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[scotty]

Teams bosses vote Vettel best '09 driver

By Jonathan Noble Thursday, November 19th 2009, 09:51 GMT

Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, Abu Dhabi GPSebastian Vettel may have lost out on the world title in 2009, but he has been rated as the season's best driver by team bosses in AUTOSPORT's annual top ten.

AUTOSPORT once again enlisted, in total privacy, the driver ratings from all ten of the current team principals to figure out who the key men in the paddock believe was the star driver of the year.

With the rankings then converted into points (on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis), the results were collated and have been published for the first time in AUTOSPORT's F1 Season Review, on sale in newsagents now.

And it is Vettel who has come out on top, over world champion Jenson Button - with last year's number one rated driver, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, coming a close third.

The full AUTOSPORT F1 Team Principals' top ten results for 2009 are:

1. Sebastian Vettel 76
2. Jenson Button 67
3. Lewis Hamilton 65
4. Fernando Alonso 39
5. Rubens Barrichello 35
6= Kimi Raikkonen 30
6= Mark Webber 30
8. Felipe Massa 19
9. Robert Kubica 10
10. Adrian Sutil 8

Vettel was clearly delighted about being ranked as the best driver by team principals, but equally knows that the real target is to achieve the number one spot on track.

"It's an honour to be recognised after such an exciting season with many ups and downs," he told AUTOSPORT. "However, the votes won't help me be faster on the track next year and it will still be down to me to prove myself again next season."

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner, who joined in fellow team principals in contributing his own rankings for the vote, was equally happy with the outcome.

"Sebastian had a great year in 2009 and I am certain he has the makings of a future world champion," Horner told AUTOSPORT.

"It's easy to forget how young he is sometimes. He's very mature in how he works with the car and his engineers - and it's remarkable to think that he can only just hire a rental car.

"It's great to see that his talent has been recognised by others and we're very much looking forward to working with him again in the coming seasons."

Now let's all argue about how wrong/right this ranking is!

I'm surprised Vettel won given his accidents, and also surprised how high up Alonso is.

[cap-dude]

Nice to see Massa up there despite missing half the season.

No Rosberg though? Yet Kubica in 9th. Not to mention Sutil? Why Sutil?

[Frosty]

Vettel is ranked way too high he made to many mistakes and didn't make a lot of crucial overtakes if he had done then he could be world champion right now. Webber should be ranked higher after all he did start the season with a leg that was pretty much broken. I think Lewis and Jenson are ranked about right.

[Jensonb]

Vettel is ranked way too high he made to many mistakes and didn't make a lot of crucial overtakes if he had done then he could be world champion right now. Webber should be ranked higher after all he did start the season with a leg that was pretty much broken. I think Lewis and Jenson are ranked about right.

Agreed, not sure how Vettel gets the top spot after things like his Monaco and Australia shunts or lap 1 at Istanbul. Must be a combination of the team bosses believing the hype, the fact he did most of his work late in the season and the fact Red Bull essentially get to vote twice.

[Arsenal 1-nil]

On sheer speed I might rate Vettel number 1, but I would still go with Hamilton. If each of these guys ran a perfect race in the same car we'd have the smallest margin of victory ever. Over the course of the season though Hamilton would pull away because Vettel is prone to more DNFs. Hamilton's mistakes tend to be for a position or three.

[7UpJordan]

Nice to see Massa up there despite missing half the season.

No Rosberg though? Yet Kubica in 9th. Not to mention Sutil? Why Sutil?

I think Rosberg blotted his copy book after his "visor problems" excuse at China, throwing away a podium at Singapore and blaming the team for him messing up in Q3 at Interlagos.

[ivey]

I'd say Lewis' worst race was in China, because those were just driver errors and he also confirmed that.
In Monaco he just had to push 150%, because his car was sh*t, in Monza I'd say McLaren put him on a wrong tactics, so again he had to push too hard. I wouldn't say these mistakes where you push it over the limit, are fatal. Silly mistakes are those which count, like Rosberg in Singapore or Vettel in Turkey.

Though I'm suprised to NOT see Rosberg in there. Jenson and Lewis should be pretty equal. Kimi probably was better than Rubens through the season

[Cubejam]

Rosberg not being in the top 10 is completely wrong in my opinion. He proved to be fantastic all year round. Stupid mishap in Singapore but has mr scamilton or mr magnum never made a mistake before? He's in my top 5

[headless]

Raikko??
He did at least a good a job as LH

[Gaz]

Raikko??
He did at least a good a job as LH

Yep

[Big Azza]

It's controversial.

I'm happy that Vettel was voted the best.

Perhaps the list should be called "Most Valuable Driver." Vettel is a superb investment for any team. I'm thinking of my FIFA game:

Who's worth more?

Player A: Age: 19. Skill: 75/100

Player B: Age: 28. Skill 85/100

Btw, it's rhetorical.






And extremely bias.

[rozer]

I am not Vettels greatest fan, and certainly wouldnt rate him the best `09 driver after all i thought thats pretty much the guy that walks away with the title ? lol.
it is very hard to choose though.

[f1ea]

Raikko??
He did at least a good a job as LH

Yep

and in a much crappier car. I'd say Lewis and Kimi were pretty much equally good.
About Fernando, i guess the team bosses know what a POS the Renault was

[texasmr2]

Best driver of the year is the driver who won the WDC.

[darwin dali]

SV