Looking at the final teams standings, there were clearly a few classes of Formula 1 team in 2011.

The extremes

At the bottom, with no points apiece, the new(ish) teams – Team Lotus, HRT and Virgin. In with them, incredibly, you’ve got to lump Williams, with a pitiful 5 points.

At the top, you could argue that Red Bull Racing were in a league of their own; McLaren and Ferrari were their only competition.

The midfield

Where to put Mercedes? More than twice the points of fifth place, but less than half the points of third. As always, a graph is the answer. Let’s take a closer look at the midfield.

The first thing to say about Mercedes is that they had a remarkably consistent season. But they weren’t unchallenged for fourth place, at least until the second half of the season when they left the midfield – specifically Renault – behind.

Renault then. A season of three parts, one would suggest: 60 points in the first seven races; 10 points in the next six; 3 in the final six. No wonder the team has admitted to having had a “difficult” season. I think ‘threw it away’ was the phrase they were looking for.

Quite the opposite for Force India, who ramped up in the final third of the season to take sixth and even challenge for fifth. Would it be unfair to observe that that period was, perhaps, when Adrian Sutil started fighting for a job?

A couple of good results around the one-third point in the season were enough to give Sauber the edge over a rather consistent, but ultimately not good enough, Toro Rosso.