While Sebastian Vettel continued his dominance of the sport of Formula One in 2013, who were the top 10 drivers to compete against the seemingly unstoppable German?
10. Jules Bianchi
Driving for one of the two slowest teams on the grid, 24-year-old Jules Bianchi stepped into a Formula One seat at the start of this year, after Luiz Razia was ousted in favour of Bianchi’s Ferrari support.
At Marussia the Frenchman was seldom going to be offered the opportunity to make an impact on a race weekend, but the inter-team battle clearly showed which of the two drivers were better.
An outrageous 18-1 victory in qualifying over Max Chilton showed the Frenchman was no slouch on Saturday, especially as his only qualifying defeat was at Japan with the knowledge he was carrying a ten-place penalty into the race.
Setting the 11th fastest lap time at the season’s opener was as close as the Frenchman came to disrupting the middle order, but a point-less season should not be looked upon so when you’ve got Ferrari on speed-dial after a season that confirmed you’re clearly capable of bringing the car home well ahead of your teammate.
9. Daniel Ricciardo
Pre-season, Daniel Ricciardo told us podiums would be what he needed to impress the Red Bull hierarchy.
Nine months later he’s yet to step on the podium but has landed that presently-coveted drive.
After abandoning the STR7 mid-season in 2012 in order to focus on the ‘8, Toro Rosso will be disappointed the car wasn’t that couple of tenths faster than it was.
Despite a few surprise qualifying results, Ricciardo was left to fight for the bottom end of the points on a handful of occasions and on many wasn’t able to even manage that.
On paper it might be surprising Milton Keynes has promoted a driver with 30 points to his name (and only five under the old format), but the mechanics in the Red Bull garage have time and time again praised the 24-year-old for his tenacity when given the opportunity to succeed.
He’s not scored the podiums he was aiming for, but many wheel-to-wheel races with established ‘top’ drivers have shown he’s ready for the challenge of taking on a much faster car.
The luckless Jean-Eric Vergne will be disappointed his teammate was promoted instead of him, but the Frenchman’s season wasn’t disappointing just because of mechanical issues.
A failure to adapt to the car from the mid-season saw him drop out of the points after the seventh round and wouldn’t feature in them for at least another 13 races.
Vergne’s got talent, but Ricciardo utilised his more in 2013.
8. Mark Webber
After the disappointment that was the second half of 2012, Mark Webber would have been forgiven for entering 2013 with the optimistic hope of challenging his teammate for the World Championship again.
Melbourne wasn’t great, Malaysia was – but then suddenly wasn’t – and the rest of the season seemed to be the culmination of the notorious bad luck the Australian’s carried around with him for the last 12 years in Formula One.
A KERS failure in Australia was followed by the Multi-21 saga in Malaysia. His wheel came off in China after contact with Vergne and one of his pit-stops went all wrong the next race in Spain.
Giedo Van der Garde coming over him in China lost him half of his front wing, an incident replicated by Grosjean at the start of the next race and the wheels once again fell off in Germany, while a KERS failure in Hungary cost him positions.
One of the all-too-familiar clutch failures dropped him much too far back at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix to compete for the race win.
A gearbox issue at Monza preceded a rare engine failure in Singapore, which in turn preceded the banzai move by Adrian Sutil that put him out of the next race in Korea.
An alternator failure leading to retirement in India capped off a season of mechanical.
Webber could barely touch Vettel on raceday in 2013 (and often couldn’t get close in qualifying) but the 198-point deficit that stood at the end of the season wasn’t nearly indicative of his pace.
Eight consecutive podiums in his last eight races was possible, if not for his recurring mechanical plight and securing third place in the championship in the final race will be little consolation for a man who was visibly done with the sport in the final races of the season.
7. Romain Grosjean
Grosjean entered 2013 in the shadows of teammate Kimi Raikkonen and started off the season looking very much the Finn’s subordinate.
A run of four non-points finishes from Spain to Silverstone cost him valuable points that may have vaulted him up the standings at the end of the year, but the Frenchman turned a page mid-season and did much of the work he needed to do from there on.
Romain lost the crash-happy image he’d worked so hard to build the previous season and turned himself into a driver very capable of matching Raikkonen on a regular basis.
The team’s management were most definitely behind him toward the end of the year, but a succession of podiums while Raikkonen didn’t look like he could match his pace cemented his spot on the grid for 2014.
Grosjean is a genuine talent and proved that to his audience in the second half of the year; he must now continue to improve if he has any hope of a championship challenge in years to come.
The level of talent on the grid is at one of its highest ever and it’s not going to be easy for any drivers to walk in and take titles.
6. Lewis Hamilton
Lewis was disappointing in 2013. A single victory and a few podiums was the minimum expected of him when his move to Mercedes was announced.
The relatively unknown quantity in Nico Rosberg was expected to be walked over throughout the year, while the Brit was on his way to challenging for another championship.
In reality it was something very different.
The Mercedes rarely had the pace to challenge for race victories after the mid-point of the year, but a string of results barely any better than Rosberg’s throughout the season won’t have done his image as one of the sport’s best any good.
Lewis complains. He complains a lot and it doesn’t do him any favours.
Perhaps we don’t hear as much of other drivers during the race, but the moaning from the number ten Mercedes was too much to handle by the Brazilian Grand Prix.
He’s plenty experienced now and should be able to explain his thoughts without showing his deepest emotional feelings toward the team’s work.
In other words: shut up and drive.
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