Rank the current field

I think everyone in the F1 field still deserves to be there. It's not anything like back when I started watching F1, with pay drivers qualifying 10+ seconds behind the leaders (before the 107% rule).

People like Nakajima may seem like they deserve to be laughed at, but i guarantee the BEST driver you know personally would be 30+ seconds behind the leaders, not 3 or 4 in Nakajima's case, so let's keep a sense of perspective :)
 
haha I can guarantee the best drivers I know wouldn't be 30 seconds behind but you raise a good point. It is just a little frustrating when you have people like Klien and Liuzzi etc. on the sidelines with no drives, still its the way its always been.
 
...the inevitable question...who do you know?
 
^

Martin Brundle can still drive a F1 car close to the current top driver's pace.

And thats saying something about current F1 drivers, not all of them are that great as GraemeH thinks.

Just go on youtube and watch the demo lap he set with a 2 seater F1 car. With Murray Walker as the passenger, he still managed to clock a lap thats 7 or 8 secs off a proper F1 hot lap.

30sec is too much of a margin, even DTM, GP2 and other fast race cars can set that kind of pace without too much trouble. You will have to find a really shit driver to set that kind of laptime.


Scott Speed, Nakajima, Yuji ide, Alex Yoong etc.. those are just all paying drivers in my opinion.
 
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I think he meant something along the lines of Jim, your next door neighbour who owns the Subaru WRX and likes to think he's Michael Schumacher on weekends - and every time he comes boring down the street. He wins the race everytime he pulls into his own driveway...
 
MadCow; like Red_Bull said, I said personally. You don't know Martin Brundle personally. How close behind an F1 car a DTM car would be has nothing to do with anything.

We all saw how Hammon strugled to even get the F1 car to pull away from a stand-still, and he has more fast driving experience than any of us. The fact is in terms of lap-time, Nakajima is still only a matter of single-digit percentage behind the best drivers in the world.
 
Sure he is, but a single percent is a long time in F1 terms. If you put Hamilton and Nakajima in the same F1 car with the same fuel load and Nakajima laps even just 0.5s slower, he absolute crap...
 
Let's look at some facts:

Brazil 2007, Nakajima's first F1 race:
Rosberg finishes 4th, 60 seconds behind the leader. Fastest lap: 1:13.159
Nakajima is 10th, runs over his pit crew, and is almost lapped twice, so therefore finishes around a lap behind his teammate. Fastest lap: 1:13.116, but late in the race, on lap 69.

Australia 2008:
Rosberg is on the podium('nuff said). Fastest lap: 1:28.090.
Nakajima finishes a lapped 7th, which became 6th after Barrichello got disqualified. Fastest lap: 1:29.639, +1:549 s.

Malaysia: Both Williams in the doldrums. However, Nico finishes a lap ahead of his teammate even after a front wing change after a tangle with Glock.
Nico's fastest lap: 1:36.782.
Kazuki's fastest lap: 1:37.711, almost a second slower.

Bahrain: Nico once again takes a point, finishes on the same lap as the leader, while Nakajima is lost in 14th place, lapped and, at times, battling with the Super Aguris.
Nico's fastest lap: 1:34.072.
Kazuki's fastest lap: 1:35.433.


So, overall, Nakajima looks more mistake-prone than Rosberg, and this year he has been consistently out-qualified and out-raced by the son of the 1982 Champion. Maybe he can redeem himself in due time. But now, he's a relative liability.
 
GraemeH said:
MadCow; like Red_Bull said, I said personally. You don't know Martin Brundle personally. How close behind an F1 car a DTM car would be has nothing to do with anything.

We all saw how Hammond strugled to even get the F1 car to pull away from a stand-still, and he has more fast driving experience than any of us. The fact is in terms of lap-time, Nakajima is still only a matter of single-digit percentage behind the best drivers in the world.
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You raise valid points, but you have to be careful with these sweeping statements. :p Although certainly not saying that I would do any better, I very much doubt it.

As TRS said, he may only be a tiny bit behind but there are only 22 spots in F1 and they should be filled by the best possible candidates. Nakajima may develop into a decent driver, but at the moment its pretty universal that he ranks last.
 
