planetf1.com

Why not adding 2008 then?

Massa in the top ten? Well, short memories from the team bosses there.

Either add 2008 or subtract 2009. Alonso was not a WDC contender in 2009. Alonso was not in a Ferrari in 2009. Either you look at the rankings at a whole, or when these two drivers were technically on a level field.

But that might relegate Vettel to 2nd.

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Nice try

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"I am a believer, but I start each Grand Prix with 195 liters of fuel behind me," he explains. "I don't rely entirely on God, I rely on Prost."

Why do you include 2009 when Alonso was not in a competitive car? Sounds a bit biased if you ask me. Ahh sorry didn't see who the poster was.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition Podiums:
2011 Silverstone 1st
2012 Spa 1st
2012 Interlagos 3rd

To be fair isn't the point of the best driver award that it awards the driver who did the best job in the car he had. It has nothing to do with whether or not you had the fastest car. In fact Alonso probably won this year because his car was not initially seen as competitive.

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Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

I agree, but that is questionable to some extent. If you are in a 'crap' car there is only so much your driving can show as you are not even mixing it with the front runners. Having a decent (competitive) car will always put you more in the limelight which in turn will surely raise your score in a voting such as this.

If people want to turn this topic into another Vettel vs Alonso fest at least play it on more level terms when machinery was more matched.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition Podiums:
2011 Silverstone 1st
2012 Spa 1st
2012 Interlagos 3rd

Exactly, which would defeat the purpose of the "extended" rankings.

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

Makes you wonder how serious they take it

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"Everything you can imagine is real." Pablo Picasso

"Fernando is faster than you, can you confirm you understand this message?" team radio to vettle. Jokes aside, well done team bosses for selecting the best driver of the grid last year even though he didn't win the title

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Latest F1 vid I made http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C4qJXyRLDg&feature=youtu.be

He clearly went off what was posted by Bruce70. Flyer asked for 5 years and Bruce did 4, then Quark went off those 4. It wasn't some clever attempt to keep Vettel at #1.

I was barely paying attention and I got it.

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We want heroes, but there are few, mainly it's cars - Pedro De La Rosa

Add 2008 points.

1. Lewis Hamilton 88
2. Felipe Massa 86
3= Fernando Alonso 50
3= Robert Kubica 50
5. Sebastian Vettel 37
6. Kimi Raikkonen 27
7. Timo Glock 13
8. Heikki Kovalainen 10
9. Nick Heidfield 4
10= Adrian Sutil 3
10= Jarno Trulli 3

The average points over the last five year,
*Points from ('08 & '09) x 2.5

1. Sebastian Vettel 188.3
2. Fernando Alonso 181.7
3. Lewis Hamilton 175.5
4. Jenson Button 111.5
5. Kimi Raikkonen 106.17
6. Robert Kubica 93
7. Mark Webber 71.4
8. Felipe Massa 61.3
9. Nico Roseberg 37.6

Sorry, Snake... You and I are frequently on the same page, but in this case, the purpose (flyer's or whoever's) was, in my opinion, an attempt to discredit the 2012 award going to Alonso, and find a way to get credit to Vettel. They didn't vote that way for 2012, so the idea was to go back enough years to establish Vettel as number one way by of "average".

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

Speaking for myself, I was just curious how it would look if you add 2008, since some assumed it would change the order between Vettel and Alonso. That's all. I actually doubt the team bosses were serious enough with the vote in the first place.

Personally, I don't care what the "average" is. This was an award given this year to one driver, last year to one driver, etc. Why is there a need to select a specific number of years and average it to get the result you want to see?

I don't see anyone figuring out the average finishes of NFL football Most Valuable Player awards, or Major League Baseball top yearly awards etc. It is not the intent of the award, which is to recognize who the team bosses felt was the "Driver of the YEAR". When they make a Driver of the past Four Years, then the argument becomes valid.

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

What a load of crap this poll is. I guess Ferrari's year long propaganda campaign worked in atleast this one respect.

The praise of Alonso and Hamilton accompanied by slamming Vettel comes off sounding rather desperate.

The bosses opinion is always fun; no need to make it into more. Their vote does not slam other drivers - rather it praises good driving.

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yeah, you are right. What do the current F1 team bosses know compared to iceman_fan90?
Those idiots!

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

I suppose if Kimi had won it this 'poll' would be the most prestigious event of the season. Such is life...

