Other than that, it was the usual fare from Ralf. We know he had the speed, but it was not matched by enough results, through a combination of mechanical problems, incidents, and penalties. Five retirements in six races in the middle of the year from the European GP to Indianapolis hurt his season-long momentum. Apart from his fine drive in Melbourne, and three other good points efforts in France, Hungary and Turkey, overall it was pretty uninspiring stuff, but no less than what we've come to expect.

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His racing continued to lack spark. Combined with unreliability in both practice and races, he failed to score a point until Canada, by which stage he had gone 12 races without a point dating back to the tail-end of 2005 - although he was massively unlucky to lose a podium at Monaco. Strong drives to 4th and 7th in America and Germany from the back of the grid owed more to strategy, and too often when he did qualify well, once again faster rivals held up behind him found themselves aboard the 'Trulli train'.

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Although he lost his 8th in Australia for passing under yellows, that result was a false dawn. What really turned his season around was his home race at Indy, where he qualified 13th before getting tangled up with the McLarens and Heidfeld. That gave him the confidence to out-qualify Liuzzi three more times, and to finish races consistently. There were still errors born of inexperience, like switching to dry tyres too early in Hungary, but his improvement as the year wore on was marked, and we liked that.

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He didn't suffer a race-ending mechanical failure all year; his four retirements all came from collisions and driving errors. He put on several sprightly performances when dicing with midfield runners, for example in Bahrain and in the early stages in Turkey. But what the final scoresheets belie is the number of spins, off-track excursions, and time-costing moments that Liuzzi had during the season. No one doubts his speed, but he seemed to be going on talent alone. The jury remained out on whether he was the total package.

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But as Red Bull's season ground to a halt, so did DC's. His qualifying performance in Brazil was the worst of his career. Admittedly he was often burdened with heavy fuel loads on Sunday afternoons, thus affecting his speed, there was no doubt that his motivation floundered. It was thus unfortunate that he also took public pot-shots at others, like at his own team for their lack of development, and at the Monza authorities for the lack of run-off areas. It made him sound a tad old and precious.

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Among those was a superb 14th grid position at Indianapolis, plus his terrific drive in Turkey when he clung tenaciously onto the midfield runners for much of the race. His season was blighted by lack of reliability (he had three engine changes in a row from Germany to Turkey) and a few too many scrapes and clashes, including his quintuple roll at Imola, two tangles with his team-mate, and that spectacular suspension failure at Suzuka, which meant that he didn't finish as much or as highly as he probably deserved.

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He never qualified in the top 10 again, but he was unlucky at Monaco, where he would have scored the podium that went to his DC. He got himself caught up in the general malaise sweeping through his team, and didn't help his cause by doing silly things like causing one of the first corner incidents at Indy, and crashing in Hungary. But his biggest error was to reject the Red Bull-financed Champ Car drive for next year, electing to put himself on the market - and therefore getting dumped for the last 3 rounds.

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He was also taking the second SA05 chassis, at a time when the team was focussing on the SA06. In the circumstances, then, he did fairly well. He only out-qualified Sato once, but he got closer than Ide or Yamamoto did. He employed a steady approach in races, although he was hit by unreliability. But overall he did the right kind of job for the team, and he returned for 5 Friday outings later on. It was easy to underestimate his worth to the rookie squad, but his opportunities were too limited for a proper assessment.

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In this three races he got after Christian Klien vacated the seat, he did enough to suggest that, had a driver of his ilk been in F1 a decade ago, he would probably have been an F1 regular. He out-qualified David Coulthard twice, and made the last segment of qualifying first time out in China. He finished that race too, despite an early mishap; in fact, he finished all three of his races. There was no doubting that he had done as well as he could in the situation that he was placed, but there was too little to judge him by.

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Not counting Bahrain where Raikkonen didn't record a time, Montoya only out-qualified the Finn twice in nine rounds. Although he did put in a number of solid points-scoring performances, particularly his podiums in San Marino and Imola, despite McLaren's conservative strategies early in the season, his moments of sheer daftness in Australia, Spain, Canada and America were bewildering. And he promptly left for NASCAR - motorsport's Big Mac if F1 is gourmet cuisine. Which is probably how JPM likes it.

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Indeed, given some rounds mid-season when things for Button went badly pear-shaped, it could be said that Rubens was slightly the more consistent for the rest of the season. But consistent in what way? 10 times he qualified in the top 10 but finished lower than where he'd started. He did have some of his customary bad luck, but the way in which he tended to slip down the order during the race was all too common. That, and scoring 30 points to Button's 56 with no podiums, was surely not what Honda employed him for.

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He finally got his racing chance at Hockenheim, which coincided with the debut of the new SA06, but new car troubles dented his confidence. Only in Turkey did he out-qualify Sato, but generally he was not as close to Takuma's times as his predecessor Montagny had been. He also seemed to have difficulty with stamina, spinning out in Istanbul after a respectable showing. He finally got to grips with F1, coming 7th in the fastest lap rankings in Brazil, but it had taken him too long to produce anything like his best speed, and F1 is an unforgiving environment.

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He was 1.7 seconds slower than team-mate Sato in qualifying in Malaysia and San Marino, 2.8s in Bahrain, and 3.9s in Australia, having run off the track a handful of times and causing a red flag. He then tipped Albers into a barrel-roll at Imola and had his superlicence ignominiously removed. In short, he was the least able F1 driver in a decade. The difficult circumstances that he faced, and the fact that he only got four races, mean that we have to give him some benefit of the doubt. But it's not much.

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And yet it was Monteiro who had remained with the same team, whereas Albers was the newcomer. Only in Hungary did Tiago catch any attention; Christijan did so several times. Apart from his inability to keep improving his pace, he also lost his reliability. The two collisions with Albers in Monaco and Canada were arguably his fault, he spun out in France and China, and he also spun off on his first flying lap in qualifying in Brazil. Were it not for our revised reject podium criteria, he would have been 'Reject of the Year'.

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