AUTOSPORT's F1 experts review the 2014 season

With an eventful Formula 1 season now consigned to history, we tasked our experts from the paddock with debating several talking points from the year.

We asked them for their highs and lows, surprises, moments to remember, things to forget, and to pick out their stars (and disappointments) of the 2014 season.

Panel: Jonathan Noble (Group F1 Editor), Edd Straw (Grand Prix Editor), Ben Anderson (F1 Assistant Editor), Gary Anderson (Technical Expert), Dieter Rencken (F1 contributor).

Who was your driver of the season?

JONATHAN NOBLE (@NobleF1): Not taking anything away from Lewis Hamilton, who was sensational this year, but in terms of a driver who did far more than anyone expected it has to be Daniel Ricciardo. From the very first race, he was unflustered by the move to a top team. He performed week in, week out, pulled off some brilliant overtaking moves and - best of all - kept his trademark smile. The Honey Badger is going to go a long way.

BEN ANDERSON (@BenAndersonAuto): Fernando Alonso was the outright best driver across the season, because of the way he dominated Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari, but we know what to expect with him so I'm going to go for Ricciardo. He stepped up superbly this year. He walked into the lion's den of Red Bull, slayed the beast, and emerged with its mane draped around his neck.

EDD STRAW (@EddStrawF1): We already knew that Ricciardo was a stunningly fast driver, but not that he could deliver drives of so consistently a high calibre to comfortably outperform Sebastian Vettel. Ricciardo proved that, in the right car, he is unquestionably capable of winning the world championship.

GARY ANDERSON: Ricciardo outshone Vettel and his overall race performances were very strong in terms of pace and overtaking. He definitely showed the focus needed to succeed at the top level.

DIETER RENCKEN: My choice is Lewis Hamilton, who matured no end as a driver and drove courageously or cerebrally as circumstances demanded. That said, Nico Rosberg's qualifying speed was impressive, and if he combines pace with nerve next season we're in for another bumper year.

Which team was your star of the year?

ES: Mercedes produced the best car/engine package and despite some reliability problems, also used it extremely well to deliver pole after pole and win after win. Crucially, good management prevented the troubles between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg from becoming toxic and tearing the team apart. It could very easily have gone badly wrong.

JN: Although it is very 'easy' to perform well as a team when your car is dominant, Mercedes does deserve some credit for the way it managed the title battle. It was positive for the sport that it allowed Hamilton and Rosberg to race. Plus, that it came through the controversies of Monaco and Spa without descending into total chaos showed that it did something right.

DR: Mercedes simply did the best job with extremely complex technology. No surprise that there are sour grapes, nor that the team stood its ground on the regulations. After all, why should it be hamstrung for delivering a jewel of an engine, which perfectly complemented the best (looking) chassis out there? Every aspect of the team - whether team personnel and drivers, hardware or software, engine or chassis - was absolutely top drawer.

BA: The re-emergence of Williams as a consistent frontrunner in Formula 1 was the feel-good story of the season. The only thing missing from a remarkable campaign was a win, but Felipe Massa came mighty close in Abu Dhabi...

GA: Williams, because of how dramatic its recovery was. To go from ninth last year and scoring five points to third in the championship was a massive step. Yes, the Mercedes engine helped, but as a team it regrouped and is back knocking on the door where it should be.

What was the best overtake of the campaign?

ES: Ricciardo on Vettel at Monza. Ricciardo did have a tyre advantage over his team-mate, but the way he backed out of the throttle on the run through Curva Grande when he was carrying more speed in order to reposition himself to mug the other Red Bull at the second chicane was stunning racecraft. Many would simply have kept their foot in, but Ricciardo out-thought Vettel. That was what was impressive about this.

GA: The move chosen by Edd stands out because it was between team-mates and Ricciardo showed up the four-times world champion. It showed how much Ricciardo had the bit between his teeth this year. He also had to plan it well before committing and he couldn't afford to get it wrong.

JN: Hungarian Grand Prix, Ricciardo around the outside of Lewis Hamilton at Turn 2 during his charge to victory. It showed everything about how good Ricciardo was this year: clinical, brave, millimetre perfect and decisive.

DR: Agreed - Ricciardo in Hungary.

BA: Ricciardo on Sergio Perez for the lead at Turn 1 in Canada. A crucial pressure pass that won him the race - and he went round the outside with two wheels on the grass, so gets extra points for style.

What was your highlight of the season?

JN: I'm picking the Bahrain GP - not because it was out-and-out the best moment of the season, but because it was hugely significant. As critics queued up to knock the new rules, we had a fantastic duel between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, plus endless fights further down the order, which firmly put to bed the lie that F1 2014 was taxi-cab racing.

ES: While Bahrain is a justifiably contentious host country, the on-track product was stunning. Amid doom and gloom surrounding engine noises, processions and F1's imminent descent into oblivion, this was a genuinely great race that breathed life into the season, even before the safety car set up that stunning dash to the flag. It was also the race in which the blue touchpaper was lit in the scrap between the two Mercedes drivers.

BA: The Hungarian Grand Prix. Since I've been following Formula 1 this race has always been marked in my mental calendar as 'one for the purists'. But the 2014 edition was a total thriller with the result genuinely in doubt until the closing moments. Brilliant, and unexpected.