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition Podiums:
2011 Silverstone 1st
2012 Spa 1st
2012 Interlagos 3rd

Oh dear. Someone makes the effort to calculate the standings from the last few years and the Alonso fans cry foul because their boy does not come out on top
Why don't you do it better yourself instead?

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Rosberg - Bottas

You know what's desperate ? Trying to turn black into white is desperate.

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what? more like the other way round... every team boss voting their own drivers and being biased, now that would be ridiculous.

OK

2012 Team Bosses Poll:

Dolomite's poll:
(Currently)
1. Alonso
2. Hamilton
3. Vettel
4. Raikkonen
5. Button
http://www.randomperspective.com/DOLOMITE/

Autosport's Mark Hughes' top 10 F1 drivers of 2012:
1. Alonso
2. Hamilton
3. Vettel
4. Button
5. Raikkonen
6. Webber
7. Hulkenberg
8. Rosberg
9. Ricciardo
10. Maldonado
http://plus.autosport.com/premium/featu ... s-of-2012/

James Allen's Top 5 Drivers of 2012:
1. Alonso
2. Vettel
3. Hamilton
4. Raikkonen
5. Button
http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/12/m ... s-of-2012/

JamesAllenOnF1's Reader's Poll:
Most selected driver in first place:
1. Fernando Alonso – 69%
2. Sebastian Vettel – 16%
3. Lewis Hamilton – 11%
4. Kimi Raikkonen – 2%
http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/12/d ... ave-voted/

F1Fanatic's Best F1 Driver of 2012:
(Currently)
1. Alonso
2. Hamilton
3. Raikkonen
4. Vettel
5. d'Ambrosio
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2012/12/14/v ... iver-2012/
(You can call the validity of this one into question)

Crash.net's Ultimate Driver of the Day:
"Fernando Alonso has pipped Kimi Raikkonen to take Crash.net's ultimate F1 2012 Driver of the Day honour."
http://www.crash.net/f1/news/186835/1/revealed_your_ultimate_f1_driver_of_the_day.html

Telegraph Readers' Driver of the Year:
1. Alonso
2. Vettel
3. Hamilton
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motors ... wards.html



I can do this all day.

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"I am a believer, but I start each Grand Prix with 195 liters of fuel behind me," he explains. "I don't rely entirely on God, I rely on Prost."

That's all well and good but everyone knows Alonso would rather have the championship. I can see your reason for getting defensive though. Lot of people in this thread getting worked up about the results of this vote.

Quite simple, Cov... What "better" is there to do? This was a Driver of the Year polling of F1 experts. The Alonso fans you decry accept it obviously, but then those "someone"s that you mention were not content to accept the poll and go through the effort to make the Award different... for the purpose of putting someone else on top. These people, such as I, who have "cried foul" have no reason to do "better"... the experts have voted in such a way as to make us happy... it is not the Alonso fans who are ones desperate to "do better".

BTW, I see mcdo has created quite a list of honors that have become Alonso's way... will we now see "someone" take each of those lists to the same extreme averaging out the last 4-5 years to try to get the results they want as well?

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

Alonso deserves to be the best this year, end of story.
Vettel deserved to be the best in 2009 and 2011, Alonso in 2010 too, end of story.
It's an annual award, so every year will be different.

I'm a Vettel fan, but I could see Alonso worked harder than Vettel to achieve his result this year, so he deserves the praise more than anybody else. Both worked very hard to overcome the challenges and terrible moments throughout the year, but please note, Alonso worked harder. And also, this Alonso's praise doesn't make Vettel a lucky, cruising-with-the-best-car, average driver either.

He got better results from the car than the car deserved.

Let me take up the gauntlet - not to do the calculations, but to point out a couple mathematical issues.

The problem with Quark's calculations is that, since the points system was different in 2009, he has decided to multiply those figures by 2.5, his reasoning being that this is the ratio between the maximum 10 points in 2009 and the current 25 points one.

But in 2009, with 10 teams voting, Vettel's average was 7.6, not 10; that is, in terms of points he was not awarded the points a race winner would get, but a bit less than what the second guy would have got. Let's say the equivalent to second place, to make this easier. Now, if you want to translate those figures to the current points system, he would have got 18 points - and the ratio would have been 18/8=2.25 and not 2.5. In Alonso's case (as this is the comparison being done here), his 3.9 on average would have meant a fifth place on a race, which translated into current points means 10 points, or a ratio of 2.5.

