Here is my personal rating of the top ten F1 drivers of the 2015 season, taking into account their performances as well as the machinery that they had access to.
A run down of my views on the drivers who didn't make the top ten will follow in the next few days.
1. Lewis Hamilton
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| Photo: Octane Photography |
Even in this most complex of games explanations can be disarmingly simple. Last season in a campaign that Mercedes had to itself Lewis Hamilton was taken to the wire for the title by his Merc team mate Nico Rosberg, in large part because for much of the season Lewis had the lion's share of the misfortune plus was oddly out of nick in qualifying. 2015 was, when it mattered at least, 2014 without those things.
And boy did Lewis take advantage. Ten victories in a season is hard to argue with, so is that anything up to seven of them were in nearly no doubt after just a few corners and indeed were reduced to Clark-like demonstrations. His ability to get tiny, yet massive, time on his team mate almost corner by corner was the difference. While in his less celebrated attributes his brain power and rationing of the finite resources of a modern day F1 machine were hard to fault.
Yes he had the best car and a team mate whose performances varied, but in F1 as in anything there is always much to be said for Getting The Job Done. And Lewis did that, wrapping up his third title with a win and three races ahead of time; you could even make a coherent case that this outcome looked in little doubt from his first few imperious laps in Melbourne's curtain-raiser race.
Lewis self-admittedly undertook "a small tweak" in his qualifying approach and the outcome was devastating with him taking 11 poles in the first 12 rounds. Some of his qualifying laps were stunning; a couple of poles were won against the odds too. It all ensured that his races were much more straightforward than those in the previous campaign. But the man himself noted the difference with last year also owed something to the assurance of having that 2014 championship to his name - not for nothing did Lewis state that his second title won then actually felt a lot like his first, given it was his first subsequent to fleeing the nest from McLaren.
Ironically it was after his title was assured that the most conspicuous doubts crept in. First of all Rosberg was already establishing a run of pole positions on him, then started to finish races ahead of him too. Did Lewis relent, even by degrees, after the championship was won? Or had Nico finally found something that Lewis couldn't match? Lewis spoke of a technical change to the car from Singapore, roughly when matters switched. He remains firm favourite for the 2016 title, but in the late weeks of 2015 that status softened ever so slightly.
2. Sebastian Vettel
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| Photo: Octane Photography |
So last year was a blip then. And more to the point, Sebastian Vettel
is all that after all.
Not that really it should have been too much of a surprise. We know about the success from his time at Red Bull, which both in its extent and the age at which it was achieved reads more like fantasy than sane motorsport record. We also with this know the hit parade of his doubters however: it was done with a series of fine cars they say; at a team in which he was cosily ensconced and had priority service guaranteed; that the (very good) blown floors suited him peculiarly. The doubters were emboldened by his 2014 struggle too. But the more discerning observers knew that his run of scarcely-credible stats there wasn't all about those those matters mentioned; that Seb was making a contribution all of his own. His stunning pace and confidence enacted consistently and immediately as if flicking a switch; his extraordinary mental capacity; his holistic and industrious approach. But the persistence of those doubts ensured too that he'd only get his full appreciation upon leaving the Milton Keynes squad. And so it proved. This debut season in red underlined in thick lines what Seb is about .
Indeed we might even have seen him improved even further in 2015. Almost never was the Ferrari a match for the Mercedes but Vettel virtually every time could be counted upon to give as little away as possible and maximise the result. And in the two races the Ferrari was on top, in Malaysia and Singapore, Seb drove the ball into the net with aplomb. Just like he did in Hungary on a day when it seemed he alone had his head screwed on. His fleeing the Red Bull nest seemed to add stacks of maturity overnight, and throughout this year Seb out of the car just like in it was one of the paddock's most assured and authoritative figures. He even managed to slip right in and right away at the
Scuderia; his calmness, ready smile and willingness to knuckle down were appreciated quickly there.
His error-strewn races in Bahrain and Mexico were curious aberrations, as was flooring it to pass Roberto Merhi under red flags in a Canadian practice session. But otherwise the graph plotted of his performance barely wavered from a sky-scraping level.
Surely only churls and contrarians will now be maintaining that in Seb we do not have a rounded and close to complete F1 performer. And not for the first time we're left to consider that at his age there likely is to be improvement yet to come.
