Driver of the Year 2011

The fifth running of the annual Driver Database Driver of the Year Award was a battle of the young promises in a close race between the German Formula 3 champion and GP3 race winner Richie Stanaway from New Zealand and the 17 year old Northern European Formula Renault champion Carlos Sainz Jr from Spain. In the end it was Stanaway who came out victorious with over 25% of the votes for Overall Driver of the Year. Sainz Jr was second at 19% and previous year's fan favourite Sebastian Vettel having to settle for third (his second F1 title might be a small consolation for him tough).

Not surprisingly the Stanaway vs. Sainz Jr battle continued for Young Driver of the Year. This time, however, it was Sainz Jr who caused a bit of an upset to take this category away from Stanaway with 40% of the votes. Stanaway ended up with 33% and it was then a bit of a gap down to Felipe Nasr in third.

With Carlos Sainz Jr not nominated in the Open Wheel Driver of the Year category the race was now between Stanaway and Vettel. It was Stanaway who came away as the winner though with close to 30% of the votes against Vettel's 24%. Jenson Button came third with 18% of the votes.

When our latest winner twice in a row in the Stock car / Sportscar / Touring car Driver of the Year category Paul Di Resta moved to Formula 1 he had to sacrifice his chances of winning the award for a third time. (We're sure he had to weigh in the pro's and con's for a good while.) This year the title went down under to V8 Supercar driver Jamie Whincup who won comfortably over DTM champion Martin Tomczyk. Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart ended up in third.

Nyck de Vries defended his World Championship title in 2011 and he also defended the title as Karting Driver of the Year. Behind him were Daniel Bray and Max Verstappen.

The Surprise Driver of the Year category was won by Carlos Sainz Jr whose 12 wins in his second season of racing was a pleasant surprise for 28% of the voters. This placed him comfortably ahead of F1 duo Jenson Button and Paul Di Resta.

For the second year running we had a special category for drivers with a Premier Profile at the website; the Driver Database Award. This was won by Richie Stanaway with over 50% of the votes. In second place was the Formula Ford winning machine Scott Malvern and in third came Felix Rosenqvist.

Driver of the Year
	1. Richie Stanaway Formula 3 / GP3 25.2% 2. Carlos Sainz Jr. Formula Renault 2.0 18.7% 3. Sebastian Vettel Formula 1 13.5% 4. Daniel Juncadella Formula 3 6.7% 5. Luiz Felipe Nasr Formula 3 6.5%
Young Driver of the Year
	1. Carlos Sainz Jr. Formula Renault 2.0 40% 2. Richie Stanaway Formula 3 / GP3 32.6% 3. Luiz Felipe Nasr Formula 3 8.1% 4. Jean-Eric Vergne World Series by Renault 5.8% 5. Nyck de Vries Karting 4.3%
Open Wheel Driver of the Year
	1. Richie Stanaway Formula 3 / GP3 29.8% 2. Sebastian Vettel Formula 1 23.7% 3. Jenson Button Formula 1 17.7% 4. Dan Wheldon IndyCar 10.8% 5. Scott Malvern Formula Ford 4.6%
Stock car / Sportscar / Touring car Driver of the Year
	1. Jamie Whincup V8 Supercars 25.7% 2. Martin Tomczyk DTM 14.3% 3. Tony Stewart NASCAR 12.7% 4. Yvan Muller WTCC 12.6% 5. Tom Coronel WTCC 9.7%
Karting Driver of the Year
	1. Nyck de Vries SKF 27.8% 2. Daniel Bray KZ2 21.1% 3. Max Verstappen KF3 15.8% 4. Ben Cooper Rotax Max Senior 6.5% 5. Charles Leclerc KF3 5.7%
Surprise Driver of the Year
	1. Carlos Sainz Jr. Formula Renault 2.0 28.1% 2. Jenson Button Formula 1 18.7% 3. Paul Di Resta Formula 1 15.2% 4. Daniel Juncadella Formula 3 13.7% 5. Martin Tomczyk DTM 8.6%
Driver Database Award
	1. Richie Stanaway Formula 3 / GP3 50.3% 2. Scott Malvern Formula Ford 12.2% 3. Felix Rosenqvist Formula 3 9.2% 4. Tristan Viidas Karting / FBMW 7.2% 5. Josef Newgarden Indy Lights 5%

The Driver Database 2011 Driver of the Year awards were run in two parts. First the visitors of Driverdb.com were able to nominate drivers for the six 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 20 days the visitors were able to vote for the drivers in all seven categories.