Lewis Hamilton
We’ve already gifted the Top Dog award to the Brit – read it here!
Sebastian Vettel
Is the crown slipping from Seb’s head? This race will go down in his books as the win that got away, as for every session before the race, and for 40 odd laps, he was simply the man to beat. In fact, no-one in the modern era has topped FP1, FP2, FP2, Q1, Q2 and Q3 in the history of the sport. Yet another statistic goes tumbling.
We bet he wishes he hadn’t had that rant at Nahrain Karthikeyan in Malaysia, because the Indian racer might just have got out the way quicker. After all that’s said and done, if Seb had the pace to win, he’d have come back at Lewis.
Fernando will be looking at this with glee – the King can be felled.
Felipe Massa
Another case of what could have been for Felipe baby. If only he wasn’t at Ferrari, he would have been on for a sure-fire podium in the States. But, then again, if he wasn’t at Ferrari, he wouldn’t have the car to be in that position, would he? It’s quite the conundrum.
The only thing to note is that eventually the Brazilian would have had to have moved over for Fernando at one stage or another in the race. Either at the start, during the first stint, or in the closing laps the radio call would have come – getting out the way before the lights just saves everyone’s blushes, doesn’t it?
Timo Glock
A brief mention for the otherwise-forgotten German; on Sunday he managed to haul his Marussia to such a speed that he planted it firmly in front of both the Caterhams on the grid. That is some achievement, considering the smaller budget and lack of KERS for the plucky squad from Banbury. The future looks bright.
Michael Schumacher
The penultimate (well, second penultimate) race for Herr Schumacher wasn’t a classic one, but that just fits the mould of his current predicament. The joy of nabbing a lofty grid position of 5th was tempered with the fact he fell backwards through the race like a stone, and compounded by a two-stop race that got him absolutely nowhere.
The main reason Schumacher is in here is that he’s keeping Hamilton seat warm until 2013. And if a 7-time World Champion slightly past his prime can’t use his experience to get it to work even slightly, what hope has Lewis got?
Paul Di Resta
While it seems to be going swimmingly on the other side of the Force India garage, the same can’t be said for dear old Paul. Another race weekend where he couldn’t get the tyres to work in qualifying leading to a non-descript race.
But, that’s not the worse thing. Usually Sky and the BBC go track the Scot down for a bit of a post-race chat but oddly that was missing from this weekend’s coverage. That’s the last thing a driver looking for a contract for 2013 wants – going missing in the race and in front of the cameras.
