Who F1 Fanatic readers support at the start of 2014

2014 F1 season preview

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With the new season upon us it’s time to take a fresh look at who F1 Fanatic readers are rooting for in the year ahead.

Kimi Raikkonen has retained his position as your favourite driver, not far ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button.

Championship returnee Kamui Kobayashi was always one of the most well-liked drivers and turned his popularity to good effect by using it to raise money to fund a place at Caterham this year. He’s the most popular driver who hasn’t won a championship on F1 Fanatic.

Raikkonen’s team switch seems to have had an effect on the popularity of Lotus, who now have fewer supporters than they did three months ago

Here are how many supporters each of this year’s teams and drivers have on F1 Fanatic:

Drivers popularity, 2011-2014

This graph shows how many supporters each driver had, as a percentage of the most popular driver’s, over the last three years:

https://www.racefans.net/charts/2014drivercolours.csv

DriversNovember 2011February 2012May 2012August 2012October 2012December 2012February 2013March 2013August 2013December 2013March 2014
Kimi Raikkonen31.0352.0958.9362.6670.9575.9980.3593.59100100
Jenson Button10010010010010010010010010099.597.61
Lewis Hamilton71.2672.5774.5578.179.1180.6481.380.1590.1292.2590.87
Fernando Alonso42.5146.3946.8251.154.0558.0259.2459.7668.0269.9369.67
Sebastian Vettel35.9340.1338.9738.1738.3540.6742.0340.3143.3646.6846.75
Kamui Kobayashi59.2850.1643.8442.9242.3642.4536.12
Nico Rosberg34.7332.2929.9229.4628.6527.4227.326.9630.9432.7332.78
Nico Hulkenberg10.6613.2212.7512.6115.8819.1520.8624.0729.231.4
Felipe Massa21.8620.5317.317.0617.6320.6821.6923.2127.2128.0228.48
Sergio Perez24.5520.6921.8723.8326.1527.5828.0527.6329.1726.9725.49
Romain Grosjean3.139.3413.113.9514.4815.1815.917.5921.5722.69
Daniel Ricciardo15.2717.711716.4515.9616.2716.615.5618.5721.2621.73
Valtteri Bottas2.245.578.8911.5913.61
Jules Bianchi3.159.4810.6611.52
Adrian Sutil8.987.319.689.369.07
Pastor Maldonado4.194.085.075.195.436.277.036.987.137.016.87
Jean-Eric Vergne3.764.874.44.264.424.714.495.626.086.03
Kevin Magnussen0.375.25
Max Chilton1.52.152.813.473.76
Esteban Gutierrez0.92.012.883.223.46
Daniil Kvyat0.681.37
Marcus Ericsson1.19

Which drivers and teams do you support?

Here’s how to show who you’re supporting on F1 Fanatic:

  • Log in with your F1 Fanatic account (sign up here if you don’t have one)
  • Select Edit My Profile from the top-right menu
  • Select F1 Teams and Drivers
  • Make your selections then click Save Changes

Where are F1 Fanatic readers from?

See a recent breakdown of F1 Fanatic readers by region.

2014 F1 season preview


Browse all 2014 F1 season preview articles

Image © Caterham/LAT

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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58 comments on “Who F1 Fanatic readers support at the start of 2014”

  1. 63 people are fans of Max Chilton?

    1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
      11th March 2014, 12:23

      Nah, just multiple accounts.

      1. Not forgetting his mum and dad, they must be half at least!

        1. Dear Keith, please publish the id’s of those who voted for Max Chilton

          1. @onebhk That information is available for all active drivers via their biography pages, which are linked above, e.g.:

            Max Chilton

          2. While I didn’t at the time support all the new rookies yet, that was only bc. I needed this article by @keithcollantine to remind myself to alter my profile @onebhk,@full-throttle-f1 – I usually support all f1 drivers (including, indeed Max), as I want them all to show us great things. Regardless, they are all better drivers than me, I am sure :)

    2. I am, simply because he was the only one decent enough to come out and greet the fans when I went to the YDT last year. I think it would have been nice if other drivers would have followed suit.

  2. Who do you think is going to have the greatest swing in support numbers over the season? My bet is Magnussen.

    1. Judging by his Twitter followers, yes. Or Bottas if he manages to win a couple of races.

      1. As somebody looking forward to finding a new young driver who excites me, I expect that at least one of them will win my allegiance.

    2. Massa if he beats Alonso lol

    3. Then we are not going to bet :-)

  3. Williams is the Beast it seems, hehe

    1. I was thinking that too ;)

      And what’s even more scary? If you add up the supporters of Massa and Bottas you get…………………..705. Ah well.

      I’ll be mostly supporting Rosberg this year, haven’t really felt like i had one driver to root for the last few years (although i prefer some drivers to others), so i picked out Rosberg as a decent bet at 10:1 (from pre-Bahrain).

      1. hehe good try ;)

        I have quite a few Idols this year: Kimi, Bottas, Magnussen, Rosberg, Kobayashi and Ericsson (Mostly in that order)

        Lame some might say, but I have to spread it out, otherwise No weekend would end in my favour hah!

    2. Kudos on the the avatar bro!

  4. button and Hamilton 2 and 3,,,, predictable on a .co.uk domain suprising to see raikonnen so high up.

    1. predictable on a .co.uk domain

      You do realise the domain suffix has no effect on who can visit the site?

      And why make that flawed assumption in the first place when the article includes a reference to a breakdown of site users by region?

