Vettel was very unlucky in the first half of the season with being hit out on or retiring due to relaiblity for i think 4 races in a row, ever since the STR3 came out though He has been driving well above his weight.
If Hamilton hasn't impressed then idk who has imo.
Massa in terms of everyone else has been good but compared to last year hes actually giving Kimi a real hard time and not just getting points from Kimis relaiability curse.
Hamilton, Kubica and Vettel for me. But if I had to choose one it's Vettel: kicking Bourdais' ass hard, and even makes it hard for the two RBR drivers (Coulthard who?). Born winner!
Nobody has really stood out for me, but Webber, Trulli and Alonso have destroyed their teammates, and Massa has been surprisingly consistent. Vettel has showed flashes of brilliance but hasn't been that consistent, Kubica has been great but I suspect that's more down to the car being fixed to suit him better this season.
Hmm, I'll give my vote to Webber, mainly because i like the chap
A stand out driver is someone performing beyond what is capable of, therefore I would'nt put Hamiltion in the top 3, his performances last year should tell us that he was always going to be up front and driving like this anyway. Kubica has performed better than I hoped for and he's won me a fair few bob in bets with mates, while Vettel and Nakajima deserve mentions as well.
But if you were to do most unimpresive driver then it's a tie between Coulthard and Kimi, Couthalrd due to crashs at start of season and Kimi becuase he seems to have lost intrest in F1. I think a seat at Ferarri will be avalible at end of season.
That would be Trulli for me, the "best of the rest" right behind Heikki. Finishing top8 in 6 out of 10 races and showing a good race consistence, something that was always critical on him. And I'd put Webber right behind him with the same reasons.
I don't think Kubica is a surprise really, I always thought he would fight for the title with a decent car.
Also I think Fisichella was surprisingly good at the first races, but recently he's only going down.
It's all relative. Is the McLaren good and Heikki not so good? Is the McLaren not so good and Lewis really good? I think it's the former not the latter, but the same goes for every team mate comparison. Glock's rubbish, or Trulli's doing really well. If Glock were doing better, Trulli's performance wouldn't stand out at all really.
I think when all is said and done, I'll have to go with Sato. He's never had such an incident-free season, very impressive.
To impress means to do (much) better than expected before the season, doesn't it? Hamilton had 3 very good races and 2 bad races where he did stupid mistakes. The rest was average. Not really better than expected compared to last season, IMO. In the first half of the last season, he was VERY impressive. This season, not so much.
If anyone has impressed me this season, it has to be Kubica. Who would have thought that he would be leading the championship with the BMW at one point during the season? He did, and he still is only 10 points behind in the championship. That is impressive.
Alonso, because he is in a much slower car and dominating in comparison to his team mate, if you ignore the last couple of races where he had bad luck. I just love it when they cut to footage of him, he is constantly on the limit.
Webber has been far from flawless, anytime he gets into a potentially great position he throws it away. Story of his career really, makes all the wrong moves.
Alonso's driving is amazing. His speed however isn't there mainly because of the car. Alonso in a Mclaren or ferrari would be the winner for sure. His defensive driving is incredible!
Yeh Renaults problem is that they designed their engine to work well with traction control, which means its actually much slower than the other teams engines. Red Bull have the same problem, if they had a better engine then Renault and Red Bull would probably be beating BMW. The problem is so bad that the Torro Rosso is actually faster down the straights than the Red Bull cars.