Guest Top 5 Current Formula 1 Drivers by Dotmund

Just as I was starting to worry I was running out of top fives and wouldn't have enough time to write a new one up popped the ever wonderful Dotmund with this perfectly timed work of excellence. Dotmund has been a source of inspiration in keeping this blog going. Last year he managed almost a post a day on his own blog and every one seemed to be funnier or artier than anything I could hope to produce.

The 2012-13 Formula 1 season starts this Sunday so over to Dotmund to find out who's hot on the current F1 circuit.

I have a secret shame. I'm obsessed with Formula 1 motor racing. My brain is a little encyclopaedia of useless facts, and the ones that won't go in by themselves I accumulate into comprehensive lists and charts. I hate myself a little for that. But then, there are worse things.

The 2012 Formula 1 season is the first in the 62 years of the World Championship to feature 6 former (and current) World Champions in the field. In my considered opinion (and I'd take the Pepsi Challenge with any of you rabble), here are the five best drivers in the sport's upper echelon today.

1. Fernando Alonso (Age 30. 177 starts 27 wins 20 pole positions 19 fastest laps 1086 points. 2005 and 2006 Formula 1 World Champion)
He's not won a World Championship since 2006 but I still think of Alonso as the best of the bunch. The only possible area where he is lacking is in speed over one lap on a Saturday afternoon. But his performances on race day more than make up for that. No other driver can match him for his speed, pounding consistency or racing intelligence. No other driver is as relentless when he gets the merest sniff of a race win. He just won't let go. Most important of all: he hardly ever has an off-day. With Ferrari looking a little off the pace so far in 2012, Alonso now faces his greatest challenge - can he, like Michael Schumacher did, inspire and cajole the people around him to move up to his level?

2. Sebastian Vettel (Age 24. 81 starts 21 wins 30 pole positions 9 fastest laps 773 points. 2010 and 2011 Formula 1 World Champion)
The reigning double-World Champion is the youngest in the history of the sport and he grows more formidable by the race. He is indisputably the king of qualifying, as 15 pole positions out of 19 races last year proves. More impressive and important than that is his freakish ability to find the grip immediately and go flat out from the very start of the race, which allows him to build up a big lead from the off and control the race. This combination of talents is reminiscent of Ayrton Senna, which is no small boast. It is, frankly, difficult to see anyone dethroning him at this current moment in time.

3. Lewis Hamilton (Age 27. 90 starts 17 wins 19 pole positions 11 fastest laps 723 points. 2008 Formula 1 World Champion)
His 2011 season was a patchy affair, but only a fool would discount Lewis Hamilton. He is a more complete package than any other driver in terms of his skill set. He's better in qualifying and in the wet than Alonso and he's a more assertive, aggressive race driver than Vettel. Sometimes the latter can get him in trouble, but his only real weakness seems to be in his mental approach, allowing things outside of the car to affect his performances in it. Given an ultimately competitive car, Hamilton could win another World Championship in the blink of an eye.

4. Jenson Button (Age 32. 208 starts 12 wins 7 pole positions 6 fastest laps 811 points. 2009 Formula 1 World Champion)
I had my doubts about Button's prospects when he signed for McLaren. But I have to say he has proved me wrong. He is peerless in mixed conditions, a devilishly tricky area to master. He's also a great overtaker and possesses enormous reserves of experience. He probably understands the subtleties of racecraft better than any of his rivals. What he lacks on Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton is his ultimate speed. But there's not much in it, and his magnificent racing brain, feel and tactical nous more than makes up for it, as witnessed by beating his brilliant teammate Hamilton over a 19 race championship in 2011 demonstrates. Jenson Button could yet win another world crown.

5. Nico Rosberg (Age 26. 108 starts 5 podium finishes 2 fastest laps 306.5 points)
Picking a fifth driver is difficult indeed. Felipe Massa is the most statistically successful of the pretenders but there is a real doubt whether or not he will ever regain his ultimate speed after his scary accident in Hungary three years ago. Mark Webber would, I believe, need a bit of luck but has the ability to win a world title. Of the remaining World Champions in the field, Michael Schumacher (1994-95, 2000-2004) is now 43 years old and past his ultimate best, whilst Kimi Raikkonen (2007) is still an enigma: even discounting his two year foray in the World Rally Championship, there were always question marks about his absolute motivation and mental approach - although his speed was never in doubt. I think that Rosberg - who is yet to score a pole position or to win a Grand Prix - is showing very clear signs of being one of the most consistent drivers in the field, held back only by the limitations of his car. He needs to take that step up quickly, but I think that when he does he is the most likely driver in the chasing pack to move up a level.

