Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :

So there's a mention about "rookies" in F1 rules? Never heard of that.

Sources please

E: Voted Kobayashi. Not an hard choice, he was the only one to dominate his teammate. That, on the less reliable car of the grid. Okay, you might wanna say "It's only De La Rosa, and he hasn't done any F1 race since 2006". But remember, he was in the pace straight away while substituing Montoya in 2005 and 2006.

What I ment was he was eligible for the young driver test before this season, due to him only doing 2 races which I guess regards them as a rookie.

Quote from lizardfolk :

I reckon there isn't a rookie that has absolutely shined this year like Hamilton's first year. But if you sift through the rookies so far this year I say that Kobayashi has done pretty decent and has somewhat fulfilled his 09 expectations (which tbh is very high for a GP2 flunkie). Hulkenberg would be a second.

Hulkenberg has 2 points. Kobayashi has 15 so far (and those aren't just incidental points either).

Also Chandhok? He hasn't really whipped Senna. Senna has outqualified Karun for most of the year so far. IDK why people are so surprised that Karun can actually hold the car steady (which should be expected)

Only rookie that was as good as Hamilton would be JV, but like Hamilton he had the fastest car on the grid.

Quote from JPeace :

Actually I think that Hulkenburg really showed what he was worth racing Schumacher like he did at Silverstone. Also, I know he isn't a rookie as such, but I think Alguersuari has really proven what he can do this year - Buemi also has improved a lot. In a few years' time I really think we can return to the days when we have in excess of 10 drivers capable of winning the championship. I hope this happens, but I don't know if the fairness of F1 (the difference between top teams and mid field teams) will be enough to provide this.

Alguersuari seemed to have improved immensely a few races ago but in the last couple of races hes done really poor where as Buemi has Shined.

Also its quite funny how if you look at all these drivers previous results in GP2, Kobayashi is clearly the worst of them all yet its quite the opposite in F1.

Things like this make it extremely hard for driver scouts to find the right talent.

Quote from Mustafur :

Only rookie that was as good as Hamilton would be JV

In the history of F1 or in the recent past?

I think he must mean in the recent past, otherwise the award would surely go to Nino Farina.

Back on topic: Kobayashi.

I really doubt any F1 rookie would give less than 100%.

Its Schumacher for sure, he's been an outstanding rookie.

*cough* sarcasm *cough*

Yeah but De La Rosa clearly is the better rookie.

Quote from JPeace :

I see Barrichello isn't on this list.

Looks like you didn't get it yet.

I vote for Hulkenburg.

Kobayashi rox and Petrov too

Kobyashi for shiz...that move on Alonzo in Valencia was F-ing brilliant!

An interresting info on di Grassi: his car is still heavier than the minimal weight, while Glock's isn't. This of course represents a big disavantage for him.

http://translate.google.fr/tra ... l=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8

Petrov improved alot in Hungary but he still showed signs of a weak driver when that easy as hell pass hamilton did on him on turn 2.

Kobayashi did incredible, overtaking 7 cars on the first lap to finish the race in 9th from 23rd!

And so did Hulkenburg getting a neat 6th positiion.

Quote from Mustafur :

Petrov improved alot in Hungary but he still showed signs of a weak driver when that easy as hell pass hamilton did on him on turn 2.

Kobayashi did incredible, overtaking 7 cars on the first lap to finish the race in 9th from 23rd!

And so did Hulkenburg getting a neat 6th positiion.

To be fair to Petrov, he realised there were no point in stuffing himself up just for the sake of holding up Lewis at lap 2 of the race. If he tried to defend then he most definitly wouldn't have finished 5th.

As for Kobayashi, his job wasn't made toooooooo hard from 23rd after all. He did incredibly in the first lap to pass those 7 cars, then he didn't have to pass any (other then when a Toro Rosso ran wide) and still finished 9th, thanks to the chaos at the pitlane...

and was all over Button, who was all over hes team mate and he also overtook Liuzzi and Schumacher on track.

