Infinite Improbability Drive of the Year 2012

[Shizuka]

If we're doing this per every race, why not choose one as the best drive of the year?
Same style as with the races: 10 points for the first, 6 per the second nomination.

My choices:

1. Maldonado's drive at Spain
2. Hülkenberg's drive at Brazil

[pasta_maldonado]

1) Maldonado, Spain - WHO saw that coming?
2) Alonso, Malaysia - See above

[pi314159]

1. Maldonado in Spain
2. Perez in Malaysia
3. Hülkenberg in Brazil
4. Vettel in Abu Dhabi
5. Alonso in Malaysia
6. Petrov in Brazil
7. Glock in Singapore
8. Kobayashi in Japan

[FullMetalJack]

Maldonado at Spain, and it's not even close.

[UncreativeUsername37]

1. Maldonado at Catalunya
2. Pérez at Sepang

[Salamander]

Maldonado at Catalunya
Perez at Sepang

The only two choices IMO.

[LellaLombardi]

Those two, but with Perez first.

[AdrianSutil]

1. Petrov at Brazil
2. Glock at Singapore
HON MENTION: Alonso at Valencia and Hulkenbeg at brazil
Just to be different because Maldonado at Spain and Perez at Malaysia will be the obvious choices.

[WaffleCat]

1.Maldonado in Espana
2.Hulkenburg in Brazil.

[coloni_subaru]

1) Maldonado in Spain
2) Rosberg in China (just because its Rosberg winning a race and escaping his seemingly Heidfeld-esque fate)

[DOSBoot]

1. Pastor Maldonaldo at Spain: Gave Williams thier first win in 9 years! Something I wasn't sure would ever happen to them again. Who thought back in 2011 that this guy was going to win a race soon? I sure didn't!

2. Kamui Kobayashi at Japan: Excellent drive in the Sauber to score his first podium on home soil! A feat only achieved by Aguri Sizuki in 1990. A great reward for him in what might be his last season in F1.

[Ed24]

1. Maldonado in Spain
2. Perez in Malaysia

[CarlosFerreira]

The Hulk, Brazil: very impressive, and it's not like the big boys weren't all over him.

Maldonado, Spain: who was this spirit who possessed Pastor, and how can Williams channel it back? What diminishes it in my eyes (compared to The Hulk's drive in Brazil) is the fact that it was the time of the difficult tyres, and Williams happened to find a sweet spot there.

[takagi_for_the_win]

!. The Reverends drive in Spain
2. The Hulk in Brazil

Hon. mentions: Alonso at Sepang, Kobayashi at Suzuka

[14 Hundred Hours]

1: Hulkenberg at Brazil
2: Timo at Singapore

[Londoner]

1. The Reverend at Barcelona
2. Kamui-san at Suzuka.

That was ridiculously easy...

[DanielPT]

The Hulk, Brazil: very impressive, and it's not like the big boys weren't all over him.

Maldonado, Spain: who was this spirit who possessed Pastor, and how can Williams channel it back? What diminishes it in my eyes (compared to The Hulk's drive in Brazil) is the fact that it was the time of the difficult tyres, and Williams happened to find a sweet spot there.

I think it was definately a Maldonado thing. Senna was unusually miles off that weekend.

1. Maldonado.

2. Perez at Sepang. It was a special drive from him and set the tone until he signed for McLaren. After that, lets just forget his season.

[macherone]

1. Pérez at Sepang. He was almost a second faster than Alonso at the end of the race, and if he didn't run wide at 5 laps to go, he could have won.

2. Maldonado at Barcelona. Not much to say.

3. Rosberg at Shanghai. That might be the only time we could see a Mercedes running ahead of the lot and not failing miserably to keep there.

[SuperAguri]

1 - Kobayashi, Japan
2 - Hulkenberg, Brazil

[Meatwad]

1. Maldonado, Spain: The front row start (pole position after Hamilton's disqualification) came out of nowhere. Especially considering that both Pérez and Hülkenberg threw away their chances at a win with mistakes, a fast but erratic driver like Maldonado winning a race was very impressive. It wasn't an easy victory at all as he was under pressure from a world champion throughout the race.
2. Kobayashi, Japan: The only Sauber podium that wasn't dependent on strategy but pure pace.

Honorable mentions:
Pérez, Malaysia
Glock, Singapore
Petrov, Brazil

[Pointrox]

McDonaldo at Catalunya. Had he not been so erratic, he could easily score a couple more podiums, but still - a highlight of the season.
Rosberg in China. First win, not only for him, but for his team since 2009. Definitely gave Schumacher something to think about

Honorable mentions:
Petrov at Interlagos. Of all the drivers, he scored the best finish to date from any of those three teams.
Kobayashi at Suzuka. First podium for a Japanese driver in his home Grand Prix since 1990, and a great drive from Kamui. Raises doubts over Kaltenborn's competence.

[Yannick]

Alonso's win at Sepang. His car was crap back then.

[WeirdKerr]

Grosjean, Canada.... or ahave folks wiped this from memory following spa?

[mario]

Grosjean, Canada.... or ahave folks wiped this from memory following spa?

I think that it is perhaps more because Grosjean worked his way so quietly up into that position that nobody really noticed he was there until the closing laps.

After all, for most of the race Grosjean was quite some way off the lead of the race - it took him over half the race to get past Rosberg and over 50 laps to get past Webber, by which point everybody was focussed on the Hamilton-Alonso-Vettel battle for the lead and probably assumed that Grosjean was too far back to influence the results (since, at that point in the race, most observers were probably not expecting the tyres that Alonso and Vettel had to fade quite as quickly as they did). I also guess that, to a certain extent, there had been signs that Lotus were in good shape for that race - we had seen Grosjean and Raikkonen perform extremely well in the Spanish and Bahraini GP's, their longer runs on Friday had been quite competitive and Grosjean was starting reasonably high up the grid (7th), so perhaps it wasn't entirely surprising to see Grosjean there considering his recent run of form at the time (even allowing for some of his accidents).

[Shizuka]

I believe it's time to wrap up the voting:

1. Pastor Maldonado @ Spain - 168 pts
2. Sergio Perez @ Malaysia - 48 pts
3. Nico Hülkenberg @ Brazil - 44 pts
4. Kamui Kobayashi @ Japan - 28 pts
5. Fernando Alonso @ Malaysia - 16 pts
6. Timo Glock @ Singapore - 12 pts
= Nico Rosberg @ China - 12 pts
8. Vitaly Petrov @ Brazil - 10 pts
= Romain Grosjean @ Canada - 10 pts

[Onxy Wrecked]

Need more Pasta Maldonado in Spain!