The Top 30 drivers of 2013 – Part 1

This is TouringCarTimes’ staff’s run-down of who we think are the top 30 drivers of the 2013 motorsport season in the field of touring car racing, from some of the many championships that we have covered this year.

Today we bring you 30th to 21st, shortly to be followed by parts two and three of our countdown.

30 – Kevin Krammes

It was another dominant performance from the young 22-year-old from Eiweiler in Germany, driving the Super 1600 Ford Fiesta of Ravenol Team GENA in the FIA ETCC. Winning the first seven races of the season in the class, he secured the S1600 title for the second consecutive year, before coming off the throttle and finishing the year with a pair of second places, perhaps charitably letting someone else win for a change?

29 – Jocke Mangs

The former double Porsche Carrera Cup Scandinavia champion showed strong form in the smaller Brovallen Design team in this year’s STCC against the competition of the Volvo and BMW teams. While consistency wasn’t there, he showed glimpses of impressive pace, especially in the final race of the year.

28 – Luigi Ferrara

The Italian finished fifth in the Superstars championship taking an impressive win at Donington Park and was always around the works Mercedes C63 AMGs despite driving an independently-entered coupé version of the German car. Reliability problems hampered a season which would have probably seen him among the championship contenders. Ferrara missed the last race due to budget issues.

27 – Mattias Ekström

The double DTM champion – with the help of new race engineer, Florian Modlinger – appeared to get on top of Audi’s tricky RS 5 DTM after Brands Hatch when a change in set-up philosophy started to pay off. This all came to a point at the Norisring, where Ekström took Audi’s first win in ten years, only to be later disqualified for the infamous post-race ‘Watergate’ scandal. However, Ekström was undeterred and proved why most still view him as the quickest driver out there. Had it not been for the Norisring incident, Ekström would have finished the year third in the drivers’ standings.

26 – Giovanni Berton

Driving the now-ageing BMW M3 E92 in this year’s Superstars Series, Berton finished an impressive second in the championship, with some seven podium finishes, including three wins. The last weekend of the championship in Vallelunga fully showed the Italian’s potential, as the layout of the track played in favour of the BMWs. Berton was able to take a surprising pole position, getting the job done by winning in Race 1 and coming second in Race 2, which earned him the runner-up spot in the championship.

25 – Petr Fulín

The Czech driver put on fantastic performance in his second season in the FIA ETCC. Unable to compete with the SEAT León TDIs in 2012, their banning from this year meant the BMW 320si became the best package, and Fulín the best driver among the six of them in the field. A crash, not of his making in the first race at the Salzburgring, saw him leave one weekend without scoring a single point, putting him at risk to a challenge from Slovakia’s Mat’o Homola, but a double-victory at his home race in Brno at the season finale put paid to that threat.

24 – Scott McLaughlin

V8 Supercars rookie Scott McLaughlin quickly made his mark in the V8 Supercars Championship. Finishing tenth overall, the best ever position for a rookie, claiming three podium finishes and, most importantly, two victories speaks for itself. The young Kiwi looks set for an interesting future in the Australian championship and will next year become a factory Volvo driver.

23 – Shane Van Gisbergen

Despite a turbulent off-season, Shane Van Gisbergen started the V8 Supercars season in an impressive way with the first ever COTF regulation pole position and victory in race number two. The Tekno Autosports driver had a season of ups and downs, but finished fifth overall and established himself as the best driver outside of big teams Triple Eight and Ford Performance Racing. His season ended in the same way as it started, with a victory, promising for an exciting 2014.

22 – Robert Wickens

Robert Wickens’ performances in the 2013 DTM vindicated Mercedes’ decision to go with a youthful line-up. Whilst the Canadian did not achieve the same level of consistency as Vietoris (Wickens only scored in 40% of the races this year), his maiden DTM victory at the Nürburgring was little short of superb. The same can be said for the move which he pulled en-route to that win, when he went from fifth to second by passing Adrien Tambay, Augusto Farfus and Miguel Molina around the outside coming out of Turn 2 in the wet.

21 – Christian Vietoris

Christian Vietoris was one of the star performers of the 2013 DTM. Whilst the 24-year-old German may not (yet) quite have the speed of HWA Mercedes team-mates, Gary Paffett and Robert Wickens, Vietoris made up for that in consistency. Question marks surrounded Vietoris’ ability as a DTM driver heading into the season, but he proved his detractors wrong by scoring four brilliant third places throughout the year, and ended the season fourth in the drivers’ standings and the best placed of the Mercedes drivers.

Coming tomorrow: 20th to 11th