F1 2014: the winners and losers

The year's most obvious winner, Lewis secured 11 races to teammate Nico Rosberg's five, and thanks to the double points idiocy ended up miles ahead of him in the final championship reckoning.

But long-term Lewis watchers would have expected it to play out that way, and it was arguably in the peripheral areas where he impressed more. Mechanical and electrical frailty was bound to be a factor with 2014's vastly complex new-generation powertrains, and when Lewis suffered a DNF in the first race of the season, in Australia, the spectre of a fast but luckless season raised its hybridised head.

There were other problems, notably an engine conflagration in Hungary, but Lewis stayed cool, the toys stayed in the pram, and he rode the wave not only expertly, but with maturity. No telemetry tweets or daft comments in 2014. Or rap records.

In fact, it was Nico who looked petulant, with that questionable manoeuvre during Monaco qualifying, the now infamous collision at Spa, and the spikey comment in the briefing ahead of last weekend's championship decider. Nobody expected Lewis to emulate his great hero Ayrton Senna by brazenly punting his rival off the track, so Lewis blew him into the weeds instead.

That said, Rosberg's admission that Hamilton was simply the better driver in 2014 was the mark of a true gentleman.

New regulations in Formula One have always presented an opportunity for the pit lane's most boffiny boffins to do their thing. Emerging from the lengthy Red Bull/Adrian Newey aero era, it was Mercedes-AMG - based in Brixworth, remember - that sussed the potential of the downsized, hybrid turbo V6.

"It's great to come back to something where the engine plays its proper part with the other aspects of the car," Mercedes' Technical Director Paddy Lowe told TG.com during the first Jerez test session. It was a philosophy Mercedes exploited to the full: this year's breakthrough innovation saw them position the turbo's compressor at one end of the engine with the turbine at the other, linked by a shaft, reducing lag and the amount of energy drawn from the ERS part of the powertrain, improving efficiency and overall performance. Genius.

No wonder Ferrari was on the blower to Andy Cowell, the self-effacing boss of Merc's HPP division, and Lewis was hailing the WO5 as the best car he'd ever driven.

The stars religned above Grove, and F1's most treasured team were resurgent. Various factors came into play: the switch to the Mercedes powertrain was obviously inspired, if something of a no-brainer, ex-Ferrari race engineer and laconic Brit Rob Smedley bolstered the redoubtable Pat Symonds in the technical and strategic department, Sir Frank's daughter Claire and ex-Jaguar man Mike O'Driscoll got the business back on track, and Valtteri Bottas is the heir apparent to fellow Finnish maestros Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen.

The FW36 even looked the nuts in its Martini livery. Odds-on for race wins in 2015.

We knew he was good, but we didn't know he was this good. The only non-Merc to win in 2014, Danny Ricc scored big in Canada, Hungary and Belgium, and was second in his home race in the Australian season-opener before a technical infringement saw Red Bull excluded.

In motor racing, the only person you absolutely have to beat is your teammate, so Ricciardo's demolition of quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel was the story of the season, after the Merc domination. But he also proved himself to be as natural an on-track fighter as Alonso and Hamilton. Driver of the year? Could be.

The baby-faced Russian was another surprise. Only finished 15th in the championship, but kept popping up in the final chunk of qualifying, and earned a promotion from Toro Rosso into the Red Bull team for 2015 as a result. Middle name is Vyacheslavovich. Try saying that after a few vodkas.

Odd to think that, after one world championship, 268 Grands Prix, 15 wins, and 50 podiums, JB still seems somehow under-rated. Not least by current employer McLaren, who still haven't quite decided whether to renew his deal alongside Fernando Alonso.

It's not as if he had a shabby season, having dragged the under-performing MP4-29 as far up the pecking order as anyone else on the grid could have managed, and scoring more than double the points amassed by his teammate, Kevin Magnussen.

TG.com salutes Jenson, who also had to cope with the loss of his father John, in January. Not a stellar year, then, but certainly one in which he revealed the depth of his character.

It could and should have been a great year for the Scuderia. Like Mercedes, F1's most famous and important team develops its own chassis and powertrain, an integration of effort that pays dividends if you get it right. Unfortunately, they didn't.

By April, team principal and Ferrari lifer Stefano Domenicali took the rap for a car that was as aerodynamically unimaginative as its powertrain was overly conservative. The word was that his replacement, Marco Mattiaci, was installed by Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne, and not Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemelo.

When LDM resigned in September, after 23 mostly glorious years at the helm, it was clear that this wasn't merely a duff year, it was a full-blown annus horribilis.

Then Fernando Alonso announced he was also off, and just three days ago Mattiaci was fired and replaced by Philip Morris Marlboro sponsor heavy hitter and F1 commission member Maurizio Arrivabene. Sebastian Vettel joins a woefully out-of-sorts Kimi Raikkonen on a fee not unadjacent to €50m per year. Both will be hoping that things can only get better.

This was the first season since 1993 that Ferrari didn't win a race...

For God's sake, get on with it. McLaren's enviable reputation for laser-guided, precision-tooled decision making took a hammering this year.

Never mind sticking the best engine on the grid into another average chassis, the dithering over which driver to run alongside Fernando Alonso - himself still unconfirmed as we write - has become a (long) running joke. Maybe Jenson is too expensive - in the continued absence of a top sponsor - although he's also beloved by Honda and Japanese racing fans. Or perhaps Ron prefers Magnussen's youthful potential.

Whatever, TG.com is pretty sure he doesn't take this long deciding what level of power wash he needs to use on the gravel on his driveway.

Bernie's dismissal of the financial plight of F1's minnows, and his inability to grasp the importance of hooking in a younger audience, was breathtakingly arrogant.

Fact is, F1's revenues are not equitably distributed, and while everyone knows that this is as much a business as it is a sport, allowing Caterham and Marussia to go to the wall - with several other teams looking precarious - elevates the greed of F1's controlling interests to new heights of venality. Sermon over.

Rest in peace, Marussia. And Forza Jules.