In many ways, the 2003 Formula One was unique: not only because of the radical changes introduced, but also because of the excitement it provided all throughout the year. As usual, however, there were winners and losers. Atlas F1's Karl Ludvigsen takes a look at who shone in 2003

I haven't forgotten this bit of dialogue about drivers from my interview with Sir Frank Williams last year:

Karl: What you probably want is a person who extracts the absolute ultimate from the car but preferably without going off the road.

Frank: We all dream of that, yes.

That driver, in 2003, was Kimi Raikkonen. He trounced Michael Schumacher in Atlas F1's poll of its 21 contributors, scoring seven first places among them - including mine. Indeed, Kimi seemed to have that knack of extracting as much as his McLaren-Mercedes could produce without leaving the black stuff, lifting his team's equipment well beyond what many had expected of it. And he has no bigger fan than Frank Williams's partner, Patrick Head. In the pre-race press conferences at Suzuka, Head praised Raikkonen's performances to the skies. He is, clearly, just the driver that BMW-Williams wishes it had - a man with an uncanny ability to collect valuable points when they're on offer.

That being the case, why is it so difficult to warm to Kimi? One reason, of course, is his demeanor. He was on the podium at Suzuka, having finished second in the season's final race only two points short of the World Champion's tally at the end of his third season in Formula One. Okay, he'd raced there with a mathematical chance at the title himself, but only as the longest of long shots. You'd think that he'd have every reason to be happy with what he'd achieved in 2003, but on the second step Raikkonen looked like a spoiled kid whose favorite toy had just been yanked away. He did manage a brief smile when presented with his trophy, but that was all.

It doesn't help that Kimi is driving for McLaren-Mercedes, a squad that's worked hard to earn its gray and serious reputation, as stern and earnest as its livery. He seems tailor-made to its buttoned-down corporate image as the most polished and meticulous of all the Formula One teams. But the McLaren style does little to lighten the aura around Kimi, who makes Mika Hakkinen look like Jerry Lewis. Nor is there much to be said in favor of his stewardship by Norbert Haug, whose bumptious antics have many at Mercedes-Benz shaking their heads in resignation. Haug, to be sure, gave Raikkonen his due after Japan: "Kimi didn't have the best technical package at every race, but he had a good package and he made the best of it. Seven times he was in second place. He was on the podium ten times out of 16 races, and that's a lot more than anybody else."

Well, I wouldn't say it was a lot more, Norbert. Another non-Schumacher finished on the podium eight times, including two victories, in 2003. It was none other than that affable Brazilian Rubens Barrichello. Rubens also had three pole positions to his credit, more than anybody except Michael, and three fastest laps, equaling Montoya and Raikkonen. Yet Barrichello don't get no respect from the adjudicators at Atlas F1. He finished a measly sixth among our ratings of drivers, only ten of our 21 contributors even including him on their lists! The only folks who rated Rubens highly were Ann Bradshaw, yours truly and Paul Ryder, who had the perspicacity to rank the drivers just as I did.

So how is it possible for a brilliant Brazilian in a flame-red car to escape notice in a season that saw him place fourth in the Drivers' Championship and - even more important - add the vital points that took Ferrari to the constructors' cup as well? Do people just assume that the car is so good that anyone could do well with it? They weren't saying that about the F2003-GA when Michael was struggling in mid-season. Barrichello must have brought something to the party. Very much to his credit, he bounced back from Ferrari's main fiasco of the season: running out of gas at the race Rubens most wanted to win at Interlagos.

We had a new points system this year that reached down to eighth place with the aim of being more inclusive of both teams and drivers. Remarkably, out of all the drivers who started the season, only Jos Verstappen and Antonio Pizzonia did not score a single point. From the team standpoint, however, the new system wasn't as generous as many had hoped, and there was a good reason for this, the rise and rise of Renault: Instead of the Big Three of Formula One, we now have the Big Four with the heightened success of the Anglo-French team. Thus, instead of six cars blocking the six available points we had eight cars commanding eight points so effectively that the lesser teams had surprisingly few chances to make their mark. That has to be seen as a real achievement by Renault that bodes well for continued success by the blue and yellow cars in 2004.

We'll look back on 2003 as an unique season in the annals of Formula One, thanks to the decision to change to a new qualifying format next year. It was pretty good this year, as Paul Stoddart argued in vain, thanks to Friday's running generating headlines for Saturday, but it seems that the Powers That Be feel it's best to change to yet another format for 2004, to be in greater sympathy with the new one-engine-for-the-weekend rule. It was a unique season in another way, a great year of struggle and ultimate success for Ferrari and Michael Schumacher, who captured his unprecedented sixth crown. I can't wait to see what they'll do next year!

About the author:
Long time columnist at Atlas F1, Karl Ludvigsen is an award-winning author and historian who managed racing programs for Fiat in America in the late 1970s and Ford of Europe in the early 1980s. He is the author of seven books about racing drivers and numerous books about classic racing cars and engines, all of which draw extensively on the many images in his Ludvigsen Library in Suffolk, England.