THE DAVID COULTHARD MUSEUM
Mid-season review
1 – Lewis Hamilton
Believe it or not but I had great difficulty in shooing a number one out of these top two but in the end I had to go for. Even the most experienced drivers of the field could only dream of a perfect nine out of nine like Lewis has had. With his team-mate and the Ferrari drivers surrounding him at every race it’s a testament to Lewis that he has (almost) always kept his cool on track. Not only is this rookie racing against a combined total of 33 wins, 35 pole positions, 37 fastest laps and 995 World Championship, but he’s beating them all. If he can just keep the consistency of his driving at this level then he should still be up at the top by the end of they year. However, McLaren do have a small gap they need to close on Ferrari and if they fail to do this then Lewis may encounter some difficulty over the next eight races.
2- Felipe Massa
He was the only other driver I ever considered to hit the top spot. For me on raw pace he is the fastest driver of the pack this year but sadly a few inconsistencies have let the Brazilian down. At places like Bahrain and Spain the Ferrari driver shone superbly. Otherwise the car has mainly let him down. Overall this season the Ferrari has been slightly further off the pace of the McLaren and has not been able to challenge at places like Monaco and Canada. Even though Massa has been t several points been extremely fast running off the track at Malaysia and leaving the pit-lane too early Montreal have let Felipe down. Even though of the top four drivers he is at the bottom the young Brazilian has impressed me greatly. Last season he shrugged off his erratic image and has now settled down into a much more rounded driver. If he can find the pace that Raikkonen is currently unearthing in the Ferrari then I expect he will right at the forefront of the championship battle.
3 – Kimi Raikkonen
The fact that Kimi has won more Grand Prix than anyone else this year speaks for its self. His commanding drive in Melbourne leading from start to finish along with to very controlled drives at Magny-Cours and Silverstone earns him the right to in amongst the top three. He has at certain points looked just as, if not faster than Massa. However, this expected to be his championship year and would assume Schumacher’s crown as the number one Ferrari driver. This has simply not happened. Even though his car at certain points has not been as strong as the McLaren Kimi has frankly put in too many lack lustre drives. In Monaco, Canada and America in particular Raikkonen looked way off the pace and struggling to match his three rivals around him. Once the Formula One circus returned to Europe after a disappointing North American leg of the championship the Finn has hit the form we have all seen in the past and now putting in some stellar performances. He has overtaken his team-mate in the Driver’s Championship and is starting to close down on the two McLarens.
4 – Fernando Alonso
Some people may have put Fernando higher up on the list when you consider he’s second in the driver’s championship and McLaren have not established a 25 point just thanks to Hamilton. However, nobody expected the rookie Hamilton to beat, let alone embarrass Alonso a few times this season. High points at Malaysia and Monaco with commanding victories over Hamilton and co. but quite a few mistakes drag him down into fourth place. Canada ruined by ‘unlucky’ pit-stop strategy and being overtaken by Hiedfeld at his home race has left the Spaniard with a little egg o his face. Almost identical off-track excursions at Barcelona and Montreal have shown to be cracking under the pressure of Lewis breathing down his neck.
5 – Nick Hiedfeld
An obvious choice really for my first non McLaren/Ferrari driver on the list. The BMW-Sauber driver has proved to be Mr. Consistent this year with a points finish in every race he’s started. A loose wheel nut in Spain, which cost him fourth, and in Indianapolis mechanical gremlins cost him what would have been fifth, only ruined his perfect record. I actually thought his consistency deserved him a higher place but he has yet to win a race this season and so will have to settle for fifth spot. More of the same form the talented German will undoubtedly secure him fifth place and BMW third in the constructors. His only worry for the latter half of the season will be his resurgent team-mate. If he can hold back Kubica and re-assert himself as the team number one then I think it’s clear that sometime soon he may be even challenging for his first win.
6 – Robert Kubica
Sixth place was an incredibly difficult choice for me. I had a list of four drivers to round out the top ten who have all impressed me at several points this season and even though I was reluctant to follow championship order I had to in this case putting Kubica in sixth. After a great debut (half) season last year the expectations were high for the young Pole in 2007 and even though at several points he has lagged behind Hiedfeld this season on the whole he in my opinion has not disappointed. The first thing that springs to mind this year about Robert Kubica has to be that nightmare crash he suffered at Montreal. The fact he came out of that super high-speed accident with only a slightly sprained ankle and mild concussion highlights the safety of modern F1. A few points finishes before this point showed that he was fast, just not as fast as Hiedfeld. However, since his crash and absence at Indy the BMW driver has been rejuvenated scoring fourth places at both Magny-Cours and Silverstone and is starting to catch Hiedfeld in the Driver’s Championship. This maybe an interesting battle to keep an eye on the coming months.
