David Coulthard has proven, again, that he is not the 'old man' as such and that he has got a lot to offer. He has shown that over and over with some outstanding drives.
For me though, out of those three, I would say
Jenson Button has been the most outstanding. He has matured and he has shown great character. He has shown us that keeping your head down and getting on with the job will reap rewards. Maybe those rewards might not be in the short term, but in the not to distant future Jenson and
Honda will get some big results again, especially now that the team has the right personnel and the right focus. Jenson was very impressive.
Crash.net:
Did
Giancarlo Fisichella - and for that matter,
Ralf Schumacher, do enough to deserve another season in the top flight?
MB:
Ralf Schumacher was a little bit hot and cold. Some times you would watch him and it looked quite inspirational, but then on other occasions it was a little bit lacklustre. Whether he is deserving of another seat pro-rata to what his capabilities were to giving results back I am not sure. I think he was outshone by his team-mate.
Giancarlo Fisichella in contrast still has a lot to offer and he did get some pretty good results. However he didn’t really lead the team with the same strength and level of forcefulness that was maybe needed. He is a very smooth driver and there is still more to come from him. Unfortunately I don't think he will be in the right car now to get the job done.
Crash.net:
At the start of the year there was a lot of talk about this being the first year without
Michael Schumacher driving. Did you miss him?
MB:
No - not at all.
Formula 1 is such that things move on and progress is made. We all step up to the plate and get to another level and I think that is exactly what we did for this season. Michael Schumacher wasn't involved and nobody missed him really. Of course we have still got great memories and we are all fully aware that the seven-time world champion was not on the grid. But we had huge amounts to look forward to. We still had some great stars and we have had some new stars emerge this season. I think the racing overrode the fact we no longer had Schumacher around. I didn't really miss him from that side of things.
