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Driver intelligence has been played out by our F1 media to be of utmost importance this year; even more than other years gone past. A driver should be able to manage their fuel, tyres, throttle application, overtaking, strategy, engines; and all this in the heat of battle

Some drivers are better strategists than most, others are better at setting up the car, or even better at executing a successful overtaking manoeuvre. These are some examples of areas where a driver can be intelligent in; and some are more intelligent in one area than most drivers.

Now, taking away the factor of "speed" (not that you don't need intelligence for that), it would be interesting to see which drivers the PF1 Forum believe to be in the top half of current drivers in "complete intelligence"; well rounded intelligence in matters of F1.

Vote in the poll, and if you like, write out your personal opinions. Here's my take (only listed 6 drivers, feel free to list more):

Vettel
Alonso
Hamilton
Button
Rosberg
Raikkonen

NOTE: Please bear in the mind that most of us (if at all) don't have perfect information on driver intelligence; just going off instinct

Alonso, Seb, JB and probably Nico (of the Rosberg variety).

Everyone except Maldonado
Honestly, i have no idea.

No idea whatsoever

I was expecting to click more than 6.

babararacucudada wrote:I was expecting to click more than 6.

I think you can

Aussie Grit wrote:Everyone except Maldonado
Honestly, i have no idea.

Yeah, I know who has the bottom step, but above him I dunno.

Alonso. To steal a nickname from wrestling, he is F1's Cerebral Assassin. He's an expert in the politics and mind games in the sport. Luck is the only thing stopping him from having at least 4 world championships by now.

Button, just from experience. You don't get to be in F1 this long without picking up a few tricks on your way. The sheer amount he would have learned in that time puts him on my list.

Vettel is another politician. He'll throw the toys out of the pram occasionally, but he has more going on between his ears than he lets on. There's a reason he always gets what he wants.

pauldstar wrote:Driver intelligence has been played out by our F1 media to be of utmost importance this year; even more than other years gone past. A driver should be able to manage their fuel, tyres, throttle application, overtaking, strategy, engines; and all this in the heat of battle

Some drivers are better strategists than most, others are better at setting up the car, or even better at executing a successful overtaking manoeuvre. These are some examples of areas where a driver can be intelligent in; and some are more intelligent in one area than most drivers.

Now, taking away the factor of "speed" (not that you don't need intelligence for that), it would be interesting to see which drivers the PF1 Forum believe to be in the top half of current drivers in "complete intelligence"; well rounded intelligence in matters of F1.

Vote in the poll, and if you like, write out your personal opinions. Here's my take (only listed 6 drivers, feel free to list more):

Vettel
Alonso
Hamilton
Button
Rosberg
Raikkonen

NOTE: Please bear in the mind that most of us (if at all) don't have perfect information on driver intelligence; just going off instinct

What Q are we talking here.?? E, I or S ??!

ToniWolf wrote:

pauldstar wrote:Driver intelligence has been played out by our F1 media to be of utmost importance this year; even more than other years gone past. A driver should be able to manage their fuel, tyres, throttle application, overtaking, strategy, engines; and all this in the heat of battle

Some drivers are better strategists than most, others are better at setting up the car, or even better at executing a successful overtaking manoeuvre. These are some examples of areas where a driver can be intelligent in; and some are more intelligent in one area than most drivers.

Now, taking away the factor of "speed" (not that you don't need intelligence for that), it would be interesting to see which drivers the PF1 Forum believe to be in the top half of current drivers in "complete intelligence"; well rounded intelligence in matters of F1.

Vote in the poll, and if you like, write out your personal opinions. Here's my take (only listed 6 drivers, feel free to list more):

Vettel
Alonso
Hamilton
Button
Rosberg
Raikkonen

NOTE: Please bear in the mind that most of us (if at all) don't have perfect information on driver intelligence; just going off instinct

What Q are we talking here.?? E, I or S ??!

John Cleese.

Not a good topic. They are racers not physicists. Let's enjoy the race rather than guessing what's in the drivers' heads.