7 – Heikki Kovaleinen
By his (and his boss’) admission Heikki’s first race at Melbourne was a disaster. Whilst the other debutant was cruising to a podium position Heikki was struggling to keep his Renault on track. However, you cannot judge the rookie by his first performance and for the following three races Kovaleinen was on the fringes on the points scoring in both Malaysia and Spain amounting to a total of three points. In Monaco he was blocked by David Coulthard on his fast qualifying lap and never really recovered in the race. Other than the unfortunate events of France where he was rammed by the Toyota of Jarno Trulli Kovaleinen has scored points in every race since Monaco with a seventh at Silverstone, fifth at Indianapolis and an impressive fourth in Montreal. In the last few races his qualifying form has improved greatly with a seventh and two sixths. If Heikki keeps on improving at the rate he’s currently going at then he maybe able to embarrass experienced team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella even further.
8 – Nico Rosberg
For the German son of one time champion Keke the points this season really does not tell the whole story. He has so far had his fair share of bad luck and has only managed to amount five points so far this year. Twice at Malaysia and America his Williams has given up whilst Rosberg was in a strong points position, costing him a total of seven points. He has qualified strongly throughout the year making it into the top ten shootout more times than not and only being knocked out in the first session once in comparison with his team-mate who has not got into the top sixteen a total of five times. Nico has so far shown to have improved in pace over this year and there was even rumours of him being drafted in to replace Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari unless his pace picked up. If Williams can improve the reliability then expect Rosberg to feature more prominently in the top eight in the second half of the season.
9 – Takuma Sato
So Taku’s made a few mistakes this year, but he has done throughout his career and he’s certainly not as bad as some of the drivers out there. This year we have seen an improvement to the Super Aguri, which has in turn brought an improvement on the Japanese team’s point’s tally. There were a number of people out there (and I include myself in that) who thought Anthony Davidson may finally expose the weaknesses of Sato. This has not happened, however, and the ever-chipper Sato has impressed me and I’m quite sure the rest of F1 by the way he has matured and taken charge of the Super Aguri team. Even though he’s been knocked out in the first session more times than not he still managed to put a Super Aguri into the top ten shoot-out in Melbounre, now did anyone expect that? So he spun off in Indy and supposedly overtook Button under yellow flags he still managed at Spain to keep the car going and finish in a strong eighth position. This was followed in Montreal with a stunning drive whilst all others around him were chucking their cars of the road he kept an uncharacteristic level head throughout all the Safety Car periods and crept through into eight. He then made two stunning moves, one up the inside of ‘the third best driver in F1’, Ralf Schumacher and then round the outside of reigning champion Alonso, true class, Taku…keep it up!!!
10 – Sebastian Vettel
Not only is he now the first driver since….well….erm…Lewis Hamilton to have scored points on his debut but he is also now the youngest ever driver to score a Formula One World Championship point. After the horrific crash of Robert Kubica in Canada it was deemed too dangerous to let the Pole race at Indianapolis and therefore just as Kubica(standing in for the ‘injured’ Jacques Villeneueve) started his career Vettel stood in for Robert. The young German shocked the entire F1 fraternity on Saturday morning of the American Grand Prix putting his BMW Sauber second fastest only a tenth and a half behind the McLaren of Hamilton. He would then follow this up in the afternoon with an impressive seventh only being beaten by the McLarens, Ferraris, his team-mate and Kovaleienen. 24 hours later Vettel showed his inexperience at the first corner out-braking himself and heading straight over the grass at turn one. However, this was to be his only mistake of the entire race as he consistently drove to what appeared to be a ninth place finish until Nico Rosberg’s Williams broke down and promoted the German to eighth. A strong driver that will hopefully lead to a full-time drives in the future.