I think if Petrov doesn't live up to expectations for the rest of the season Kobayashi really should take that seat.

Quote from JPeace :

I wanna see him in a mega car, it would be senna reborn

Swap Massa for Kobayashi

Quote from JPeace :

Nah alonso, His eyebrow(s) are too big.

You mean hes head, its like a tower for christ sakes.

Quote from JCTK :

As for Kobayashi, his job wasn't made toooooooo hard from 23rd after all. He did incredibly in the first lap to pass those 7 cars, then he didn't have to pass any (other then when a Toro Rosso ran wide) and still finished 9th, thanks to the chaos at the pitlane...

Kobayashi actually overtook Liuzzi on lap 4, so he still pulled off a pass after the first lap display of ownage.

kamikaze kobayashi all the way.

Quote from Mustafur :

Only rookie that was as good as Hamilton would be JV, but like Hamilton he had the fastest car on the grid.

Well if you go back a little bit further, Alonso was sensational in his first race and knocked up some championship points whilst driving by far the slowest car in the field. It was clear from his first race that Alonso would win at least 1 title.

Another brilliant rookie was Jean Alesi who very nearly won his maiden Grand Prix, but was thwarted by Ayrton Senna - the battle where Senna passed Alesi was so rivetting it had me stood on the sofa screaming as the young upstart made the world sit up and take notice. He was driving a sodding Tyrrell, and he was holding his own!

But the best rookie of all time has to be Giancarlo Baghetti, who won his first 3 grand prix, and retired from the next 2 after setting fastest laps. He then retired from Formula 1.
EDIT: Wikipedia shows 2 of the races where non-championship, and he did do more racing than I thought before retiring. None-the-less, hell of a rookie.

It could be argued that Johnnie Parsons also won his first F1 race, but he entered and raced the Indianapolis 500, a race which used to be part of the F1 calendar but which few European teams bothered to show up for, making the victory somewhat pyric in nature.

Nino Farina, who won the first ever GP to be held, doesn't really count.

Against drivers like that the rookies of this year don't really stack up too well. Nobody has stood out with exceptional performances but a lot of that is due to the "rookie teams" which are so far off the pace the cars are being driving in a manner to get them to the finish line rather than to perform well.

With that in mind i'm not yet casting judgement on the new guys. I think they're getting more experience of the logistics of attending an F1 season than they are of driving an F1.

Jean made you jump up and down at the first GP in 1990 at Phoenix, but his first GP was France the year before where he finished 4th - one place better than Martin Brundle's 84 debut which is worth a mention.

Kobayashi by a very large margin.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Well if you go back a little bit further, Alonso was sensational in his first race and knocked up some championship points whilst driving by far the slowest car in the field. It was clear from his first race that Alonso would win at least 1 title.

Sorry but Alonso didn't score any points in 2001, his best result was a 10th. But since the Minardi was clearly out of the pace, fighting with the Benetton, the Arrows and the Prosts was the best he could do I guess.

Quote :

But the best rookie of all time has to be Giancarlo Baghetti, who won his first 3 grand prix, and retired from the next 2 after setting fastest laps. He then retired from Formula 1.

EDIT: Wikipedia shows 2 of the races where non-championship, and he did do more racing than I thought before retiring. None-the-less, hell of a rookie

A lot of things have been written on him but I guess he's always been overrated because of that achievement - being the only driver of the F1 history to win a GP for his first race. What the history won't remember of is that he was on Ferrari - which was by far the dominant car in 1961 - and that the 3 other Ferraris had problems in that race.

He's won 3 non-championship races that year according to StatsF1, but only 1 of them was with a decent field(19 cars) and he was the only one on Ferrari, another one was with 13 cars but the field didn't seem to be that strong and he still was the only one on Ferrari, and the last one was on Porsche okay, but the field was quite weak I'd say, with 9 cars all driven by Italian drivers who drove very few championship races.

After switching to ATS in 1963 and then BRM in 1964 he was nowhere it seems.