Ro Gro has a vote :S

Impossible to know, and quite irrelevant. Equally useful to have a poll on the drivers' shoe sizes.

I think it's laughable that we could consider a driver "more intelligent" than another just because their strategies tend to come off more often than not. Especially when teams spend millions on supercomputers that can work things like that out. They're probably all fairly close in intellect, just like you or I are. Some just have better teams than others.

Give me a day with each of them and I might be able to give you an idea from first impressions. Judging the intelligence of a person from media reports? No chance.

Covalent wrote:Impossible to know, and quite irrelevant. Equally useful to have a poll on the drivers' shoe sizes.

I was thinking the same.

I thought they all had a Mensa test or something just by reading the title

This poll should just have one option which says "No idea."

Not selecting anyone in the poll, I suspect that it will be part guesswork, part favourite drivers bias on that part of whoever votes.

Truth is there are many different types of intelligence. IQ tests are usually skewed to measuring linguistic intelligence and numeric intelligence, and to ignore or marginalise other intelligences such as artistic, musical, athletic, emotive, interpersonal and intrapersonal. There is no way that drivers can be ranked by one all-encompassing 'intelligence'

pauldstar wrote:Driver intelligence has been played out by our F1 media to be of utmost importance this year; even more than other years gone past. A driver should be able to manage their fuel, tyres, throttle application, overtaking, strategy, engines; and all this in the heat of battle

Some drivers are better strategists than most, others are better at setting up the car, or even better at executing a successful overtaking manoeuvre. These are some examples of areas where a driver can be intelligent in; and some are more intelligent in one area than most drivers.

Now, taking away the factor of "speed" (not that you don't need intelligence for that), it would be interesting to see which drivers the PF1 Forum believe to be in the top half of current drivers in "complete intelligence"; well rounded intelligence in matters of F1.

Vote in the poll, and if you like, write out your personal opinions. Here's my take (only listed 6 drivers, feel free to list more):

Vettel
Alonso
Hamilton
Button
Rosberg
Raikkonen

NOTE: Please bear in the mind that most of us (if at all) don't have perfect information on driver intelligence; just going off instinct

I guess your master plan failed to work. lol.

One more point, 'intelligence' isn't a thing, it's a process that results in a behaviour.
People sometimes behave seemingly intelligently, sometimes less so, and many times both, even in the space of a few moments. From the outside looking in, if someone else displays behaviour that to me looks intelligent or unintelligent does not necessarily make it so... maybe I'm the one who is not understanding.

No idea. I voted Rosberg. He speaks fluently 5 languages.

Alonso
Vettel
Button
Magnussen (based solely on his performance and level-head so far this season - you'd not think he was a rookie)
Rosberg
Ricciardo

It's odd isn't it. Rosberg, seemingly very intelligent, supposedly a bit academic, very articulate, and speaks five languages as you say. But he kept pulling the same move whilst expecting different results last Sunday. On that day, in that situation, Hamilton seemed endlessly more 'intelligent' than Rosberg. If forced to sit down and have a conversation over a cappucino with only one of the two, ignoring any fanboyism I may or may not have, however, I'd probably go Rosberg.

I think the poll is a bit useless, as each person's 'intelligence' differs from those of others. But it's certainly an interesting topic of conversation

Intelligence is hard to quantify. For example, most people perceive Wayne Rooney as a bit of a bonehead yet there aren't many footballers in the world with the same level of intelligence he has on the football pitch. He is intelligent, just his range of intelligence is pretty narrow.

All F1 drivers, (Even Maldonado) have a high level of 'racing intelligence' or racecraft otherwise they would not have made it this far. And I don't think it's any coincidence that Vettel, Alonso, Raikkonen and Hamilton have won championships because their racecraft is a cut above. Rosberg perhaps has a wider range of intelligence than most drivers, but Sunday showed that perhaps he is a step behind Hamilton with his racecraft, had the roles been reversed I think Hamilton would have found a way through.

