25. Nelsinho Piquet

I don’t think there is much need to justify why I have placed Piquet at the bottom of the list. Suffice it to say that I hope he never races competitively again.

24. Sébastien Bourdais

Sébastien Bourdais spent the 2008 season explaining that we should wait to judge him until the return of slicks in 2009. Slicks came in 2009. He has been duly judged.

23. Romain Grosjean

I feel a little bit sorry for Romain Grosjean. He was thrown into as difficult a situation as it is possible to imagine. Having done no testing whatsoever, he became Renault’s second driver just in time for a massive scandal involving Renault’s previous second driver to envelop the team. He didn’t perform very well, but they were exceptionally difficult circumstances in my view.

22. Kazuki Nakajima

I thought Nakajima did a good job in 2008, but 2009 was a huge disappointment. His main achievement of the season was to qualify an admittedly impressive 5th place for the British Grand Prix. However, his race was poor and he finished 11th. Way to hoof it over the bar.

21. Jaime Alguersuari

As with the other drivers who were expected to hit the ground running mid-season, Alguersuari was disadvantaged by the fact that he had done no testing. It may also be said that he was brought into F1 too quickly by the impatient Red Bull driver development juggernaut. While he was British F3 Champion of 2008, he was having a moderate season in World Series by Renault and may have befitted from some extra time to develop his skills away from the intense spotlight of F1. As a result, Alguersuari spent a lot of his time crashing or being rather unspectacular.

20. Adrian Sutil

I do wish Adrian Sutil could show us something — anything — that would once and for all conclude that he fully deserves a place in F1. He does show flashes of potential, but contrives to throw his chances away. He could have had a decent points finish in China if he had been more careful in the worsening weather conditions. And he has gained a reputation for being involved in a lot of needless crashes. His crash with Nick Heidfeld in Singapore following a needless spin was particularly unnecessary. This was made all the worse by the fact that he pulled off a frighteningly similar manoeuvre in Japan at the following race. His performance in Belgium looked poor in comparison with his team mate who battled for the win all race long. The main saving grace was a fourth place in Italy.

19. Luca Badoer

Yes, Luca Badoer was massively disappointing as the substitute for Felipe Massa at Ferrari. However, as I have written before, he had a harder job than anyone else on the grid, being expected to become instantly competitive after 10 years away from racing. Given the circumstances, I think Luca Badoer performed quite admirably. It is not as though Fisichella could do much more in that Ferrari — and he didn’t have the excuse of being out of practice for a decade.

18. Sébastien Buemi

I think Buemi did a decent job overall in 2009, although it’s difficult to remember any real stand-out moments. He should have another year in F1, but ought to show more in 2010 in order to justify his continued presence on the grid.

17. Heikki Kovalainen

2009 was another disappointing year for Heikki Kovalainen. The Finn was totally outclassed by his team mate all season long, and never looked like a driver who deserves to be driving for a team as good as McLaren. He seems competent enough, but clearly lacks the hunger and seems incapable of putting in a truly great performance.

16. Vitantonio Liuzzi

Liuzzi made his long-overdue return to the cockpit in a Force India this year. He did a great job at his first race back in Monza, but was slightly disappointing for the remainder of the season. 2010 will be a very important year for his career — it’s make or break time for Liuzzi.

15. Kamui Kobayashi

Kamui Kobayashi was notable for being the one rookie who grabbed your attention. He had only two races, but he made a huge impression on the F1 world. He was ballsy and aggressive, and provided some hugely entertaining racing, particularly against Jenson Button! The downside to this was that he overstepped the line once or twice, particularly when he caused a crash with Nakajima in Brazil. I also doubt whether the driver that races for Sauber in 2010 will show the same hunger. In these two races, Kobayashi had nothing to lose and so took the necessary risks. In 2010 it might all be very different.

14. Giancarlo Fisichella

At the beginning of the season, Giancarlo Fisichella continued in the trajectory his career has generally taken — downwards. The season began ignominiously when he missed his pit box in Australia. There were even rumours that Force India were less than impressed, and were looking to replace him. Then came the rumours that Ferrari were looking to Fisichella as the replacement for the struggling Luca Badoer. Bang on cue, Fisichella put in one of the drives of his life. With his Force India car on song at Spa, he really should have won the race were it not for the kers of the Ferrari car he was about to step into. Once he’d secured his dream drive for Ferrari, it was back to business as usual as he lurched from disappointment to deeper disappointment.

