21/12/2005
NEWS STORY
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Pitpass readers were in no doubt as to the driver, car and race that made the biggest impression on them in 2005.
Fernando Alonso, who earlier this week took F1 totally by surprise when he announced his decision to move to McLaren in 2007, might have won the World Championship, but he clearly wasn't your driver of the year.
Instead it was World Championship runner-up, Kimi Raikkonen, who inspired you, taking a massive 47.04% of the total votes cast.
Poor Fernando will have to console himself with second spot, having secured 23.46% of the votes cast - that's just under half Kimi's votes.
If there had been a rookie of the year award, it would have gone to Portuguese driver, Tiago Monteiro, who polled 9.23% of the votes, finishing ahead of Michael Schumacher.
David Coulthard's return to form with Red Bull clearly wasn't lost on you, the revitalised, some might say re-born, Scot finishing fifth overall.
Renault won the Constructors' Championship, but Pitpass readers clearly thought the McLaren MP4-20 was the better car - when it finished - the Woking built car attracting a whopping 53.14% of the votes cast. Renault, which won the opening and closing rounds of the championship, and a few more in between, polled 31.47%.
Some readers clearly can't differentiate between favourite driver and favourite team, which probably accounts for the Red Bull RBR1 finishing with the third highest number of votes, ahead of the Jordan and Sauber!
Every single round of the 2005 Formula One World Championship got at least one vote for most memorable race, even Hungary got 5 votes!
However, there was no mistake as to which race made the most impression on you, the penultimate round of the championship, held at Suzuka, which attracted 47.6% of the votes. Belgium was the second most popular race with readers (13.7%) ahead of San Marino (9.7%).
Many thanks to those of you that took the time to participate in the poll, and congratulations to Kimi and the guys at McLaren, clearly, no matter how the championship(s) finished, the fans were mightily impressed with your performance this season.
Over the forthcoming holidays we'll go through your entries (again), picking out the three best explanations regarding why you made your choice - each of the winners will receive a copy of Saison 73's Motorsport Memories calendar.
However, readers whose only justification of their choice was; "Tiago is the best!", "kimi da man" or "jv... go my champ!!!", shouldn't start making space on their bedroom walls just yet.