Robert Kubica voted 2008 F1 driver of the year by F1 Fanatic readers

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Robert Kubica voted best F1 driver of 2008 on F1 Fanatic

Over 1,400 of you voted in the poll to decide the best Formula 1 driver of 2008.

World champion Lewis Hamilton led the voting early on but it was Robert Kubica who came out on top with 40% of the vote. Here are the results in full.

F1 Fanatic driver of the year 2008 voting (click to enlarge)

Robert Kubica grabbed 556 votes – one of which was mine – putting him comfortably ahead of Fernando Alonso (316) and Lewis Hamilton (245).

Felipe Massa got 11% of the vote despite missing out on the title by a single point in a year when he suffered a lot of bad luck. Italian Grand Prix winner Sebastian Vettel took 70 votes – 45 more than 2007 champion Kimi Raikkonen.

Among the minority votes Anthony Davidson led the way with seven, Nick Heidfeld had six and Sebastien Bourdais five. Only two drivers received zero votes: Jenson Button and Giancarlo Fisichella. Full breakdown of results here.

With a little help from his friends…

Earlier this year we did a poll on who was the most popular driver which Kubica won by miles thanks to a huge influx of fans from Polish websites.

There was above average levels of traffic from Poland here in the past week, though not to the enormous extent there was during the popularity poll. By no means have all the Polish visitors been voting for Kubica (here’s proof of that), but it certainly played a role in shaping the results.

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NB. John Spencer posted an excellent analysis of my 2008 driver rankings which, due to a problem with the spam filter, failed to appear on the site for several days. Apologies to John, do check out his thorough breakdown of the stats here.

Kubica finished fourth in the championship behind Hamilton, Massa and Raikkonen

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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30 comments on “Robert Kubica voted 2008 F1 driver of the year by F1 Fanatic readers”

  1. Keith – maybe your spam filter objected to me calling you a complete ranker.

    As for the results – I think this site is now f1fanatyk.pl

  2. Still, even if only a few hundred polish fans came here they completely warped the statistics.

  3. John – It’s over-sensitive to links in text, which is annoying.

    Patrickl – Perhaps, but there’s nothing stopping Alonso or Hamilton’s fans from doing likewise. I’m not saying that’s desirable, but I do find it curious that so many of Kubica’s fans choose to seek out sites where they can vote for him in polls, but other drivers’ fans don’t. Maybe it’ll wear off over time?

    I also think we shouldn’t rule out the possibility that some of the Polish traffic was pro-Alonso: it was when we did the ‘popularity’ vote.

  4. There’s never been a Polish F1 driver before, certainly not at his level. So let them make the most of it!!

  5. interesting. my poll is still running and there it looks like head to head between Alonso and Hamilton :-)

    me myself have hard time choosing between Alonso and Kubica but had to choose one and my vote went for the Spanish driver

    I would really like to see these 2 racing each other in more less equal cars

  6. Milos: your wish is my command – Alonso vs Kubica in karts (Video)

  7. I also think we shouldn’t rule out the possibility that some of the Polish traffic was pro-Alonso: it was when we did the ‘popularity’ vote.

    Though at 90% Kubica vs 10% Alonso.

  8. Why can’t non-Poles vote for Kubica? I didn’t realise this was an assumed partisan/popularity contest. Doesn’t driver of the year mean choosing the guy who did the best job, regardless of machinery or team? Kubica’s not a bad choice, even though I didn’t vote for him. I’m sure he collected plenty of votes from people who aren’t Polish.

    John Spencer, which country are you from, and who did you vote for? I voted for Barrichello (for reasons above), and I’m from Australia.

  9. I am Polish, however I didn’t vote. Somehow I missed it.

    I noticed that in our “network society” works something like asking friends for giving votes and they usually do it. In practice it seems to be like lots of people participate in polls not even knowing what everything is about.

    I don’t know whether it happened this time. Despite the fact that the poll could be farce I think Robert Kubica deserves to be the best driver of 2008.

  10. I’m from Poland & I always vote for Kubica but I’m not a one click visitor or guest but a reader of this fan(t)a(s)tic blog :)

  11. Kubica was my choice, despite Alonso being my favourite driver (and despite me being a Ferrari supporter).

    And it’s actually been a good ice-breaker with the number of Polish emigrating to the UK, and whether they see other Poles in the UK as good or not. It’s provided excellent banter for those for, and against, the almighty Kubica. It’s got Poles interested in a sport that may not have introduced interest, and for that alone, I thank Mr Kubica.

    As Alonso has done for Spain, Kubica is a promising prospect for Poland.

    And I only hope that more countries: India; America; and China mainly at the moment, will produce more.