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Film 2012 at dotmund - In praise of "The Big Bus"

Something to tide you over until Friday. I wrote a short dissertation in praise of the 1976 film "The Big Bus" over at dotmund's excellent blog.

You can read it here. There's a top five at the end.

If you like film then it's worth reading the other posts in dotmund's Film 2012 series.

Is that enough links for you?

Back Friday with a Xmas top five.

Laters.
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Guest Top 5 - Scary Things by dotmund

The Internet can be an amazing place. You can share ideas and have random discussions with people you have never met and probably never will. A bit like having a French pen pal but one who doesn't come to visit you for a week in the summer and make you do lots of things you don't want to do.

I digress. I got to know dotmund through Twitter. He is best known for his illustration work on the excellent Football website Two Hundred Percent and was the British Cartoonists’ Association Young Cartoonist of the Year in 2003. You can check out some of his other work here or read his blog here.

This is the first top five I have received that's in reverse order. It's made me wonder why I haven't always done it this way. The illustrations are all dotmund originals.

5. NUCLEAR WEAPONS

These things have blighted the world now for over 65 years. They've created new political realities, new philosophies and changed the way humans live more than any other of our many creations. But I would like to (perhaps controversially) argue that in this world of health and safety consciousness and its attendant litigiousness, nuclear weapons are something of an anachronism. Seriously, that shit's just not safe.

4. AEROPLANES

I've never flown in an aeroplane, but I have been on one. Growing up in Sussex, one of my school outings was to Gatwick Airport. For part of the fun-filled shindig, we all piled onto a plane and sat down, before they went through the standard safety announcement. This was all too much for 10-year old me, and I freaked out. Properly freaked out. They had to take me off the plane. Looking back, it's probably not my proudest moment or my bravest. But something, somewhere deep inside told me that I did not belong in an aeroplane.

One of my dearest, bestest friends could move to the USA in the near future, which obviously presents me with a problem. I have promised her, and more importantly myself, that I would not let my fear of aeroplanes stop me from visiting them in the States. And it won't. But there may need to be a certain amount of tethering, restraints and wooden spoon biting before I get there.

3. MY LOVED ONES ABANDONING ME

Loved ones, eh? You love them and then, you know, stuff. Actually, in my case I've been really very lucky, touch wood. So it's been up to my brain to concoct scenarios whereby friends and family drift away after realising that I am rubbish. I'm actually not rubbish, partly because I jump through all kinds of hoops to be as nice as I can to avoid the inevitable. Which is not inevitable, apart from in my brain. Which is stupid.

I'm pretty sure my ongoing stupidity is one of my most endearing qualities. But if any of my friends or family are reading this and disagree, I would like to say now that I'll change! I'm sorry! I love you.

2. THUNDERSTORMS

Actually, it's not thunderstorms I'm scared of, that's something of a misnomer. I'm OK with thunder, which is just noise, and rain, which is just water. It's the violent discharge of huge amounts of electricity that makes me feel positively clenched. I live by the south coast, which is a place where weather tends to be a fairly transient affair, wind blowing it inland rather than having it sit on top of us. This is good news for me, as it means we get fewer big thunderstorms than other parts of the country. When we do have one, however, I hide in my room with the curtains drawn and the lights on, trying to pretend I'm so brave to have got past my fear of thunderstorms.

1. JOAN CRAWFORD

Oh hell no. No no no. I can't be doing with Joan Crawford. My fear of Joan was cemented by a 1964 American horror film called Stait-Jacket, in which Joan plays a woman who was institutionalised for murdering her husband with an axe and, upon her release, the killings start again! Joan Crawford playing a mentally imbalanced murderess lunatic. It's the stuff complete mental breakdowns are made of. If I ever want to just give up and be carted away to a mental hospital myself, I plan to watch Whatever Happened To Baby Jane. That should do it.

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