THE REAL STIG said:
Sure he is, but a single percent is a long time in F1 terms. If you put Hamilton and Nakajima in the same F1 car with the same fuel load and Nakajima laps even just 0.5s slower, he absolute crap...
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^

:nod: :nod: :nod:

except for it won't be 0.5sec, more like +1 sec
 
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So I decided to compile our votes into one big list. This is the driver rankings as decided by Finalgear. It's hardly impartial, certainly not definitive, and almost completely biased. Thats the Finalgear way! :cool:

Code: 
[B]
1  Raikkonen: 	195
2  Alonso: 	187
3  Kubica:	170[/b]
4  Hamilton: 	167
5  Kovalainen: 	143
6  Webber: 	142.5
7  Button: 	138.5
8  Trulli: 	129
9  Rosberg: 	122
10 Heidfeld: 	121
11 Massa: 	120
12 Vettel: 	92
13 Fisichella: 	85
14 Barrichello: 76
15 Coulthard: 	58
16 Davidson: 	56
17 Sutil: 	53
18 Glock: 	47
19 Bourdais: 	44
20 Sato: 	43
21 Piquet Jr: 	29
22 Nakajima: 	8

Each driver was awarded 22 points through to 1 point for everyone's rankings. It is a little flawed in that ViperVX refused to offer any points to drivers ranked 15th and lower. This certainly hurt Button's score somewhat, but it was all very close with Kovalainen through to Button separated by a handful of points. We voted Raikkonen as the best driver, then Alonso and then Kubica just scraping in ahead of Hamilton. Rosberg, Massa and Heidfeld are separated by three points, and the rest are barely worth a mention. We were all agreed however, that Nakajima is the worst driver on the grid. By far...

Later in the year (towards the end of the season), I might be tempted to gather your rankings again and we can then see who did what, but we'll leave that for then.
 
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Red_Bull said:
So I decided to compile our votes into one big list. This is the driver rankings as decided by Finalgear. It's hardly impartial, certainly not definitive, and almost completely biased. Thats the Finalgear way! :cool:

Code: 
[B]
1  Raikkonen: 	195
2  Alonso: 	187
3  Kubica:	170[/b]
4  Hamilton: 	167
5  Kovalainen: 	143
6  Webber: 	142.5
7  Button: 	138.5
8  Trulli: 	129
9  Rosberg: 	122
10 Heidfeld: 	121
11 Massa: 	120
12 Vettel: 	92
13 Fisichella: 	85
14 Barrichello: 76
15 Coulthard: 	58
16 Davidson: 	56
17 Sutil: 	53
18 Glock: 	47
19 Bourdais: 	44
20 Sato: 	43
21 Piquet Jr: 	29
22 Nakajima: 	8

Each driver was awarded 22 points through to 1 point for everyone's rankings. It is a little flawed in that ViperVX refused to offer any points to drivers ranked 15th and lower. This certainly hurt Button's score somewhat, but it was all very close with Kovalainen through to Button separated by a handful of points. We voted Raikkonen as the best driver, then Alonso and then Kubica just scraping in ahead of Hamilton. Rosberg, Massa and Heidfeld are separated by three points, and the rest are barely worth a mention. We were all agreed however, that Nakajima is the worst driver on the grid. By far...

Later in the year (towards the end of the season), I might be tempted to gather your rankings again and we can then see who did what, but we'll leave that for then.
Click to expand...

Kudos for the list. Great stuff.

Guess Kimi is the undisputed winnah here.
 
Won't spoil anything for those that haven't seen quali. But that list is pretty accurate I think.
 
I finally got around to ranking the current field, I might add comments later when I get some more time.

1. Kimi Raikkonen
2. Fernando Alonso
3. Lewis Hamilton
4. Heikki Kovalainen
5. Mark Webber
6. Robert Kubica
7. Nick Heidfeld
8. Jenson Button
9. Felipe Massa
10. Nico Rosberg
11. Jarno trulli
12. Sebastian Vettel
13. Nelson Piquet Jr.
14. Sebastian Bourdais
15. Timo Glock
16. Giancarlo Fisichella
17. Rubens Barrichello
18. David Coultard
19. Adrian Sutil
20. Takuma Sato
21. Anthony Davidson
22. Kazuki Nakajima

I've also updated Red Bull's overall score system to include my rankings, not sure if you want to include my rankings in the overall score because they are after the fact, but thought I'd give them to you all for interests sake.