13. Robert Kubica

Robert Kubica was unable to shine this year in the difficult BMW car. Matters were not helped by his height, which was a major disadvantage when BMW tried to run with kers. He took a while to score his first points of the season, and was behind his team mate in the Drivers’ Championship all year. The main consolation was a superb second place finish in Brazil. I hope that Renault can produce a good car for him next year — he deserves a better chance than this.

12. Nick Heidfeld

It was a difficult year for Nick Heidfeld. The BMW car was a massive disappointment and it must have been quite a demoralising season for Nick Heidfeld. Nevertheless, he managed to grab a handful of points, including a second place in the curtailed Malaysian race. He also did a better job at scoring points than Robert Kubica. I deeply hope Heidfeld gets a drive for next season.

11. Jarno Trulli

For a long time, I have disliked Jarno Trulli. However, grudgingly, I have to admit that he did a fairly good job in 2009, despite the Toyota team’s best efforts to throw it all away. Two third place finishes near the start of the season reflected the performance of the car. But his second place in Japan was truly impressive.

Come back tomorrow to read my top ten.

I can hardly believe it — this three week break marks the mid-point of the season. As such, it is a good opportunity to take stock, have a little look back and see how the drivers are doing.

20. Sébastien Bourdais

Last year he asked us to wait to judge him, and see how he performs on slick tyres. They were supposed to suit them better. But there is no real perceptible improvement in his performance. In fact, he may even be worse than last season. Bottom of the pile for me.

19. Adrian Sutil

This is his third full season in Formula 1 and we still haven’t seen what the hype was about. Sutil has not really come close to repeating the few flashes of promise we have seen during his career. The one moment was during the Malaysian Grand Prix when he was running as high as 6th — before spinning off (admittedly in treacherous conditions). After three years, I think we should have seen a bit more by now.

18. Kazuki Nakajima

The disappointment of the season. He spent much of 2008 within touching distance of his fancied team-mate Nico Rosberg in the Drivers’ Championship. You might have expected him to improve this year. Instead, we are seeing a more lacklustre Nakajima who has failed to score a point. Indeed, he is yet even to finish in the top 10 all year.

One of the real head-scratchers of Nakajima’s season include successfully completing 77 laps at Monaco, only to crash on the final one. A chink of light was in sight when he qualified 5th at Silverstone, only to drop like a stone through the field during the race, eventually finishing 11th (which is still his best of the season).

17. Nelsinho Piquet

Nelsinho Piquet’s season is unfolding in much the same way as last year did — a bit lacklustre in general, but with a couple of half-decent results here and there. This year’s Renault does appear to be a bit of a shed, but he has once again been comprehensively beaten by his team mate.

But given that Alonso is, in my view, the best driver since Schumacher, it’s an unfair comparison. Maybe it’s better to note that Piquet has indeed beaten Alonso once (albeit in Britain, where Alonso was chronically held up by an ailing Heidfeld). But Piquet has more to do if he wants to remain in F1 for a third year.

16. Sébastien Buemi

We should be careful when judging Buemi just now. He is the only rookie in the field. And we have seen some stunning rookie performances in recent years — Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica. So in that sense, at the moment Buemi looks a bit more plain than he may turn out to be in the long run.

In fact, I would say that it is a good thing that Buemi’s season so far has consisted of anonymity rather than idiocy (although crashing into Piquet in Monaco can be filed under ‘idiocy’). Plus, he has collected a few points, though we should bear in mind that he inherited two of them in Australia thanks to the joined-up brain-fade of two drivers in front of him. One slightly worrying thing is that he seems to have become worse as the season has progressed, but that may be a blip.

15. Heikki Kovalainen

Kovalainen races this season in difficult circumstances. His car is among the worst on the grid, and to add insult to injury his team-mate is a well-hyped World Champion. Even taking this into account though, Kovalainen’s performances have, in general, failed to meet expectations.

