Team bosses vote Hamilton best driver of 2016, Rosberg 3rd

Annoynous poll conducted by Autosport. Some points system used as races. I wonder if any driver has previously won the WDC and voted third best by those who count the most, those with the most information in the paddock.

AUTOSPORT'S 2016 TEAM BOSS'S TOP 10

1 Lewis Hamilton, 234 points (No change)
2 Max Verstappen, 183 (Up two places)
3 Nico Rosberg, 176 (No change)
4 Daniel Ricciardo, 133 (Up five)
5 Sebastian Vettel, 90 (Down three)
6 Fernando Alonso, 67 (No change)
7 Kimi Raikkonen, 61 (Up three)
8 Sergio Perez, 52 (No change)
9 Valtteri Bottas, 26 (Down two)
10 Carlos Sainz Jr, 25 (New entry)

WHO VOTED

Toto Wolff, Mercedes
Christian Horner, Red Bull
Maurizio Arrivabene, Ferrari
Vijay Mallya, Force India
Claire Williams, Williams
Eric Boullier, McLaren
Franz Tost, Toro Rosso
Gunther Steiner, Haas
Fred Vasseur, Renault
Monisha Kaltenborn, Sauber
Dave Ryan, Manor

 

I doubt Damon Hill was considered in the top 5 when he became world champion.

 

Seems like a reasonable outcome. No doubt various folk will be along soon to tell us that the team bosses don't know what they are talking about...

 

+1

 

+2

 

Putting a post like this on this forum is dangerous lol.

Seems reasonable to me

 

The team bosses can do what they like. Who cares. LH lost the title he wins best driver. I had pizza for dinner. Utterly forgetful in the larger scheme. He can have a twitter fest and claim the high moral ground now I suppose.

Better yet LH and Horner can go on holiday together and bash Lowe and Toto and plot to rule the world. The only result that matters has Nico as victor. LH will get over it and the world still turns.

Next year will be interesting at Mercedes. The only relevant question is who might challenge them.

Im waiting for the best pit stop vote myself

 

You've got that right! I'm one of the endangered species due to my posts on the race thread....

 

Wonder how the scoring works.

Big gap between Verstappen and Elton, and the gap between Elton and Ricciardo is downright unreasonable.

IMO the two best drivers of the season have been Ricciardo and Verstappen. Verstappen had to learn a new car, but made a few errors which cost him. Ricciardo OTOH has been outpaced a few times by his new teammate but I can't recall any serious errors on his part?

Elton OTOH has put his car into walls, punted his teammate off, doesn't understand how his car functions and didn't bother learning how to start, to the point that Mercedes had to engineer new bits so he could start properly! He's not been dominating his teammate as he should.

Was Rosberg the best driver? No, as he also made mistakes.

IMO Ricciardo has been the best driver this season.

 

I reckon I'm this years best driver, learnt how to make my new Bentley dance within half an hour, taught an RS4 yobbo what speed really means within the next ten minutes, and avoided a tug from plod to boot. I can work all the controls, and every start I make, I'm first off the line..... I should get back to racing sometime I reckon.

 

^^^ in the OP post is says the same point system was used as per races.

Agree re Ricci and Ves - they have both been phenomenal this season. RB have a really strong driver pairing there.

 

What happened to Alonso? He was voted one of the best when at Ferrari.

Surprised at the Red Bull driver's not being #1 and #2. How many times did they crash each other out in a 1vs1 and DNF?

Was this poll conducted before the season's end?

 

11 team principles, same points scheme as in a race, 25 for No.1, 1 point for the No.10

Indeed, Hamilton became 2nd in a 2 horse race.....

 

The polling was done after the season end. Same points system as the races. My guess is Max, Nico and Ricciardo took points off each other in the poll or else Max would have been closer.

Fwiw I would have ranked Max 1st too, but think the rest of it is reasonably accurate. Imo, Vettel is ranked too high and Alonso too low. He drove the skin off that McLaren, so many top 10 quali's and points finishes.

All in all probably the most important, unbiased and accurate reflection of the season you'll find anywhere.

 

That's the sour note of this season: the lesser driver won the title

Such is life.

 

They would be my 1 and 2. They provided amazing moves and racing. Well done to both Max and Ricci

 

This might cheer you up LOL - Fun fact of the day: The last driver who won the title with less race wins than than the 2nd placed driver was: Lewis Hamilton (2008). #AMuS

 

Gotcha, thanks

I think so.Though in the interest of keeping harmony in the team I'd probably be more interested in having Kimi alongside Verstappen. He already has a title and a wise old head on his shoulders. Next year will be interesting. Neither Red Bull driver have a title as of yet so it's bound to get heated I guess, though I hope I'm wrong as I think both drivers are excellent and work well together.

 

"Best Driver" is certainly a very subjectiv answer as the drivers depend very much from the car...

As mentioned above I would not rate Hamilton best this year as he simply did to many mistakes. He might have been fast but that is not all racing is about.
My picks for "Driver of the Year" (without "best") would be Max and Nico...just because one compares where they were last year and where they are today...
Max was a talented driver in the second team of RB last year and he is a fixed factor in the GP circuit today, not a bad development within one year...
Nico was a supporting act in the one-man Hamilton show who was supposed to keep things a little bit interesting for the end of the season but not many thought he might really become a WDC. Now he drove his best season and made the best out of the circumstances while making less mistakes than his team mate and became WDC. I think he went further than most thought and although I do not like him that much he won his WDC against Lewis and not against a rookie dipstick. So the development within this year is rather remarkable.
As for Hamilton: he had his lights and shadows and for my taste there were too many shadows (crashes, bad starts, luck with safety car and steward decisions or gifted victory in Monaco) compared to the previous years to make him "Driver of the Year".

 

Probably the best indicator of driver capability this year came in Brazil. Ham and Ves were streets ahead of the rest in that race. Alonso also showed his class by dragging that dreadful McLaren into points positions that it just should not have been capable of reaching.

 

I admit that I have to agree. Hamilton did make costly mistakes this season. It is too easy to just blame it on the engine blow-up in Malaysia.

That said, Hamilton is IMHO a top driver (in the group of Vettel and Alonso) whereas Nico remains 2nd tier. But he made the best of it and won the WDC so kudos to him. But I don't see him as a multiple WDC. Just like his father: Drove his best when circumstances came his way.

 

Yes, but it also shows that the drivers are not that far appart...One driving a better season and the other a worse and all of the sudden the former can beat the later even in a long season. Sarcastics might say that it only needs a mechanic-swap to mix things up. Lewis might be the overall better driver but I think 2-1 in WDC reflects things better than 3-nothing, just look at the amount of races won over 4 years. It is not that Rosberg only won when Hamilton had a bad day...Same was with Hamilton-Button...

 

It goes without saying that all F1 drivers are very close to each other. Otherwise they wouldn't be in F1. It is that tiny last bit that differentiates the truly greats from the also runs.

Without the engine blow-up in Malaysia the score would be totally different but wouldas, couldas, shouldas don't win WDCs.

I'm so confident in Hami's abilities I would go as far as to say that next year's championship will be decided between him and one of the RB drivers. And I would think Lewis will win that one (partly because those two will take away points from each other). Now that he finally figured out to do a manual/clutch start.

 

That's assuming he doesn't implode in the off-season and retire in a huff hehehehehe, having been beaten by the moral and intellectual superior in Nico

 

Yup.