11 – Adrian Sutil
Perhaps a surprise decision in many people’s eyes but this rookie has impressed more than a number of very experienced drivers this year. Hamilton went into the 2007 season lauding the Spyker driver as a future great of the sport. Even tough the German has qualified no higher than 19th and finished no higher 13th he has still shown a great deal of promise in what is undoubtedly the slowest car on the grid this year. Thanks to the limitations of the Spyker he only managed to qualify in 21st for his first Grand Prix but crucially the man in 22nd place was his team-mate Christijan Albers. Not only had Sutil out-qualified Albers but he absolutely thrashed him beating the Dutchman by 2.6 seconds and was only seven hundredths of a second away from the Scuderia Toro Rosso of Vitantonio Liuzzi. He has since
12 – Giancarlo Fisichella
At face value it would appear that this has once again been a bad year for Giancarlo but I reckon things are not quite as bad as they seem for the Italian. He has had two seasons when Renault has had one of the most competitive cars on the grid and he has suffered the label of mediocrity. However, this year’s Renault has not been anywhere near the pace of Ferrari, McLaren or even BMW but Ginacarlo has still managed to consistently score points. Out of the nine races of the season so far the Italian has featured in the points six times along with two ninths and a disqualification (from a points paying position). At certain races the he has struggled with qualiying but he shone at Monaco, qualifying and finishing in a hard earned fourth place. The American Grand Prix may have been the race that has summed up Giancarlo’s entire season. An early mistake ruined a good strategy and potentially cost him a handful of points. However, the Italian fought a resilient comeback passing two cars in the tricky midfield section showing that Giancarlo still has the potential to do better in a better car
13 – David Coulthard
I chose number thirteen with great difficulty because the drivers from thirteenth downward have had fairly average or even disappointing seasons. It can’t be argued that for F1’s eldest statesman 2007 has been yet another disappointing season, especially after so much in the media about the first Newey car. Ultimately DC’s lack of form can’t be blamed on him but mostly on the new seamless shift gearbox, which seems to have caused more trouble than it’s worth. As a result David has only finished four races out of nine. Granted it was his fault in Australia after an overly ambitious flying move on Alexander Wurz but the other four have all been as a result of mechanical problems. So why does David top my list as ‘best of the rest’? Well his stunning drives in Bahrain and Spain where in both races he carved through the field, especially in Bahrain overtaking driver after driver. Thanks to drive shaft issues it would only be at the Spanish race where DC would score points and even there he was lucky to finish in fifth thanks to a rapidly disintegrating gearbox. Luck (or lack of it) has played a big part in DC’s season and if the car’s reliability can improve then hopefully he get a few more points finishes.
14 – Jarno Trulli
Another season with Toyota, another season of mediocrity. Once again the race form of the Italian has been blisteringly average. He has somehow gathered enough points over the season thus far to bother the fringes if the top ten. However something that has mystified me so far has been the qualifying pace of Trulli. I know that throughout his career he has been known to pull an amazing performance on a Saturday afternoon but even so where he finds speed from is astounding. In many of the Friday and Saturday practice session the Toyota in the hands of both drivers can be looking rather sluggish down in lower half of the field, but then from nowhere Jarno somehow manages to put the car in the top ten. Eight times out of nine he has featured in the final session and even got as high as sixth in Barcelona. When it comes to the race however, it is a completely different matter. He has made schoolboy errors in both Montreal and Magny-Cours and unless he can show a more consistent form for the rest for the season then Toyota may end up regretting signing the Italian until 2009.
15 – Mark Webber
This year Mark Webber has been having a great deal of trouble with the reliability of the Red Bull making it fairly difficult to actually judge his performance. Similarly to team-mate David Coulthard his luck has not just been affected during the race itself. Once again Webber’s qualifying form has impressed many but has been hindered by an incredibly fragile RB3. In comparison with Coulthard who has only made it through to the top ten once (or twice but was banned from taking part in Monaco) Webber has managed to make through five times and only one of those found himself in tenth. His racing skills have not been too bad with his lowest actual finishing position was 13th at his home race in Australia. During the races this season he has been consistently mid-grid only once finishing in the points at Indianapolis. If the team can improve in reliability then I’m sure Webber can more than double his current tally of points.
16 - Rubens Barrichello
Rubens is the highest driver to feature in the list who has yet to score a point in this years championship. However, I think it’s unfair to say that the Brazilian has had an awful season. Everyone in F1 knows that this years Honda is just not up to scratch and it would not be fair to judge the Brazilian to harshly because it appears to me anyway that he’s doing his best with the machinery he’s got. He has been almost constantly badgering the fringes of the points finishing ninth once, tenth twice and eleventh three times. The only way you can really judge Rubens is to compare his performance to that of his team-mate as he’s in an identical car. If you do look at Rubens’ performance next to Jenson’s then it’s plain for all to see that Rubens is coming out on top. Of the six times both Hondas have finished Rubens has beaten Jenson on five occasions and in qualifying the Brazilian has come out on top six out of nine times. Hopefully the Japanese squad will look at these facts and give the popular Barrichello another year.