He started the season off with a first-lap crash in Australia, then unaccountably spun off on lap one in Malaysia. At the other end of this half of the season, he has been involved in a silly scrap with Sébastien Bourdais in Britain, and an unforced spin into the barriers at Monaco. A relatively good performance in China hasn’t made up for the rest of his poor season.

14. Timo Glock

Glock is another driver whose season began well, but has rapidly faded away towards the mid-point of the season. Unquestionably, his Toyota car has lost any advantage it had at the start of the season. But his team mate Jarno Trulli continues to make the most of the situation, and Glock’s season has been oddly anonymous.

He can be relied on to collect a steady haul of points when the car is up to it, but signs of his talent are reticent in revealing themselves. A super performance in treacherous conditions in Malaysia is the only notable moment of his season that I can think of.

13. Nick Heidfeld

Nick Heidfeld’s season has been greatly constrained by his poor equipment. On the plus side, he has scored more points than Kubica, mostly thanks to a haul gained at the shortened Malaysian Grand Prix. He finished 2nd there but if the race ran to full distance he certainly wouldn’t have been that high up. Indeed, he was lucky to even be there after what was, in truth, a flaky performance.

At least this year, unlike last year, he is beating Robert Kubica. But the design of the car does not disadvantage him as much as it does Kubica.

12. Robert Kubica

How the mighty have fallen. From challenging for the Championship in 2008, today Robert Kubica languishes at the arse end of the table, having just scored his first points in Turkey. To add insult to injury, he has already used up six of his allocated eight engines. In fairness, most of it isn’t his fault. By all accounts, his BMW car is awful, and it’s not helped by the fact that it was designed around a kers that was always going to disadvantage a driver of his size.

My overriding memory of Kubica’s racing this season has been his fight with Vettel at the front in Australia. That was back when the future still seemed bright. Mario Theissen said he would have won if he didn’t get tangled up with Sebastian Vettel. There was good and bad in that performance from Kubica, which maybe says it all about his season.

11. Giancarlo Fisichella

I am not the greatest fan of Giancarlo Fisichella. Indeed, if I was in charge at Force India, I wouldn’t have given him a race seat. He started the year badly too, after embarrassingly missing his pit box in Australia, an incident that is said to have tried the patience of his team to the limit.

Aside from incidents like this though, you sense that Fisichella is squeezing the maximum out of the Force India car this year. Given that this is a team on the up, that could mean he will be scoring points soon. He has come close twice already this season (unlike Sutil), with commendable performances in both Monaco and Britain.

Brawn GP have had about a month in the spotlight. With their Lazarus-like rebirth, their fairytale Melbourne victory and the diffuser controversy, no-one has been able to stop talking about them. The dominance of their performance in Melbourne led many to suspect that Brawn would have at least the first few races completely wrapped up.

But already in Sepang there were signs that the Brawn supremacy was not quite as large as it had seemed. Although Jenson Button won the race, Rubens Barrichello rued his 4th place finish. Then in China Brawn had to make do with a 3-4 rather than the 1-2 they will have been aiming for.

It is easy to write this off as a temporary blip. The Red Bull is clearly an awesome car in the wet. We saw this also in Sepang, when Mark Webber absolutely flew once it started to rain. This has been a trait of Red Bull cars for a few years now, and it even continues in spite of the radical changes to the technical regulations this year.

Fuel-corrected qualifying times show that Brawn still had the advantage over one lap in the dry. But nonetheless, Red Bull’s pace must be giving Brawn cause for concern. The car is also nifty in the dry, as we saw in Melbourne where Sebastian Vettel was running in 2nd for almost the entire race until his crash with Robert Kubica.

What’s more, Red Bull are now hard at work creating a double diffuser which will probably be on the car come Monaco or Turkey. There is already a question mark over whether Brawn will have the resources to continue to develop the car. Red Bull have a big area that they still haven’t exploited, yet they are already in a position to win races.

So congratulations to Red Bull, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. What a transformation from last year’s damp squib. To think that there were rumours that Christian Horner was going to get the sack. Not any more!

Red Bull are among the most likeable teams, and Seb and Mark are two charismatic drivers. It has been noted before that this year’s press conferences are much better now that there are personable, chatty drivers finishing in the top three.