    I’m not a nationalistic person at all, I don’t care who’s who from where, but a lot of fans do place emphasis on where their support goes to – e.g. Alonso, and Hamilton – but I want the sport to flourish on an international basis (much more so than football!)

  12. ******** we all know hamilton is the best…

  13. Kubica did the best job in tha whole season, having a poor car and increasingly bad teamwork

  14. He is the best

  15. i dont give a rat ass who voted for who, give kubica good car and team behind him

  16. Hi. Im a part of Polish F1 army and a long time reader of this blog (credits to Keith), but most of us did not vote for Kubica as the best driver of 2007 season a year ago in any internet polls. So please, stop treating our nationality as the main reason of biased voting this year. It’s just not the truth. The first reason is the top-flight performance of our man in Formula 1 in 2008. Greetings.

  17. Let me guess… John Spencer is Briton and he voted for Hamilton… LOL! :-)

  18. I agree with the total. Im not polish, I actually go for webber, but Kubica is a good pick for 1st

  19. just one thing. who’s stopped to voting a british, or spanish fans for their drivers??? by the way, i’m the polish fans of F1 and i didn’t start to watching the racing from last two seasons, so i can be obiective. and my vote is,without discusion, for Robert, second – The Bull Fernando, and third Vettel. far , far away …. Lewis. De Gustibus Not Disputandum.

  20. So…”Kubica did the best job in tha whole season, having a poor car and increasingly bad teamwork” Well said man…Funny thing is that people think that all poles voted for Kubica and all brits voted for Hamilton…Well, I’m polish and my vote went to Alonso…

  21. I voted for Kubica – SO WHAT?!
    All You britons who can`t live with this result,You`ll see Your HAM in few months side by side fighting with Robert in new car.The battle have just began

  22. i really hate kubica. not because he is polish or whatever but because of badmouthing hamilton for no reason and trying to unlap himself in a championship deciding moment, something in hamilton bugs kubica, dont u think?

  23. trying to unlap himself in a championship deciding moment

    Why should he care the championship was being decided? He wanted to get in the points himself. He’s allowed to unlap himself, he did nothing wrong.

  24. I’m with v8.

    Your race is important but if you are being lapped it is not as important as the leader. Especially if the leaders happen to be settling the world title at the time.

    Bob had a heck of a year, worrying signs about how sour he is though.

  25. Kubica is of course one of the top new talents in F1. But to name him best driver of 2008 is simply wrong.
    Too many maybes exist at the end of the season. Maybe if the BMW had been a better package, maybe if they hadn’t focused their efforts on supporting both drivers, maybe if Lewis, Felipe, Kimi, Alonso had been slower etc.
    Kubica was often in the no mans land that BMW occupied between the consistently fast front runners and the ‘rest of the field’.
    The results came to Kubica as mistakes were made by those front runners. I never got the feeling he went and fought for it.
    He has not shown the raw natural talent wielded with barely controlled aggression of Lewis or the sheer determination and growing skills of Filipe.
    Kubica comes across as the next Alain Prost, brilliant but not particularly exciting. This personal judgement is of course full of respect and admiration (a comparison to a triple champ of course.) I expect Kubica to take a WDC or two over the next few years. Probably not in a BMW.
    5th best driver of 2008? Maybe. Fernando though clearly the most complete driver in F1 today with Lewis snapping at his heels, yet again…

  26. #23 – good point Keith, on the last few laps KUB progressed from 15 to 11 and had every reason to believe that he can make up three positions to earn a point which would put him in the top three in the final standings.

  27. to Keith Collantine.. ” i really hate kubica. not because he is polish or whatever but because of badmouthing hamilton for no reason and trying to unlap himself in a championship deciding moment, something in hamilton bugs kubica, dont u think? ” you see that

    it’s mistake lewis! kubica – he did nothing wrong.

  28. Yeah Power to Kubica!
    Im British but i started to watch F1 a long time before Hamilton turned up, doesnt mean im just going to change what team and driver i support. Im my opinion i could of easily seen kubica winning last season if BMW decided to become biased towards him, like Mclaren! and if they hadnt started to put all of there efforts towards 09 season after kubica won in canada. What a win by the way :)
    We will all see Kubica stay ahead of Hamilton this season and i cannot wait. Mclaren having problems is an understatement and its all been caused because the engineers were told to develop a car that suits Hamiltons aggresive driving. What a screw up! Kubica was the driver of the year 08 and i cant wait to see more of him in the next year. Plus because of a more even playing field we will see the real hamilton this season.
    BMW is the best, most organised, most efficient team ever!
    Oh and Dr Mario T rules f1

  29. yes i like kubica is god driver after kimi end alonso,hello from rebublic of kosova

  30. YES KUBICA IS GOD DRIVER

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