Wider intelligence is useful for a driver, especially when talking to engineers and giving feedback but in the grand scheme of things it's relatively unimportant.

fieldstvl wrote:It's odd isn't it. Rosberg, seemingly very intelligent, supposedly a bit academic, very articulate, and speaks five languages as you say. But he kept pulling the same move whilst expecting different results last Sunday. On that day, in that situation, Hamilton seemed endlessly more 'intelligent' than Rosberg. If forced to sit down and have a conversation over a cappucino with only one of the two, ignoring any fanboyism I may or may not have, however, I'd probably go Rosberg.

I think the poll is a bit useless, as each person's 'intelligence' differs from those of others. But it's certainly an interesting topic of conversation

I completely agree with this. I don't think there's any way to rank the drivers based on the intelligence they apply to racing scenarios. Rosberg is a great example of how a driver widely perceived to be intelligent can be made to appear less than intelligent. Hamilton is another good example - He appears to have something of an instinctive nature, which often makes him look great as was the case on Sunday. But that instinctive nature can also let him down, as seen throughout much of 2011.

And even my use of Hamilton as an example isn't the best. Perhaps he is much more of a thinker inside the cockpit than I give him credit for. We just don't know.

The OP is talking about race intelligence - not academic or social intelligence. I didn't have any trouble picking. There are a number of boneheads on track in any given era - they may be geniuses off the track, but as I understand it, we are discussing on track decisions.

bourbon19 wrote:The OP is talking about race intelligence - not academic or social intelligence. I didn't have any trouble picking. There are a number of boneheads on track in any given era - they may be geniuses off the track, but as I understand it, we are discussing on track decisions.

You may not have had trouble picking, but that doesn't necessarily denote that you've correctly interpreted the point of the poll. The thread author asked for "complete intelligence"; well rounded intelligence in matters of F1 which could certainly include both academic or social intelligence. I'm not saying the my interpretation is right, but simply pointing out the ambivalence of the question.

It seems that this is also the case for others. For example, I like Rosberg, but I fail to see how he could score so highly in this poll if others weren't also considering social or academic or 'other' intelligence. He's a great driver but certainly not in my opinion the near Prostian reader of races that the stats and some comments are beginning to imply.

HawaiiF1Fan wrote:

Aussie Grit wrote:Everyone except Maldonado
Honestly, i have no idea.

Yeah, I know who has the bottom step, but above him I dunno.

I agree with this.

This is one of those things that people assume they know but really have no idea. Maldonado clearly seems to have recurring issues with poor judgement. I think other than that, it's hard to tell.

sandman1347 wrote:

HawaiiF1Fan wrote:

Aussie Grit wrote:Everyone except Maldonado
Honestly, i have no idea.

Yeah, I know who has the bottom step, but above him I dunno.

I agree with this.

This is one of those things that people assume they know but really have no idea. Maldonado clearly seems to have recurring issues with poor judgement. I think other than that, it's hard to tell.

Aaaaand yet poor judgement doesn't equal lack of intelligence necessarily.

^^^ True

In terms of car positioning when racing; Nico Hulkenberg,
In terms of having a wide domain of knowledge; Nico Rosberg,
In terms of pushing attacking cars off track at the right time; Lewis Hamilton,
In terms of conquering a team; Jenson Button,
In terms of finding optimum setups for different tracks; Fernando Alonso,
In terms of finding a more productive way to drive an F1 car with every passing race weekend; Sebastian Vettel
In terms of finding the correct tire to drive on changing conditions; Jenson Button.

Alaaddin wrote:In terms of car positioning when racing; Nico Hulkenberg,
In terms of having a wide domain of knowledge; Nico Rosberg,
In terms of pushing attacking cars off track at the right time; Lewis Hamilton,
In terms of conquering a team; Jenson Button,
In terms of finding optimum setups for different tracks; Fernando Alonso,
In terms of finding a more productive way to drive an F1 car with every passing race weekend; Sebastian Vettel
In terms of finding the correct tire to drive on changing conditions; Jenson Button.