At the opposite end of the grid, an equally novel presence — Ferrari. Although the Scuderia can seek solace from the fact that Massa was running quite well until his retirement, the fact is that Ferrari are currently dogged by reliability problems and are not in a position to win races, never mind the championship. Now they have failed to score a point, though they have at least leapfrogged Force India. Nonetheless, this their worst start to the season since 1980. Ominously, that was the start of a 21 year long Championship drought for Ferrari.

Once again I must make the point that this makes McLaren look as though they are having a great season. Lewis Hamilton was racy in the first half of the race in China, no doubt using his kers to good effect. But later on he dropped off, constantly falling off track and spinning. This seems to be a return of his trait of poor tyre management.

In the end, the steadier Heikki Kovalainen leapfrogged him while he was off-track — the icing on the cake of a lacklustre race for Hamilton. 4th in the Constructors’ Championship is not quite the unmitigated disaster this season promised to be for McLaren. It seems as though the car is dire over one lap, but its race pace is not so bad.

One of the teams that McLaren has unexpectedly outshone so far is Renault. I feel deeply sorry for the way Alonso’s race unfolded. Renault opted for a bold and aggressive strategy by filling Alonso light. But this unravelled as the race was — unnecessarily, in my view — started behind the safety car.

This gave Alonso no chance to build up a gap as intended. Indeed, matters were compounded by the fact that Alonso took a pit stop at just the wrong time. This meant that effectively Alonso started the race from the back, rather than second as intended. The fact that Alonso made it back up to 9th by the end of the race is to be applauded.

Alonso’s team mate Nelsinho Piquet provided an excellent demonstration of just why he is not Formula 1 material. It is difficult to guess which F1 driver will get the sack first. There are two other prime candidates in my view.

First is Giancarlo Fisichella, who rumour has it is beginning to try the patience of the Force India team. Fisichella has been largely anonymous so far this season, apart from the moment where he forgot where his pit box was, to much embarrassment. In comparison, Adrian Sutil was running a highly credible 6th on merit when he aquaplaned off the circuit in Shanghai. Had he finished, it would have caused major embarrassment for Ferrari, who would have been the only team yet to score a point.

The third driver who must be hoping to improve soon is Sébastien Bourdais. I thought he should have been given another year to properly assess his abilities. The Frenchman promised he would be better on slicks. Well, now we have slicks — and he has failed to up his game.

He is being totally outclassed by this season’s only rookie, Sébastien Buemi. He showed moments of serious talent in Shanghai, including a bold overtaking move on Kimi Räikkönen. In the end, Buemi could not stop himself from having the occasional off, but he still managed to finish 8th.

Not many suspected that Buemi would be a star of F1 based on his GP2 performances. Mike Gascoyne (who, incidentally, was excellent on the BBC this weekend — could he be our Steve Matchett?) said something to this effect. I was first seriously impressed by Buemi after watching him in last year’s GP2 sprint race at Magny Cours. During that race he ploughed his way through the field, making Bruno Senna look a bit ordinary. That was also a wet race. Is Buemi therefore a wet weather specialist, not unlike his fellow Red Bull protégé Vettel?

Final word — what on earth happened to Toyota’s pace? And Williams for that matter. So much for the advantages of the double decker diffuser!

One driver whose coat is on a shoogly peg is Sébastien Bourdais. After a strong Australian Grand Prix, Bourdais’s season has been rather disappointing to say the least. He is completely anonymous during races. While this at least means he isn’t making many mistakes, the fact is that he is being utterly outclassed by his team mate Sebastian Vettel.

Bourdais has excused his performances, explaining that he will come good when slick tyres make their long-awaited return to F1. The Frenchman is of course used to slick tyres having used them for several years in ChampCar.

For the past decade Formula 1 has been unusual among motor racing categories for its use of grooved tyres in dry conditions. Slicks were abandoned in 1998 in a bid to reduce speeds amid a newly-ignited tyre war between Goodyear and Bridgestone. The powers that be were in no hurry to do away with grooves as the tyre war between Bridgestone and Michelin was even more intense. But now that Formula 1 now effectively has a control tyre with one supplier, the need to curb tyre development is no longer there.