DR: Nico Rosberg's win at Interlagos. He withstood extreme pressure from the fastest man on the planet to keep his title hopes alive for another fortnight. That said, Ricciardo's smile after his Montreal win was extremely infectious!

GA: You can't knock what Mercedes did, strange as it is to choose a whole team as a highlight. It had new rules to take on and stole the season by producing a great car (and engine) straight out of the box - a package that was still improving at the end of the season.

What was something to forget from the 2014 season?

ES: The endless politicking over money and engines while a couple of teams dropped off the grid. Every faction and team played their part in it; there are few genuinely good guys and far too many bad guys and short-sighted idiots.

GA: The off-track politics is driving me beserk. With two teams in trouble, F1 has to realise that this will escalate if something isn't done. It's time to get on with the next stage for grand prix racing because it can't keep going the way it is.

JN: The politics were terrible - and some senior figures in F1 should be ashamed of themselves for talking the sport down so much. 2014 was a great season - good racing, fantastic technology and an epic title battle. Quite why things turned so toxic in the paddock is baffling because it was so needless.

BA: Double points. We spent all season hoping they wouldn't make a difference. Fortunately, the only difference they did make was artificially extending the gap between the champion and the runner-up - and leapfrogging Sergio Perez above Kevin Magnussen and Kimi Raikkonen to ninth in the final standings. A bullet dodged for F1 and rightly dropped next year.

DR: Jules Bianchi's crash overshadows all.

What was the biggest surprise of 2014?

DR: Vettel's move to Ferrari: both that an opening existed, and that he made the move. On the surface, from one loser to a bigger one...

BA: How good the Hungarian GP was!

JN: Williams. Off the back of its dismal 2013 campaign, few would have predicted that it would have emerged - and maintain its place - as the main threat to Mercedes. Yes, there were missed opportunities early on, but it grew stronger throughout the campaign, made the right improvements and kept Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg honest until the final chequered flag.

ES: Hamilton is a stunningly quick driver, so it was remarkable that Rosberg outqualified him 12 times. Even though Hamilton had a couple of sessions when mechanical problems cost him, that wouldn't have been enough to reverse this most unpredictable of statistics.

GA: McLaren not achieving more. It had the best engine package and seemed to be headed in the right direction technically, but it took until late in the season to be getting the consistent top-six results you would have expected.

Who or what was your biggest disappointment of the year?

JN: Lotus. After ending the 2013 campaign so strongly, and knowing just how good the staff at Enstone are, it was such a shame to see the team endure a terrible season. But lessons will have been learned and many will be hoping that the switch to Mercedes next year will get it back to where it should be: hassling the manufacturer boys at the front of the grid.

BA: Kimi Raikkonen. I expected better from him, and I'm sure Ferrari did too.

ES: Sebastian Vettel did not win four world championships by luck and he is a class act. But he didn't make as much progress with getting on top of the car as you would expect. Perhaps the hangover of a period of dominance and the underpowered Renault engine meant that he couldn't quite drag the same focus and diligence out of himself that characterised his previous seasons. The move to Ferrari should revitalise him, even if the car is poor.

DR: Vettel, the emperor of the four years past, simply had no clothes left by Abu Dhabi.

GA: This dates back a few years, but what was particularly bad this year was that Ferrari seems to be getting worse. There were only two podium finishes this year, which isn't good enough. No matter who you are, you want to see a Ferrari knocking on the door at the front because F1 is the better for it.

What was the best event to attend in 2014?

ES: The Austrian GP: Great scenery, a deceptively simple track that is full of corners that tempt drivers into mistakes, a Williams front-row lockout, a tense fight at the front and a boisterous crowd. Every race should be like this. Red Bull never gets the credit it deserves for what it has done for motorsport and this was yet another great contribution. Chapeau!

JN: I really enjoyed Austria as it was a reminder of how great F1 can be when promoters have a good think about what would make a good event for fans. The campsites were rammed, the pop-up nightclubs near the track were banging out tunes until the early hours and the venue had a buzz all weekend - which was not just down to the cans of Red Bull!

BA: The Austrian GP was only event on the calendar with a real festival atmosphere. Racing, camping, partying - a proper race for proper fans.

GA: Hungary is always a good place to go and we were rewarded with a great race. As well as Ricciardo's win, there was the great storyline of Hamilton refusing to let Rosberg past, which was a key moment in the championship battle. It was great to be there to see everything unfold, particularly with the team initially giving the order and then having to backtrack.

DR: As always, Singapore: everything just works right.

If there was one moment you could change from the 2014 F1 season, what would you choose?

JN: It would have to be that afternoon at Suzuka. Jules Bianchi's crash in the closing stages of the Japanese GP was appalling, and marked one of the saddest times that F1 has been through for a while. That Bianchi scored Marussia's first points in Monaco, and the sport's chiefs did little to try to help the outfit keep going until the end of the campaign, just made the whole situation worse.

DR: Hindsight is 20/20, but how I wish they had red-flagged the Japanese Grand Prix immediately after Adrian Sutil's crash. It may have made an enormous difference...

BA: That Bianchi hadn't crashed into a crane in the closing stages of the Japanese Grand Prix. Everyone wishes they could change that moment...

ES: Bianchi's crash at Suzuka.

GA: I agree with everyone on Bianchi, but if I could choose another moment I would have liked to have seen the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix pan out as it should have without Rosberg hitting trouble. There would have been more pressure on Hamilton, so it would have been better if this had run its course.