17 – Alexander Wurz
At this point of the season there are only six drivers on the grid that can say they have stepped on the podium – the two McLaren, the two Ferraris, Nick Hiedfeld and Wurz himself. Thanks to the many retirements and numerous safety car periods at Montreal this year Alex’s experience shone through and he drove calmly to a well-earned third place. The first time he actually stepped on to the podium since the British Grand Prix ten years ago. This along with two points earned at Monaco have been his strongest results with the rest of his season producing distinctly average race finishes. He has been knocked out in the first qualifying session five times thus far and has been out-qualified by his team-mate every time bar the British Grand Prix. I expected after a wealth of experience from McLaren and Williams testing that Alexander would be at least matching Rosberg this season but the Austrian just hasn’t delivered on any scale. His race craft is by no means awful, he has shown he can still race well but he needs to improve greatly on his qualifying form if he wants to score any more points in the second half of this season
18 – Jenson Button
There have been many cries this season of ‘Jenson who?’ as the British media’s golden boy has been as well and truly knocked off his pedestal as Hamilton-Hype grips the country. Towards the end of 2006 Button scored more points than Alonso and Schumacher who were fighting for the title and Honda were hitting form so most people believed that this year with an unchanged driver line-up they would be amongst the teams to beat this year. This has just not been the case. Jenson’s solitary point came at Magny Cours but otherwise the first half of 2007 has been one to forget for the Englishman. He has been consistently showed up by his Brazilian team-mate and has suffered numerous bouts of bad luck like being taken out by Scott Speed at the first corner of the race in Bahrain. Unless the Honda car improves over the course of the season then I expect the two earth cars will still be languishing in the doldrums of the grid.
19 – Anthony Davidson
For the last four years the Honda reserve driver has tested and tested and tested and quietly bided his time waiting for the right opportunity to come up for a drive. His time finally came this year after a handful of stand in drives he finally got a full time seat at Super Aguri. I don’t know about anybody else but I personally thought that the level-head Davidson would have triumphed over the often erratic style of his team-mate Takuma Sato. Sadly this hasn’t really happened as Sato has taken command of the team and asserted himself as number one. There have been five races this year where both of the Super Aguri drivers have finished the race and at each one Sato has out-paced Davidson. Anthony’s only saving grace is that he has thus far proved to be the faster qualifier beating Sato five times out of nine. If he can sort out his race craft then he should be able to score his first point in the latter half of the season.
20, 21 – Scott Speed, Vitantonio Liuzzi
Occasionally the Toro Rossos have been on the pace this season but is hard to compare them to the rest of the field as like the senior team they have struggled with reliability but unlike Red Bull have struggled to stay in the fight at some races. So putting the American in nineteenth ahead of Liuzzi is simply based on the results in comparison with each other . The Malaysian Grand Prix was the only Grand Prix this year where both cars managed to finish and it was Speed who out-did Liuzzi who could only manage 17th with his team-mate three cars ahead of him in 14. Both drivers have got the equal most DNFs of the season only finishing three races a piece. So my basis on the American being ahead of the Italian is that of the three races finished each Speed’s worst result is Liuzzi’s best. Both however need to prove their worth as neither contract is secure and ChampCar Champion Sebastian Bourdais looks highly likely to steal a seat next year.
22 – Ralf Schumacher
It may seem strange to some of you that I have put a driver who has scored two World Championship points down here with those who haven’t but it’s fair to say that 2007 has been a fairly dismal season for the German with lots of talk very early in the season that he may not see 2008 or even the end of 2007. In my opinion Ralf has for a long time now overstayed his welcome in F1 taking up a seat that could be filled by a younger more promising driver. Even in comparison to team-mate Jarno Trulli who has been having a pretty mediocre season Ralf’s results look fairly dismal. Of the four races both drivers have finished Ralf has been ahead once in Melbourne and even then Jarno was only one place behind him. It’s also fairly clear that it’s Jarno on top in the qualifying stakes, only in Britain could the German muster enough pace to edge out his team-mate. I really hope that for the latter half of the season we will be witnessing the final few races of the Ralf Schumacher’s career and he will bow out rather than try desperately to hang on to a seat he should have vacated years ago.
23 – Christijan Albers
Slow, Stupid and a waste of a Formula One seat is my personal verdict on the Dutchman’s 2007 season. I have never rated Albers with drivers like Tiago Monteiro and Robert Doornbos in my opinion more deserving of a seat and now finally the Spyker team have realised this themselves. So, yes ok, the official reason for Albers’ departure was the sponsor money not materialising but even so his awful performance this year must have been a factor in the decision. Albers has qualified last every time this year with exception of France (thanks to the demotion of Sato) and in Bahrain, the only time he managed to out-qualify team-mate Adrian Sutil. His season can be summed up fairly well by the French Grand Prix. Running at the back of the grid (behind Sutil) until his pit-stop when in such impatience he left the pit-lane with the fuel hose sill attached to the car. I only hope Markus Winkelhock (his temporary replacement) or whoever eventually takes on the seat full time can do a better job than Albers……he can’t do much worse!