Grooves were always unpopular among fans who prefer to look of a proper racing car with slick tyres. Drivers also tend to dislike grooves because of their reduced grip and the safety issues this entails. Grooves also reduced the role of mechanical grip which in turn put the emphasis on aerodynamics. This has led to a perceived reduction in the amount of overtaking.

Jacques Villeneuve was particularly outspoken about the introduction of grooved tyres.

Later on that year he said “the new rules are bluntly shit.” For those comments, Villeneuve was punished by Max Mosley (whose vanity project grooved tyres was) through the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council.

It was always rather strange that a driver would come through the ranks from an entry-level series through to F3 then F3000 / GP2 always using slick tyres, then be expected to use grooved tyres when he reaches F1. Given that Sébastien Bourdais feels that he has not been able to show his true potential without slicks, has the past decade been a lost decade for top-level grand prix racing?

Which other F1 drivers might have been awesome if only they had slicks?

Would Pizza Boy have been the best thing since flattened bread? Not likely given that he even struggled in other formulae with slicks.

But perhaps a decent case can be made for some other drivers. Perhaps Robert Doornbos would have been slick on slicks. He did well in F3000 and even scored a couple of wins in ChampCar. Maybe Justin Wilson couldn’t get into the grooves. He has also had a strong career in the USA where slicks are the norm.

The reverse seemed to happen for Mika Häkkinen. When grooved tyres were introduced in 1998, Häkkinen’s hitherto dormant career exploded into action. His first win did come in 1997, on slicks, but that was effectively gifted to him. On the other hand, Häkkinen’s talent was plain for all to see even before 1998.

Do I think Sébastien Bourdais will improve on slick tyres? My feeling is that tyres have a small role to play. But it’s not a very significant role. I think it would be closer to the truth to say that the standards of driving in ChampCar are much lower than in F1 and Bourdais simply doesn’t have the talent to hold his own at the highest level.

The British Grand Prix marked the mid-point of the season. It is the perfect opportunity, therefore, to look back on the season so far. Which drivers have impressed and which have disappointed? This post outlines the drivers that I have ranked from 22nd to 12th.

22. Giancarlo Fisichella

I am starting to think that Giancarlo Fisichella didn’t deserve the lifeline that Force India threw him. On the track he has not shone. He has shown an amazing level of hypocrisy too. After criticising Nakajima for his “kamikaze” driving in Australia, just a few races later Fisichella literally drove straight over the top Japanese driver’s car in Turkey. A less experienced driver would undoubtedly have faced a ban for such appalling driving. Yuji Ide had his Super License revoked for less.

It can’t be easy to look good driving the slowest car on the grid. But his team mate Adrian Sutil, while far from impressing in general, was running up in 4th in Monaco. Fisichella has not even looked close to replicating such a performance. Martin Brundle summed it up in his commentary for qualifying when Fisichella ran wide: “He’s run out of track, and just about run out of talent.”

21. Sébastien Bourdais

It was widely predicted that Bourdais would struggle to make a smooth transition from ChampCar to Formula 1. But he surprised us all with a strong performance in the Australian Grand Prix where he had to retire with engine trouble while running in 4th place. His retirement was late enough to secure him 2 points. And although there was a huge amount of attrition in that race, it was not bad going for a début Grand Prix. He was running ahead of Fernando Alonso’s Renault and Heikki Kovalainen’s McLaren in what was effectively a year-old Toro Rosso.

So his subsequent descent into complete anonymity is all the more puzzling. He has not looked close to repeating his Australian feat, with results including a dreadful 17th place in his home GP in France. Bourdais says he hopes his form will improve with the re-introduction of slick tyres to F1. But at this rate he won’t get the chance to try them out.

20. Anthony Davidson

Driving what was undoubtedly the worst car of the season, effectively an uneasy amalgam of the 2007 and 2008 Honda chassis, Davidson was never going to shine. I have to confess that I’ve never really got the fuss surrounding Anthony Davidson. Certainly, I don’t see what makes him so much better than the oft-derided Takuma Sato. If Davidson was that handy, he should surely be beating Sato easily. But the results are inconclusive.

If he is not so hot as a racer, he is certainly well-regarded as a good test driver. Perhaps more ominous for Anthony Davidson is the fact that his performances in the commentary box have been widely praised, and rightly so. Next year he is more likely to be working for the BBC than for a motor racing team.