I love you dude

pauldstar wrote:

Alaaddin wrote:In terms of car positioning when racing; Nico Hulkenberg,
In terms of having a wide domain of knowledge; Nico Rosberg,
In terms of pushing attacking cars off track at the right time; Lewis Hamilton,
In terms of conquering a team; Jenson Button,
In terms of finding optimum setups for different tracks; Fernando Alonso,
In terms of finding a more productive way to drive an F1 car with every passing race weekend; Sebastian Vettel
In terms of finding the correct tire to drive on changing conditions; Jenson Button.

I love you dude

Much obliged.

I would comment on the top 4 drivers in F1 for me... Alonso, Kimi, Vettel, Hamilton.

I'd say:
Alonso and Vettel have lots of natural talent and are very intelligent
Kimi and Hamilton have lots of natural talent and are not as intelligent. And Hamilton maybe has the most raw natural talent of them all but that alone isnt enough.

nixxxon wrote:I would comment on the top 4 drivers in F1 for me... Alonso, Kimi, Vettel, Hamilton.

I'd say:
Alonso and Vettel have lots of natural talent and are very intelligent
Kimi and Hamilton have lots of natural talent and are not as intelligent. And Hamilton maybe has the most raw natural talent of them all but that alone isnt enough.

Enough to beat the intelligent

Covalent wrote:Enough to beat the intelligent

what do you mean?
You see I say so about hamilton because he has some history of mistakes and bad deicisons in lots of races that prevented him of having better results because he had good pace.

I picked Hamilton. He's a racing genius.

WTF... A pole on driver intelligence... Just when I thought threads could not become any more erroneous.

Using Owen Wilson's list:

In terms of car positioning when racing; Fernando Alonso,
In terms of having a wide domain of knowledge; Nico Rosberg,
In terms of pushing attacking cars off track at the right time; Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Alonso, Hulkenberg, Kimi... old Nick Heidfeld deserves a mention here too
In terms of conquering a team; Fernando Alonso or Sebastian Vettel,
In terms of finding optimum setups for different tracks; Fernando Alonso,
In terms of finding a more productive way to drive an F1 car with every passing race weekend; ??? No idea.
In terms of finding the correct tire to drive on changing conditions; Many of them.

The word " intelligence " is what is misleading in this thread and why some people
correctly said " I don't know"
Speaking five languages does not give you better race craft, being near the pit when
safety car comes out or it starts to rain is luck not strategy nor intellect .
Using your teammates data to get up to speed is not showing great intellect or cunning
It shows lack of ability to give intelligent feedback to your engineers to set up your
car for YOU.
So what exactly are we speaking about in terms of F1 drivers....race craft..
What does race-craft entail.

Driving at high speed, braking , setting up your car, giving feedback to engineers,
Overtaking, defending, qualifying, adaptability versatility , spatial awareness ,
Multi tasking, race start , understanding tyres , confidence , aggression , patience
Fitness, consistency.
and a huge dose of luck.

These things we can see from being fans of the sport and putting aside bias we all
Know which drivers excel in these areas and which lack too many to ever become
WDC .
Now how does the pole change if we tweak the question a tad and answer
Honestly.
The answer probably would vary from race to race or year to year with each driver if we could really
identify the list of skills required and score the drivers each race perhaps we may
know who actually uses best race craft per race / season it may not be the same as
The WDC

Alaaddin wrote:In terms of car positioning when racing; Nico Hulkenberg,
In terms of having a wide domain of knowledge; Nico Rosberg,
In terms of pushing attacking cars off track at the right time; Lewis Hamilton,
In terms of conquering a team; Jenson Button,
In terms of finding optimum setups for different tracks; Fernando Alonso,
In terms of finding a more productive way to drive an F1 car with every passing race weekend; Sebastian Vettel
In terms of finding the correct tire to drive on changing conditions; Jenson Button.

In terms of making negative posts about Hamilton: Alaaddin