Even in post-Schumacher Formula 1, where no dominant driver has yet to emerge, 2009 will go down as an unusual season. Since Michael's retirement in 2006, no driver has won more than 6 races in a season, which has tended to create fierce and hugely dramatic tussles for the championship. In 2009, however, the driver taking the most wins had done so long before half-distance and we were then presented with the unusual sight of three or more other rivals (sometimes literally) falling over each other in their haste to catch up to him.
In spite of all of this, though, the twenty-five competitors in the 2009 Formula 1 World Championship offered up the usual blend of brilliance, mediocrity and stupidity that we've come to expect from the world's most expensive sport. For all the technology and investment, F1 still comes down to the most falliable element - the bloke sat behind the wheel.
This year's drivers were faced with a new challenge of a season-long ban on all testing. This put a real premium on experience - of the top six drivers in the final standings, only two had started less than 100 Grands Prix - with newcomers or late arrivals floundering around at the back. However, it also created a crucible in which any driver's ultimate ability would be more immediately obvious than perhaps at any time before.
In my assessment of the overall performances in 2009, therefore, I have tried to balance out results with performances, up and down the field. So, let the controversy, name-calling and back-biting begin. Today we'll focus on the seven drivers who bring up the rear, numbers 19 to 25.
25. LUCA BADOER (Ferrari) 2 Grands Prix, 0 points; best result: 14th (B)
For eleven years now, Badoer has been an integral part of the Ferrari family, test driver throughout the team's ultimate rise to complete dominance. However, it was also the case that he held a dubious all-time record for most Grand Prix starts without a points finish. Sentiment - at such a premium in top-line sport as to be nearly non-existent - as well as Michael Schumacher's dodgy neck, saw Badoer presented with his best chance ever to change all that. What actually occured was a train wreck. Badoer's displays were as good as one could have expected from a profoundly average driver who had not raced a single seater in a decade, grappling with the field's most pitch-sensitive car. He was absolutely beyond hope. Qualifying last for both of his outings, he went on to finish both, in last place. Best forgotten.
24. ROMAIN GROSJEAN (Renault) 7 GP, 0 points; best result: 13th (BR)
Few drivers in this year's field have such a glittering CV has Grosjean. He has cut a swathe through some of the biggest name championships in European single seaters, and was lying a strong second in the GP2 Series standings to Williams' 2010 newcomer Nico Hülkenberg when the call came from Renault. Formula 1 is a curious old bird, though. Many drivers who excel in lower-formulae can't cope with its demands and disappear completely - Luca Badoer, it should be remembered, was the 1992 International Formula 3000 champion - whilst many drivers with relatively meagre careers explode gloriously into life upon contact with the highest echelon of motorsport - Damon Hill's only real successes prior to his 22 GP wins and the 1996 World Championship had been on motorcycles, whilst Jenson Button's sole single seater accomplishment until 2009 had been the 1998 British Formula Ford title. I'm sure you can see what I am driving at here. Grosjean has, so far, been resolutely of the former category. Watching him, in a very disappointing Renault car, you could almost see his confidence draining away with every successive lap he drove at every successive race.
23. KAZUKI NAKAJIMA (Williams-Toyota) 17 GP, 0 points; best result: 9th (H, SG)
Williams were one of three teams to arrive in Melbourne at the start of the season with a double diffuser and the performance advantages they brought. Whilst Nico Rosberg went on to set some eyebrow-raising lap times throughout the season and score points on eleven occasions, his back-up man singularly failed to do just that. For all their early speed, Williams finished 7th in the Constructors' Cup in 2009, entirely as a result of Nakajima's failure to score any points. He was often quick in qualifying and sometimes quick in the race, but his inability to deliver over the full 200 miles looks to have finished his Formula 1 career.
22. NELSON PIQUET JR. (Renault) 10 GP, 0 points; best result: 10th (BAH)
Like Nakajima, Piquet is another driver whose path to Formula 1 was lubricated by his surname. This is not to dismiss his achievements, however. Piquet won both the Sud-Am and British Formula 3 titles and was twice runner-up in GP2, all with a team owned by his old man. At Renault, though, he flailed around, not swimming but drowning. In his first year he managed to come to grips with the car well enough to score 19 points. And even in 2009 he won a small victory - at the German Grand Prix he outqualified his teammate Fernando Alonso for the first (and it turned out only) time in their 28 races together. Even before the Crashgate saga, though, it was hard to feel much sympathy towards Piquet, whose sullen and sulky behaviour did little to endear him to the public or to his team. More importantly, such paranoid behaviour - whether it was justified or not - in no way helps your performance on the track. He can point to bad management, hectoring and bullying from the team bosses, not being given equal equipment and whatever else all he likes - if you don't deliver on the track in F1 you get found out, chewed up and spat out. His is no great loss to the sport.
21. SÉBASTIEN BOURDAIS (Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 9 GP, 2 points; best result: 8th (AUS, MC)
Another fallout from the glittering CV club. Bourdais rewrote the history books in Champ Car racing in the USA, scything his way to four consecutive titles before returning to Europe and Formula 1. Last season, he came up against Sebastian Vettel as a teammate and was blown away, but it must also be said he was a victim of bad luck too, Bourdais getting the lion's share of the car's problems. This year his teammate was the only rookie driver to start the season, 20-year old Swiss Sébastien Buemi. It was much less forgivable this time when he was again outperformed, therefore. However, Bourdais looks to have been a victim more to politics and his relationship with the team's management than to his results - twice he finished the car in the points. Sadly, however, the annals of Formula 1 history are lined with stories like that of Bourdais. It's a cut-throat business and it has claimed another victim here.
20. VITANTONIO LIUZZI (Force India-Mercedes) 5 GP, 0 points; best result: 11th (BR)
Liuzzi was a sufferer from the no-testing curse in 2009, promoted from within after Giancarlo Fisichella's move to Ferrari. And, with over 40 Grands Prix experience behind him, he started strongly even without track time in the new car. With a Force India car proving as slippery as an eel in low-downforce trim, he qualified in the top 10 at Monza and would have finished in the points, too, had the car not let him down. However, as the tracks became less favourable - both to the chassis and to Liuzzi, who had never raced at two of the five venues he encountered in 2009 - he started to go backwards. All of this said, he was never outclassed by Adrian Sutil in the other car and it's not beyond comprehension that a driver of his experience and reliability could find a drive in F1 next season. It would, however, most likely be his final chance to impress at this level.
19. JAIME ALGUERSAURI (Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 8 GP, 0 points; best result: 14th (BR)
Despite his relatively low position in my rankings, I was hugely impressed with Alguersauri this year. The 2008 British Formula 3 champion was put into the car - again, without testing time - for the Hungarian Grand Prix to become the youngest man ever to start a World Championship round. His pace was always respectable and sometimes very much moreso, not easy in this, the most tightly contested season ever in terms of lap time. On race day, he tended to fade, most likely a combination of lack of track time plus his inexperience at races of Grand Prix distance. Both of these will be naturally addressed in time, of which Alguersauri has plenty. Not twenty until next Spring, I believe he has the potential for a long and successful career in the formula.
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