up as they stand they couldn’t have done better.
UKfan

Michael Schumacher

After troublesome qualifying session, Schumacher started tenth on the grid. He then stayed out of trouble and brought the car home in front of one Ferrari and only 2.9 seconds behind one McLaren.

To beat one Ferrari and come home not far behind Hamilton (however off-form he was) was a great achievement, proof if any was still needed that while not at his absolute peak, Michael can still cut it on his day.
Chris Holland-Skinner

Button won this poll by one of the greatest margins this year (only Hamilton in Germany gathered greater percentage of votes). He also managed to be in the top three of the poll for the fifth consecutive race.

Alonso was voted one of the top three drivers for the seventh time this season and for the first time since German Grand Prix.

Schumacher has been in the top trio three times in the last four races.

The winner of previous two polls – Sebastian Vettel – secured his second world championship title at Suzuka, but his performance over the weekend earned him only 1.5% of votes.

2011 Driver of the Weekend results so far

FirstSecondThird
AustraliaSergio Perez (36.3%)Vitaly Petrov (32.5%)Sebastian Vettel (12.0%)
MalaysiaNick Heidfeld (38.4%)Sebastian Vettel (16.0%)Jenson Button (12.1%)
ChinaMark Webber (47.8%)Lewis Hamilton (42.4%)Felipe Massa (2.5%)
TurkeyFernando Alonso (37.8%)Kamui Kobayashi (25.8%)Sebastian Vettel (22.1%)
SpainLewis Hamilton (39.6%)Sebastian Vettel (23.9%)Fernando Alonso (13.3%)
MonacoJenson Button (33.1%)Fernando Alonso (18.8%)Sebastian Vettel (17.0%)
CanadaJenson Button (61.0%)Michael Schumacher (27.8%)Sebastian Vettel (2.2%)
EuropeFernando Alonso (32.6%)Sebastian Vettel (27.6%)Jaime Alguersuari (25.7%)
BritainFernando Alonso (53.0%)Lewis Hamilton (22.3%)Mark Webber (8.0%)
GermanyLewis Hamilton (76.6%)Adrian Sutil (9.8%)Fernando Alonso (5.6%)
HungaryJenson Button (50.7%)Paul di Resta (14.4%)Lewis Hamilton (11.8%)
BelgiumMichael Schumacher (45.1%)Jenson Button (28.2%)Sebastian Vettel (14.7%)
ItalySebastian Vettel (38.2%)Michael Schumacher (29.6%)Jenson Button (18.2%)
SingaporeSebastian Vettel (41.8%)Paul di Resta (30.9%)Jenson Button (15.6%)
JapanJenson Button (67.3%)Fernando Alonso (13.3%)Michael Schumacher (6.3%)

The voting is still open for your pick of Korean Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend:

What do you think about the results? Leave your comments below.

2011 F1 season


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Image © McLaren, Red Bull/Getty images, McLaren

8 comments on “Vettel and Button take Driver of the Weekend wins”

  1. Di Resta is not driving like it is his first season in F1 and really made it work this weekend.
    smifaye

    Gotta say I agree with Smifaye on that one. I said it myself the other day on the Force India race result article. It’s a great way to hit the ground running in F1.

    Some great comments above. A very significant trend appears; consistency with the top drivers. I’m looking at you Vettel and Button inparticular.

    1. You should agree with everything I say @AndrewTanner, I always speak sense ;)

  2. This really is a great feature. Thank you Ewa for putting together the analyses and picking perfect quotes to go with it!

  3. These are such a great way of rounding up these features and it’s great to see what everyone made of each drivers weekends without having to scroll through lots of comments.

    Just one point, you’ve got a picture of Lewis Hamilton instead of Jenson Button here:

    Jenson Button

    Button’s Suzuka win was his third of the year
    Button was the fastest man throughout the whole…..

    1. @smifaye

      Changed the picture, thanks.

  4. Always wierd that when a Mclaren driver wins they get a big portion of the votes (bar Webbers charge in China) yet when someone else wins it almost goes under the radar

    1. @91jb12 The Red Bull has usually been the best car so when Vettel’s won people have often put it down to the car rather than the driver. When someone else has won – which has almost always been McLaren but of course there was Alonso in Silverstone – people have been more inclined to give credit to the driver.

      Given that Red Bull had pole position for every race up to this weekend, I don’t find it that surprising.

      There have been a few results I personally don’t agree with but that’s the nature of the beast.

  5. Schumi really restole some hearts this year. But those were outstanding drives!

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