The last decade can neatly be split down the middle, driver-wise. From 2000 to 2004, Michael Schumacher reigned supreme. From 2005 to 2009, the next generation of star drivers made their presence felt. All in all, it's a little unsatisfactory as an arrangement, as no one successor has helpfully pulled ahead of the rest of their rivals to fill the Michael-shaped void in the sport - for resolution to that issue we will, almost certainly, have to wait until the end of next decade. This is not to say that the field over the last 10 years hasn't provided us with a typically good mixture of brilliance, adequacy, unfulfilled promise and major new stars. Here's my top 10 drivers of the last ten years.
10. Rubens Barrichello (2000-2009)
172 starts, 530 points (@ 3.081). 11 wins, 12 pole positions, 17 fastest laps. Best championship: 2nd place (2002, 2004).
As the Ferrari number 2 during their most dominating era yet was when Rubens clocked up the majority of his numbers, but it was perhaps in the final years of the decade where he most impressed. First, in an uncompetitive Honda he never let his head drop and gave his all in spite of the odds. Then, as the team became Brawn and the class of the field, he put up his most spirited title challenge to date - all the more ironic, then, that his two 2nd-place championship finishes date from his time of being well-beaten by Michael Schumacher.
Highlight: His brilliant, elbows-out swashbuckling drive to victory in the 2003 British Grand Prix.
9. Juan Pablo Montoya (2001-2006)
94 starts, 309 points (@ 3.287). 7 wins, 13 pole positions, 13 fastest laps. Best championship: 3rd (2003)
Explosive and exciting, Montoya was there or thereabouts throughout his brief Formula 1 career. Winner of at least one race in every year bar 2002 and his final, disappointing half-season with McLaren, perhaps his greatest achievement was making the established names sit up and take notice of him right from the off. And but for a catastrophic race at Indianapolis in 2003, he could have been a world champion.
Highlight: Passing Michael Schumacher into the first corner at Interlagos in 2001, then leading the race like a veteran in only his third Grand Prix. It should have been the start of something huge.
8. David Coulthard (2000-2008)
156 starts, 314 points (@ 2.013). 7 wins, 4 pole positions, 7 fastest laps. Best championship: 2nd (2001).
He slid out of the sport rather anonymously at the end, but it should not be forgotten what a significant driver Coulthard was in the early part of this decade. A championship contender up until that perennial enemy - his own bad luck - reared its ugly head in 2000 and then runner up in 2001, Coulthard then went on to serve up perhaps his greatest ever Grand Prix win - holding off the field in an ailing McLaren at Monaco in 2002. The following season he won his final race in the sport and then in 2005 headed to Red Bull, where the results weren't as good but his experience was invaluable in the team's development. If he could have qualified as well as he raced, he could have been world champion.
Highlight: A brilliant win in the 2000 French Grand Prix, going wheel to wheel with Michael Schumacher and making the German look slow-witted.
7. Felipe Massa (2002, 2004-2009)
114 starts, 320 points (@ 2.807). 11 wins, 15 pole positions, 12 fastest laps. Best championship: 2nd (2008).
First there was wild and woolly Felipe, the man who wrestled his steering wheel and never brought his Sauber through a corner on the same line twice. Then came a formative year at Ferrari as a test driver. The man who returned managed to retain the same speed, but as the years went on learn to control it and turn it into results. By the time he arrived at Ferrari in 2006, he looked like he had everything he needed to fulfil his potential. Within 2 years, he had come as close to winning a world championship as you feasibly can, and looked set to go one better a lot more times until a chastening 2009. If he fully recovers from his accident, Massa could be one of the leading stars of the next decade.
Highlight: His two wins in the Brazilian Grand Prix, both drives of such speed and control you wondered how it was anyone else ever managed to win anything.
6. Sebastian Vettel (2007-2009)
43 starts, 125 points (@ 2.907). 5 wins, 5 pole positions, 3 fastest laps. Best championship: 2nd (2009).
An outstanding arrival on the scene, Vettel became the youngest ever Formula 1 points scorer on his debut at Indianapolis in 2007. Later moving to Toro Rosso, he led the Japanese Grand Prix in the streaming wet before crashing out of third. By way of compensation, the following week he finished 4th. A new star was being born. The following season came consistency and speed, including an improbable but dazzling win from the front in Monza. His move to Red Bull's senior team brought yet more success and a runners-up place in the standings. A multiple world champion, just waiting for his chance.
Highlight: Winning for Toro Rosso at Monza in 2008.
5. Jenson Button (2000-2009)
170 starts, 327 points (@ 1.924). 7 wins, 7 pole positions, 2 fastest laps. 2009 Formula 1 World Champion.
He arrived a relatively unheralded 20 year old at Williams in 2000 and impressed everyone. A future world champion, was the line. Well, he got there in the end. But if the fun in anything is in the journey rather than the arrival, Button will be enjoying his success more than most. A disappointing second season at Benetton had people questioning his motivation, an accusation which would repeatedly rear its ugly head whenever Button went through any kind of rough patch. However, when the car was underneath him he was always brilliant. His first podium in Formula 1 in 2004 was followed by 11 more that season, and after a trying start to 2006 Button outscored all his competitors in the second half of the year. The surprise of 2009 is not that Button is a world champion, but that it took so long for all the necessary factors to align.
Highlight: Winning the 2009 Monaco Grand Prix, having pulled the rabbit out of the hat at just the right moment throughout the weekend.