1. Kimi Raikkonen - 217
2. Fernando Alonso - 208
=3. Robert Kubica - 187
=3. Lewis Hamilton - 187
5. Heikki Kovalainen - 162
6. Mark Webber - 160.5
7. Jenson Button - 153.5
8. Jarno trulli - 141
9. Nick Heidfeld - 137
10. Nico Rosberg - 135
11. Felipe Massa - 134
12. Sebastian Vettel - 103
13. Giancarlo Fisichella - 92
14. Rubens Barrichello - 82
15. David Coultard - 63
16. Anthony Davidson - 58
17. Adrian Sutil - 57
18. Timo Glock - 55
19. Sebastian Bourdais - 53
20. Takuma Sato - 46
21. Nelson Piquet Jr. - 39
22. Kazuki Nakajima - 9

Edit - Looks like the overall rankings didn't really change. :)
 
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Devon said:
I've also updated Red Bull's overall score system to include my rankings, not sure if you want to include my rankings in the overall score because they are after the fact, but thought I'd give them to you all for interests sake.
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Its cool. I'll do the next one properly like teeb did for the most beautiful cars.
 
I won't rank the whole field, but here's what I think of some of the drivers:

I would say that Alonso and Hamilton are the best today, I would rate them a bit (just a little bit) higher than Kimi.
It seems to me that Kimi makes more mistakes than those two and isn't that consistent -Fernando and Lewis also have their bad days of course but still their performance looks more 'stable'.

There are drivers who I would really really like to see in the best cars; maybe they would do just as well as any of the top drivers and would be able to win a couple of WDCs in a top car. I mean Webber, Kubica, Rosberg, even Heidfeld - but then again, you can't be sure they would be able to drive on the same level as Alonso, Lewis or Kimi. Remember, before 2005 everybody thought Fisi was one of the very best drivers on the grid...

Kova, Trulli, Button, Massa - I think they could win a WDC or two given the best car and a not so brilliant team mate, although Trulli's time is obviously over and sadly I can't see Button in a top car anymore either...

Overall, I think this year's field is quite strong, there are no drivers who are only there because of their money - almost every of them were championship winners or runner-ups in lower formulas ! They seem to be very close to each other in performance and that's why it's difficult to tell who is better than the other.
 
You all underestimate coulthard! He's still class, even if he's getting on a bit.
 
Argh I disagree so much hahaha damn different opinions!!

Joc? said:
I won't rank the whole field, but here's what I think of some of the drivers:

I would say that Alonso and Hamilton are the best today, I would rate them a bit (just a little bit) higher than Kimi.
It seems to me that Kimi makes more mistakes than those two and isn't that consistent -Fernando and Lewis also have their bad days of course but still their performance looks more 'stable'.

There are drivers who I would really really like to see in the best cars; maybe they would do just as well as any of the top drivers and would be able to win a couple of WDCs in a top car. I mean Webber, Kubica, Rosberg, even Heidfeld - but then again, you can't be sure they would be able to drive on the same level as Alonso, Lewis or Kimi. Remember, before 2005 everybody thought Fisi was one of the very best drivers on the grid...

Kova, Trulli, Button, Massa - I think they could win a WDC or two given the best car and a not so brilliant team mate, although Trulli's time is obviously over and sadly I can't see Button in a top car anymore either...

Overall, I think this year's field is quite strong, there are no drivers who are only there because of their money - almost every of them were championship winners or runner-ups in lower formulas ! They seem to be very close to each other in performance and that's why it's difficult to tell who is better than the other.
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Except Nakajima.....He is actually doing an ok job. But his GP2 record is probably his most impressive and that was 5th :p
 
Necx0 said:
Argh I disagree so much hahaha damn different opinions!!
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Just imagine how boring these forums would be if everyone had the same opinion :p
 
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