Driver of the Year 2009

The Driver Database's Driver of the Year Awards entered its third year and the overall Driver of the Year was Jenson Button according to the visitors of Driver Database. Second came last year's Driver of the Year, Sebastial Vettel with young sensation Mitchell Evans in third.

As he came third in the overall Driver of the Year, it comes as little surprise that Mitchell Evans was voted the 2009 Young Driver of the Year. He grabbed 32% of the votes and was followed by Luiz Felipe Nasr and Jules Bianchi.

The top two from the overall Driver of the Year was also the top two in the Open Wheel Driver of the Year category. Jenson Button came out on top with Sebastian Vettel in second. Third place went to IndyCar driver Scott Dixon.

The Stock car / Sportscar / Touring car Driver of the Year category was a close race. In the end multiple NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson was the winner closely followed by the NZ winning machine Craig Baird. In third place came Gabriele Tarquini.

The Karting Driver of the Year category at Driver Database has always been a walk in the park for Marco Ardigo. This year he had quite a challenge to make it though, as he wasn't even nominated. Instead it was Bas Lammers who claimed a narrow win in front of Nyck de Vries and Daniil Kvyat.

Not many people thought Jenson Button would be the 2009 F1 World Champion. And not suprisingly he won the Surprise Driver of the Year as well with quite a large margin in front of Kamui Kobayashi and Augusto Farfus.

Driver of the Year
	1. Jenson Button Formula 1 26.5% 2. Sebastian Vettel Formula 1 15.2% 3. Mitchell Evans Formula Ford / F3 9.6% 4. Jimmie Johnson NASCAR 7.8% 5. Luiz Felipe Nasr Formula BMW 6.6%
Young Driver of the Year
	1. Mitchell Evans Formula Ford / F3 32.3% 2. Luiz Felipe Nasr Formula BMW 25.6% 3. Jules Bianchi Formula 3 14.1% 4. Antonio Felix da Costa Formula Renault 2.0 10.2% 5. Richie Stanaway Formula Ford / ADAC Formula Master 9.6%
Open Wheel Driver of the Year
	1. Jenson Button Formula 1 38.3% 2. Sebastian Vettel Formula 1 19.2% 3. Scott Dixon IndyCar 13.8% 4. Nico Hülkenberg GP2 10.6% 5. Joey Saldana Sprintcar 5.8%
Stock car / Sportscar / Touring car Driver of the Year
	1. Jimmie Johnson NASCAR 27.3% 2. Craig Baird NZV8 / Porsche GT3 Cup 24.6% 3. Gabriele Tarquini WTCC 11.2% 4. Jamie Whincup V8 Supercars 10.0% 5. Kyle Busch NASCAR 7.5%
Karting Driver of the Year
	1. Bas Lammers KZ1 17.4% 2. Nyck de Vries KF3 15.4% 3. Daniil Kvyat KF3 14.0% 4. Aaro Vainio SKF 10.4% 5. Luke Varley Rotax Max 9.7%
Surprise Driver of the Year
	1. Jenson Button Formula 1 27.6% 2. Kamui Kobayashi Formula 1 18.3% 3. Augusto Farfus WTCC 13.3% 4. Rubens Barrichello Formula 1 8.5% 5. Dario Franchitti IndyCar 6.2%

The Driver Database 2009 Driver of the Year awards were run in two parts. First the visitors of Driverdb.com were able to nominate drivers for the five sub categories. The ten drivers with the most nominations in each category were then selected as the nominated drivers – and all were available for voting in the overall Driver of the Year category. During one month the visitors were able to vote for the drivers in all six categories.

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