4. Lewis Hamilton (2007-2009)
52 races, 256 points (@ 4.923). 11 wins, 17 pole positions, 3 fastest laps. 2008 Formula 1 World Champion.
The decade's outstanding debutant. Hamilton arrived in 2007 as the GP2 champion, with a reputation for speed, aggression and resolve. He promptly finished on the podium for every one of his first 8 races, winning 2. Inexperience cost him a remarkable debut season title, but he was not to be denied in 2008, becoming the youngest man to ever win the world crown. His most impressive year of all, however, has been 2009. Battling against expectation and adversity in a very poor car, he and the team developed as the year went on, winning two races before the season was out. He could possibly be the most complete driver now in Formula 1.
Highlight: In a season where the field would normally be separated, front to back, by between 1 and 1.5 seconds, taking pole position in Abu Dhabi by 0.7 seconds, with more fuel onboard than the second-placed driver.
3. Kimi Räikkönen (2001-2009)
156 starts, 573 points (@ 3.673). 18 wins, 16 pole positions, 35 fastest laps. 2007 Formula 1 World Champion.
When he arrived in Formula 1, there were serious doubts as to whether Räikkönen, with only 24 single seater race starts to his name in Formula Renault, should have been granted a superlicence. Initially racing under a probationary period of 4 races, Kimi scored points in his first race and never looked back. By the following season he was at McLaren. Only inexperience, a tangle here, a mistake in qualifying there stopped him being world champion in 2003. But it was 2004 which was particularly impressive. In a brittle and unreliable car, Räikkönen's almost-certainly doomed gimlet-eyed pursuits of Michael Schumacher's immeasurably superior Ferrari were often the highlight of mid-season races. Second again in 2005, his move to Ferrari for 2007 immediately bore fruit. The last two seasons have been patchier, but as soon as he's written off, you can always rely on Kimi to produce something which makes you remember why he earns the salary he does.
Highlight: the final two races of his world championship campaign of 2007, where he came from 17 points behind by winning the Chinese and Brazilian Grands Prix takes some beating. But I'll pick his charge to victory from 17th at Suzuka in 2005.
2. Fernando Alonso (2001, 2003-2009)
139 starts, 577 points (@ 4.151). 21 wins, 18 pole positions, 13 fastest laps. 2005 and 2006 Formula 1 World Champion.
The only real rival to Schumacher to emerge during the German's reign in the sport, Alonso combines qualifying speed, great racecraft and consistency with Schumacher's greatest facet: the ability to read a race whilst in the cockpit. Seasons with an uncompetitive Renault team have seen Alonso's reputation take a little knock, but it's really the way he was kicked about by rookie teammate Lewis Hamilton at McLaren that hurt him, and which sets up the great duel for the beginning of the next decade in the sport. A truly great driver.
Highlight: after the questionable win in Singapore, the following weekend's success in Japan was classic Alonso, grasping an opportunity and never letting go.
1. Michael Schumacher (2000-2006)
121 starts, 799 points (@ 6.603). 56 wins, 45 pole positions, 37 fastest laps. 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 Formula 1 World Champion.
Michael Schumacher's total domination of Formula 1 at the start of the decade will stand as a benchmark for years to come. Indeed, only once in the history of the sport - Fangio's similar spell in the 1950s - has anything comparable been achieved. Yes, you can question some of his tactics, but hey, he got away with it. And yes, he had the best car. But that's immaterial, when you consider the work he put in with an uncompetitive Ferrari outfit for the previous 4 seasons to get into the position. Michael Schumacher may not be the greatest racing driver you or I will ever see, but he's very possibly the best.
Highlight: winning the 2003 Canadian Grand Prix in a car crippled by brake problems: one of Michael's few sleight of hand masterpieces in a decade where normally winning came easily.
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And, just for the sake of balance, here's five who were never quite in contention:
5. Nelson Piquet Jr (2008-2009)
Aside from his sourpuss sad face and continual moping, aside from his part in the race fix in Singapore, Piquet just didn't cut it at this level. He's by no means the fifth worst driver of the decade as drivers go. But as a total package, you'd rather train a monkey.
4. Gaston Mazzacane (2000-2001)
Ah, the pay driver. Such a common sight in F1 during the late 80s and early 1990s, when there were hundreds of teams with names like brands of cough medicine, less prevalent in the noughties where the largest ever field was 22 cars. Mazzacane's cheque cleared, though, and he raced for Minardi and Prost in 2000 and 2001, which must have depressed both equally.
3. Alex Yoong (2001-2002)
The first Malaysian to ever start a Grand Prix, Alex Yoong was the last driver to fail to qualify for a Grand Prix on lack of pace alone. His time at Minardi can most charitably be summed up thus: he was pretty gentlemanly when it came to letting people through to lap him.
2. Luca Badoer (2009)
Just two races for the stalwart Ferrari test driver in the noughties, but two races which will live long in the memory. Qualifying last for both, he then raced through to last place. This made Ivan Capelli, still smarting from his own disastrous spell at the Scuderia in 1992, very happy no doubt.
1. Yuji Ide (2006)
The previous 4 drivers in this list really have nothing on this specimin, a pay driver who raced the first four events of the 2006 season for Super Aguri. Like Kimi Räikkönen, Ide's lack of experience was rewarded with a probationary period. Unlike the Finn, Ide spent much of the time lagging around at the back. After causing a number of nasty shunts at the San Marino Grand Prix, the FIA politely suggested that Ide go away somewhere else and get better at driving before he came back. We await this with baited breath.
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