The 2014 Formula 1 drivers' half-term report

In current Drivers' Championship order as of the end of the Hungarian Grand Prix, here's how 2014 has been so far for Nico Rosberg through to Kamui Kobayashi...

Nico Rosberg

Position – 1st; Points – 202; Best result – 1st (x4)
Even if there are plenty of doubters still to be won over, it’s already been a monumental 2014 for Nico Rosberg in which he has become a household name across the world, become a serial winner, and led the World Championship for all but two weeks in mid-May. Access to the best car in the field is a handy bonus, of course, but the stand-out feature of Rosberg’s year so far has been his determination to make the most of what’s at his disposal. From harnessing the car to borrowing his team-mate’s set-up and then capitalising on his bad luck, Rosberg has, in sporting parlance, left nothing out there.

Even Rosberg’s mistakes have frequently played to his advantage, most noticeably in Canada, when he missed the chicane with impunity, and most controversially, when his error brought qualifying in Monaco to a convenient halt. It’s those mistakes – he made another, barely acknowledged, while leading in Austria – which have arguably betrayed his true level and the suspicion remains that, for the time being, his performances are currently transcending his team-mate. But at this stage of proceedings it’s hats off to a driver who has been performing at a level few had anticipated. Rating: A–

Lewis Hamilton

Position – 2nd; Points – 191; Best result – 1st (x5)
Still the most divisive driver in the field, still – arguably – the fastest, and still very much in the hunt for the World Championship despite his well-documented travails and unreliability issues. At times this season, Hamilton has been ferociously quick, thrashing the opposition in both Malaysia and China, before fending off Nico Rosberg for victories in Bahrain and Spain. Yet it’s the travails which have defined Hamilton’s year, the off-track squabbles, the occasional bouts of foot-in-mouth disease, and the frequent unreliability of his fast but fragile W05 the inevitable focus of attention. Controversy is a permanent shadow.

Four successive comebacks from either the back of the grid or the lower reaches of the top ten in Austria, Britain, Germany and Hungary find Hamilton just 11 points off the summit at the summer break. He’s made mistakes along the way but in the process of completing 50 or so overtaking moves in those last four events that’s to be expected. As he concluded in the post-race press conference at Budapest: “Obviously I've got the pace, got the ability, just really whether or not the car holds up.” If it does, there will surely be no stopping him after the break. Rating: A–

Daniel Ricciardo

Position – 3rd; Points – 131; Best result – 1st (x2)
Well, we knew he was quick, but who knew Daniel Ricciardo was quite this good? While some accused Red Bull of taking the easy opinion in promoting one of their own to the seat alongside Sebastian Vettel, Ricciardo’s performances since joining the big time have consistently gone above and beyond what even the team’s hierarchy could surely have expected. Vettel, we know, hasn’t been