      1. @keithcollantine I think it is a fair assumption to say that it is predictable to see the two main British drivers high in the ranks even if the term should have been “quite UK-dominant site” rather than the domain reference. The countries with the third and fourth highest amount of visitors account for about one third, are both under the queen and have no national drivers.

        I am not certain of the importance of the international approach but in terms of driver popularity F1F obviously doesn’t show the world wide opinion. In fact only Kimi seems to have enough of non-national fanbase to overshadow the strongly UK-skewed polls being from a country of such small population that is also poorly represented in here.

        1. Sorry, I forgot we still have one Australian. Somehow that kid is simply transparent to me….

      2. Maybe if Keith rotated the language he used to write the articles then we might see a more even spread of visitors from around the world :)

        1. That seems reasonable. OK, tomorrow’s round-up will be in Guarani.

          1. I had hoped for Czech, I am wanting to learn that and know a few people that could translage @keithcollantine; guess I’ll have to change plan a bit :p

    2. Michael Brown (@)
      11th March 2014, 15:54

      *sigh* Another one of these comments

  5. I don’t get all the love for Kimi. Sure what he says can be amusing but I generally find him disrespectful and apart from the odd amusing comment boring to listen to. I don’t hate him or anything, I have a mostly neutral feeling, I just don’t get the love.

    1. We don’t love him in person, just his overtaking record.

      1. …and his knowledge! About what to do, I mean.

      2. I am 90% sure Alonso and Hamilton have better ones.

        1. Open youtube.. type f1 overtaking.. and even before you press enter you will find mostly..Kimi Raikkonen.

    2. @sketchterry I’m 100% with you on this. I find Kimi arrogant, ignorant and lacking any kind of character. A mid field driver who lucked out on the WDC because McLaren were in-fighting…

      1. You Sir @pSynrg, need a reality check. After all; this alleged mid field driver used to be Schumi’s only serious competitor despite completely unacceptable reliability and came within two points of beating him though his Mercedes engine was blowing up left and right – the same engine that now seems to take some other mid field drivers way ahead of everyone else, including that lucky 4xWDC mid field driver and the Spanish 2xWDC mid fielder, both of whom respects mid-field-Kimi quite a bit.

      2. I remember when Kimi overtook everyone in Brazil 2003, commentator said “this guy doesn’t afraid of anything or anyone”..too bad SOMEONE (guess who) foolish enough to crash and trigger red flag.

  6. How Jenson is always at the top of that list, simply amazes me

    1. Given the number of people who bash him in the comments of articles I’m a bit baffled by that one too.

    2. He’s British.

    3. He’s quite likeable, was an underdog for a long time, and is British, like the largest group of site visitors.

    4. It probably has something to do with the .co.uk at the end of the domain. Or a lot of ladies from Monaco are fans of the site too.

    5. Probably because he’s never cheated in order to win.

    6. he will lose fans as he lose grip ;)

    7. I’ve always wondered this but the guy is the most likeable driver on the grid I find

    8. @Todfod – Because he’s a great driver, he’s charismatic, likeable and works well with the media and fans, and seems to be one of the most approachable guys on the grid. Despite a lot of the bashful comments, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t so high up.

      1. @jamiefranklinf1 I agree!

        I believe that “I don’t understand why that guy has so many supporters” or “He’s so popular here just because he’s British” usually means “I don’t like him so everyone else should despise him, too.”

        1. @todfod @jamiefranklinf1 @girts Actually, I have not been a fan of Jenson and I have also wondered despite all the Jenson bashing regularly happening on here, how he had so many supporters. But, recently I happened to come across an interview he had with Martin Brundle for Sky Sports (sometime during Belgian GP, I guess) and boy, he is so downright a likeable personality. I say this despite I am not actually being a fan of him or a Briton.

    9. I think a) he smiles and b) he isn’t as good as Alonso or Vettel. People like rooting for the “underdog”: even though he isn’t an underdog – after all he won the world championship – he is considered less likely to win that Alonso, Vettel, Räikkönen or Hamilton I imagine, which tends to lead to glorification of his wins more so than with other, more prolific winners (especially Sebastian).

  7. I’ll make up my mind as the season progresses, I’ll be looking for a fighting spirit combined with good sportsmanship and car control on the circuit, off the circuit I will expect honest no ** assesments of what went wrong/right. There are many drivers I already have a liking for like Kimi, Nando, Kamui, Jenson, Lewis and of course being Australian I will be watching Dan’s progress closely, I have a forgiving nature so SebV might get the nod if his year is difficult and he handles it with grace and skill. Happy viewing everybody.

    1. I’ll be looking for a fighting spirit combined with good sportsmanship and car control on the circuit, off the circuit I will expect honest no ** assesments of what went wrong/right.

      Honestly that sounds a lot like the typical description of Kevin to me…

      1. Kevin! Kevin who?

        OK just kidding, time will tell.

  8. More supporters for Sauber than Force India despite having an appalling driver line-up? I just don’t get it :/

    1. Not everybody follows a team based on the driver line-up.

      1. It is mostly influenced by history and success. The bottom four has neither history nor success to their name, yet. Kinda shows why redbull has 4 times the supporters of TorroRosso.

        1. Toro Rosso won’t get support while they are just a poor relation to Red Bull, acting as a B-team and driver conveyor belt.

    2. We want them to be successful, doesn’t mean they will be.

  9. I find it slightly concerning that Williams have 666 supporters… I thought Maldonado had left the team?

  10. Absolutely psyched to see Kamui on the grid this season! I think he’s the guy to deliver Caterham with it’s first points haul

  11. On the James Allen webite,it stated that Alonso was the most marketable and popular with Kimi and Button about 4th and 5th…..find that interesting

Comments are closed.