19. Takuma Sato

Takuma Sato had the same uphill struggle as Anthony Davidson this year and he never really fouled it up. Originally the Super Aguri team was set up literally as somewhere to dump Sato, Honda having decided that they didn’t need him for their F1 team. He came out of the Super Aguri experience being linked to a drive with Renault to replace Nelsinho Piquet. The rumour may have been a load of rubbish (I don’t know), but the fact that it was even considered by anyone as a possibility shows how far Sato has come.

18. Nelsinho Piquet

Nelsinho “Junior” Piquet Jr has had a very difficult start to his F1 career. His desire to have the ‘Junior’ dropped from his name led to widespread ridicule, as fans pointed out that if he didn’t want to be called junior he had to stop driving like a junior.

In fairness, there are signs that his performances are picking up. He outwitted his team-mate, double World Champion Fernando Alonso, at the French Grand Prix. He repeated the feat by overtaking him again in Britain. Piquet was in big danger of losing his race seat mid-season. Luckily for him, it looks as though he has upped his game at just the right moment. Whether it will last is another matter.

17. Adrian Sutil

No less a man than Lewis Hamilton has tipped Adrian Sutil as a decent driver. But why is he tipped? Most of us are left scratching our heads. Okay, so he is driving a Force India, so it was always going to be an uphill struggle for him. But have we seen any flashes of talent?

Okay, so his performance at Monaco had a lot going for it. He was impressively running up in 4th until he got knocked out by an errant Kimi Räikkönen. You have to applaud Sutil for managing to wring that performance out of the Force India. But why has he never come even close to looking like repeating it?

16. Timo Glock

At the start of the season Timo Glock was at the centre of a tug-of-war between BMW and Toyota. Toyota won of course, but at the stage of the season I wonder if they think it was really worth all that hoo-ha. It’s all the more strange when you consider the fact that Mario Theissen of BMW generally finds some excellent drivers, having introduced the likes of Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel to F1.

Glock has generally looked out of sorts. He has been outqualified 7–2 by Jarno Trulli. He lies a distant 14th in the championship while Trulli is bringing home regular points hauls up in 7th. Hats off, though, for Glock’s performance in Canada, where he outperformed his vastly more experienced team-mate to bring the car home in 4th.

15. Jenson Button

Last year I was very impressed with Jenson Button as he managed to wring some results from the Honda “shitbox” Earth Car while Barrichello was beginning to look jaded and past it. Now the roles seem to have reversed.

In fact, I can scarcely remember anything that Button has done this season. A solitary 6th place in Spain is all he has to his name. He has been getting into some needless crashes — with Coulthard in Bahrain, Heidfeld in Monaco and Bourdais in France.

14. David Coulthard

David Coulthard has probably had his worst F1 season for a very long time. At the start of the season he seemingly couldn’t stop getting involved in silly little crashes. The Scot was beginning to look like a liability.

However, a very strong driver in Canada gave him a well-deserved podium finish. It remains his only points score of the season in a year where he has been thoroughly outclassed by Mark Webber.

13. Nico Rosberg

All I can say is: not impressed. If Rosberg is so good, why does he never get any good results? Why is it that whenever the camera pans round to him his front wing is missing? Why is it that his team-mate who is only there because he provides cheap engines is equal on points with him?

While the first two questions can easily be put down to the poor performance of his Williams car, the last question cannot be answered. Rosberg is being disgraced by a team mate who has precious little experience and did nothing special in GP2.

All right, so Nico Rosberg can get a good score in Williams’s oh-so-precious written exam? That means eff-all if he can’t get round a racetrack without losing his front wing.

12. Kazuki Nakajima

Speaking of Kazuki Nakajima, I have to say I am quite impressed with what he has managed to achieve. Few people tipped him to do very well, and although I regarded him as a dark horse before the season started, I did not expect him to be equal on points with Rosberg halfway through the season.

Nakajima has had a few needless little crashes, such as in Australia with Kubica and in Canada with Button. But you expect these things from time to time from a rookie.

Okay, so he has had few truly stand-out performances. But his is often there to pick up a couple of points when things go his way. And that is exactly what Williams need right now.

My top 11 drivers will be revealed tomorrow