Or, in other words, the change in the point system meant the ratio is not constant, but different depending on how many points you got:
1st - 10- 25 - 2.5
2nd - 8 - 18- 2.25
3rd - 6 - 15 - 2.5
4th - 5 - 12 - 2.4
5th - 4 - 10 - 2.5

And there is an even more relevant issue: the number of team bosses voting has not been constant across the years! So it is quite incorrect just to add the points, one should factor in that aspect too and eliminate its impact by, for example, working with averages.

So, while I have not done the calculations (and have no time to do them now), I am conviced that Quark' proposal is quite incorrect and it can be done better in mathematical terms. Having said that, a more rigurous mathematical approach to the issue could deliver the same results (ie, Vettel being on average ahead of Alonso), I have no idea.

Finally, the idea of the "equal footing" that some have pointed out above is away from any mathematical analysis - unless it can be proved that there is also a correlation between being in a top team and getting more votes, and somebody goes through the effort of calculating such correlation and correcting for it to strip out the "car effect" in the voting. Which sounds quite far fetching, to be honest!

If somebody really wants to get an overall pic over the last years (and by the way, if I am not mistaken this award has been running for 5 years now, so one should start in 2008), I'd suggest to just iron out the purely numerical issues I pointed out above, plus any others that might arise, and leave the "equal footing" one out.

The runner-ups always dominate these votes so no surprise here this year either. Looks like the champion has to utterly dominate to get voted the best (2011).

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"OHO!-magazine number 46/2006: - I read somewhere that I drive with the luck of a drunk."

Nope, Alonso has been the best driver of the season not because he's been runner up. Look at the gaps between team-mates. Alonso has a massive one with massa, and managed to come very very close to win the WDC with not the best car

That is what I used to think too but after the last few races of 2012 I have changed my mind. The Ferrari is not a slow or bad car. And I'll admit that Alonso is a great driver, though I don't like the guy. But the two together are not jelling as well as expected and unable to bring out the best out of each other.

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Vettel / Raikkonen / Button

Yeah, and because the stars were aligned, sunspots were in the correct position and etc.

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"OHO!-magazine number 46/2006: - I read somewhere that I drive with the luck of a drunk."

Thanks, this was exactly what I was after; you have made a good point and this is the way criticism should be given instead of the ungrateful whining especially when someone has made an effort to contribute. After all the results of the five last years combined was asked for and someone did it with the last four (maybe 2008 results were hard to come by) but made an effort none the less. And someone even included 2008, again without any thanks.

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Rosberg - Bottas

Wierd how on these driver of the race polls from crash.net, its an Anyone but Vettel vote. If he wins from pole its boring and down to the car, if he qualifies lower and overtakes lots its the car, but when anyone else wins from pole its brilliant and when they charge through after they can't do a good lap in qualy, they're briliant.

Just noticed......

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In Interlagos, he won it 3 times
"I was racing, I was faster, I passed him, I WON!"
14/11/10 Miracle
9/10/11 Double
25/11/12 Treble

To be honest although I think they got it right with Alonso winning this year I'm not a big fan of the team principles top ten.

Of course these people are not there by fluke and I'm sure they have their reasons but if your picking the best driver you want to try and leave the car out of it as much as possible and the evidence suggests that on a whole they are not doing so. But if you look at the numbers from 2008 it has Hamilton and Massa well out in front despite them making a huge amount of errors and not really driving all that well. Its not mathematics here but imo (and a lot of other peoples at the time atleast) the three best drivers in 2008 were Alonso, Kubica and Vettel and there is certainly no way there should be such a big gap between the two title contenders and the rest that year.

Also compare the years to when the drivers got a competitive car after driving an uncompetitive one. Did a seasonned campaigner like Alonso really perform way better in 2010 than 2009 or 2008? If anything in the first half of the season in 2010 he made a number of uncharacteristic errors.

So in my opinion its not all that meaningful as I don't feel the team bosses are taking into account the cars enough and therefore its not a level playing field. If your not going to take the car right out the equation, well thats what the championship standings are for then.

To me it seems more like a consolation prize than anything else. History has shown that they tend to prefer the underdog aka the runner-up. Although it's not really suprising because such is the nature of things in life, but it is however a bit unclear to me what purpose this poll serves other than to sell some headlines for Autosport. For me, the driver of the year is always the driver who beats all of the opposition aka the WDC. Even if the current WDC enjoyed a strong car most of the time, it doesn't take away anything from what he achieved or how well he drove.

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"OHO!-magazine number 46/2006: - I read somewhere that I drive with the luck of a drunk."