Best driver on the current 2008 grid

Fisichella and Nico not are pilots for F1, in a good portugues "são 2 medíocres"

The same Fisichella who this year has pretty much destroyed any hope that Sutil has of getting into a midfield team, let alone a top one?

ro4die, I am also Brazilian but not under the influence of Reginaldo Leme and Galvão Bueno .

The best thing Sutil has done all year is get in the way of ferrari so to speak

He should have got massa 2 penalties and kimi one penalty. None of them Sutil's fault btw.

He has also caused 2 saftey car periods in Canada 2 years in a row.

I just dont know what to make of him, he tends to make a lot of errors and is no faster that fissi. Maybe in a top car he might be ok.

yes, and causing that SC in Canada this year turned the championship on its head!

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X (@ed24f1)

best driver is Robert Kubica. in points scored/car performance ratio he surely is better then the ferrari and mclaren drivers, and pretty much everyone else, close 2nd would be Vettel followed by Alonso. I think if Kubica was in Mclaren seat of Hamilton, he would have the championship by now.

I would say Piquet has that honer tbh.

im surprised by how many people say kimi is one of the best drivers this year, i can only see that as kimis fans trying to keep his name up there. I think he was one of the worst this year, hebut is consistenly outqualified by Massa, and even on race pace. his championship standing is a true reflection of his performance. if he performed like the level Kubica performed in the car he has, kimi should have won the championship by now in the car he has, but that hasnt happened, he has had a very dissapointing year.

Got to agree with dkpioe, Kimi has been poor this year, hopefully he comes back stronger and motivated next year.

Best drivers on this years grid have been Kubica and Alonso in the second half of the season. Vettel also deserves a mention he's driven brilliantly this year.

red 5 Wrote:

> Kubica will never pull out spectacular drive, but
> will win at least one WDC, maybe more. IMO he is
> like Alain Prost used to be through major part of
> his career; cool, calm and collected.

He has pulled out many spectacular drives, only you dont see it because of the car he has. When he has achieved podiums, it is an incredible drive considering the car he has. Some drives of Kimi of Hamilton that people consider are spectacular are because of them qualifying bad, and having to overtake cars to win, so it looks spectacular, but isnt as good as it looks because they have a better car. Kubica hasnt had that yet, because he qualifies great! and he finishes almost every race infront of a mclaren of ferrari on driver skill alone, and not car speed.
He beat Hamilton many a time in junior formulas, and he has done a much better job then hamilton this year, but hamilton will get all the spoils and publicity because he has the better car, but overall its easy to see Kubica did a better job that hamilton this year when you consider the cars they drive and hamilton has made a lot more mistakes then kubica.

marcl Wrote:
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> I would say Piquet has that honer tbh.

yes, that's true as well

dkpioe Wrote:
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> im surprised by how many people say kimi is one of
> the best drivers this year, i can only see that as
> kimis fans trying to keep his name up there. I
> think he was one of the worst this year, hebut is
> consistenly outqualified by Massa, and even on
> race pace. his championship standing is a true
> reflection of his performance. if he performed
> like the level Kubica performed in the car he has,
> kimi should have won the championship by now in
> the car he has, but that hasnt happened, he has
> had a very dissapointing year.


this topic is about best driver overall, not necessarily during this season. therefore, kimi is definitely up there

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X (@ed24f1)

Its not really kimi's fault that Ferrari went the wrong way on development 2 years in a row. If you remember last year they did the same thing around Spain.

Its clear though Kimi does need to test more hence his winter programe.

The monaco result was due to the team getting him a penalty, canada was not his fault, france and valencia were not his fault. Had he got all them points he would still have a chance at the world championship.

It could have been a very different year for kimi has some things gone his way.

I still think kimi is the best out there just he does not seem to want it as much. He can race, he is fast, makes few errors just seems to have problems developing a car.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2008 06:51PM by marcl.

And that's why Kimi really needs to test - to develop it to his driving style - but, alas, I doubt anything will come out of the ~30 grand prix distances he's programmed to cover - I just don't think he's capable of making the engineers develop the car the way he wants - i think the same for Lewis..

Now Alonso is another matter, the development of that Renault throughout the year is testimony to his abilities in communicating with the engineers/designers etc..

Therefore, COMPLETE package (developing, qualifying, racing, consistency) can only go to Alonso..

All the other guys lack one of the above..

I think lewis has shown this year that he can set up a car and can develop it though.

The car was great at the start of the season though marc, but Lewis obviously has worked hard with the engineers to make the Mclaren suit his driving style which is tail happy and tyre hungry.
Fernando on the other hand has helped turn a heap of junk to a winning car, obviously the Renault team has made serious progress through the year and must take a lot of the credit but even Pat Symonds admits that Fernando has been a part of that transformation.

Has it improved by 6 tenths? :P

Going back to original question, if it's who's performed the best this season then that's definitely Kubica. When you take his car, consistency and results into consideration he's performed better on average than any other headline driver this year and also committed far fewer mistakes.

The accolade can not to Hamilton because despite some stupendously epic wins he's also dropped the ball on several occasions with some epic errors. Bahrain he crashes into Alonso, Montreal he loses the plot in the pitlane, Fuji he drove like a complete moron.

Felipe Massa has gone someway to proving some of his critics wrong this year, he's definitely developed a lot. However his spin at the first corner at Melbourne, his spin out of a safe second place at Malaysia, his five spins at Silverstone and his naive counter move on Hamilton at Fuji are more than enough to take the "best driver" tag away from him.

I'd still rate Alonso as the most complete driver in F1 overall, but he massively overdrove for the first half of the year, but he's now got that under control again.

Kimi's been erratic all year, he's a quality driver on a par with Alonso talent wise but he lacks the aptitude to develop the car. But that's just him, it's his style.

Other drivers worthy of a mention this year are Sebastian Vettel. Since Toro Rosso got that car sorted he's been terrific, but he also got himself into a lot of first lap trouble early in the year.

I don't think there are any others this year who could qualify as best of the year.

I also don't understand how so many people rate Sutil highly, in my view after Piquet he's currently the biggest waste of space in F1. I'm sorry but he just hasn't done anything... setting a fastest lap in a damp practice session does not set you up for future super-stardom and he has been out performed by Fisichella, a driver past his peak.

Lastly, I'm someone who rates Nico Rosberg highly, I believe he has good potential but I'd also have to agree that he's been very disappointing this year. He's still very quick but he's made a horrific number of mistakes this year. The Williams car in general has been a disappointment, mainly because it's winter promise got expectations up too much. but Rosberg has usually squandered his opportunities when the car has been competitive, like losing wings at Monaco, Montreal and Silverstone just three examples where he should have taken good results and a healthy amount of points. His drive at Singapore was terrific, but 1 out of 4 isn't good enough.

1.Alonso
2.Hamilton
3.Vettel
4.Kubica
5.Kimi
6.Massa

Agreed with others that have pointed out -> why is Kimi on so many peoples lists? A good driver, but what a bad run this year, some unspeakable mistakes and hilarious crashes. Get someone good in that Ferrari, and make Massa able to race in the wet without sliding off every 5 seconds

gav Wrote:
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> Has it improved by 6 tenths? :P


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