Vettel stands tall at top of Castrol Driver Rankings
Sebastian Vettel has been able to maintain his top position in the Castrol Driver Rankings again. The racer has had a very rough weekend at Spa- Francorchamps last week which had been followed by a long series of criticism, yet the driver maintained his number one place in the Castrol Driver’s tally.
The German’s performance had been very depressing and disastrous not only for the racer but also for his team, firstly because he walked out of the race pointless and more importantly because he walked out pointless due to his own mistakes. At this time of the year when the Championship battle is reaching its last stages every single race and every single point is very crucial, even a single error could pull a driver or his team out of the contention completely.
Vettel stared the Belgian Grand Prix from fourth place on the grid but soon the driver patted hard on Jenson Button's McLaren which moved Button out of the race while Vettel was handed a drive-through penalty, his second consecutive in the last two races. Things got worse for Vettel as he suffered a puncture after colliding with Vitantonio Liuzzi's Force India, and finally finished pointless in 15th-place.
However, even the poor race did not pull the Red Bull driver from his top spot which marks his 23rd consecutive week on the top of the charts. The second place of the charts is occupied by Sebastian Loeb, who is the World Rally champion.
As described by the ESPN official website, “The reason for this (Vettel retaining his top position) is that he was defending a tiny score from the corresponding race last year, which he did not finish”.
The third place of the charts is secured by his teammate Mark Webber, who finished the last race in second place, and also stands at second place in the Formula One Drivers’ Championship of 2010. Whereas the fourth place of the Castrol Driver Rankings is held by Lewis Hamilton, the winner of last race as well as the leader of Formula One Drivers’ Championship of 2010.
The biggest shift in the standing is seen by Robert Kubica as the Polish driver kept fighting hard with the Red Bull’s Webber for second place, yet ended the race on third place at Spa-Francorchamps. This finished has moved him ahead of Rubens Barrichello, Jeff Gordon as well as Ryan Briscoe and has finally settled him at 13th place.
Two other drivers, who came out without any points from the last round of Formula One are McLaren’s, Jenson Button, and, Ferrari's, Fernando Alonso, however, they were able to retain their standing at 7th and 8th places respectively.
They are followed by Will Power in 9th place as the IndyCar racer had a disastrous time at Chicagoland. His last race had been a really poor one as he made a late pit stop because his team, Penske, thought that he had run out of fuel though he had not and this resulted in his dropping to 13th place.
Dario Franchitti, the Ganassi driver had been able to win his last race thus closing the gap between the Australian, fixing himself at 6th place.
The driver who made his mark in Castrol Driver Rankings top 100 of this week is the seven times Formula One champion and current Mercedes GP driver, Michael Schumacher, who now stands at 64th place, after a poor season. Schumacher had a good race after a long while as he started the Belgian GP from 21st place on the grid and had it finished at seventh.
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