Official Autosport 2014 Formula 1 Driver Rankings

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Like I did at the half-way mark, I've compiled Mr Straw's GP ratings for the second half of the season to get both the 2nd half table and the overall season table. Of course, there are 2 interlopers in this (Will Stevens and André Lotterer) with only 1 race each, so they are in brackets.

Like in the summer, an asterix signifies a "star man" award allocated by Mr Straw to a certain driver each weekend, and have NO impact on the table unless they sort out a tie break.

2014 Formula 1 second-half of season standings:

(1 Lotterer 9.000)
2 Hamilton 8.875*
3 Ricciardo 8.125*
4= Alonso 8.000
(4= Stevens 8.000)
6 Bottas 7.875
7 Massa 7.750*
8= Rosberg 7.625*
8= Button 7.625*
10= Vettel 7.375
10= Grosjean 7.375
12 Vergne 7.250*
13 Hulkenberg 7.250
14 Magnussen 7.125*
15 Kvyat 7.125
16= Perez 7.000
16= Bianchi 7.000
18 Ericsson 6.800
19 Maldonado 6.625
20 Raikkonen 6.250*
21= Gutierrez 6.250
21= Sutil 6.250
23 Koboyashi 6.200
24 Chilton 5.200

Anyone else think that Sauber were correct to get rid of both of their drivers for more than just economic reasons?

Final 2014 Formula 1 Driver Ratings

(1 Lotterer 9.000)
2 Hamilton 8.789**
3 Ricciardo 8.474***
4 Alonso 8.263**
5 Rosberg 8.000**
(6 Stevens 8.000)
7 Bottas 7.737*
8 Button 7.474*
9= Vettel 7.316*
9= Massa 7.316*
11 Hulkenberg 7.211
12 Kvyat 7.158
13 Vergne 7.105*
14 Bianchi 7.071*
15 Magnussen 7.053**
16 Grosjean 7.053
17 Perez 6.684*
18 Koboyashi 6.625
19 Raikkonen 6.158*
20 Ericsson 6.125
21 Sutil 6.053
22 Maldonado 5.947
23 Gutierrez 5.684
24 Chilton 5.313

So well done to André Lotterer! But, as you'd expect from a very happy and potentially biased () British publication, Hamilton takes the title for those who did a full season, or the majority of the season. Ricciardo is an impressive 2nd, whilst Alonso claims 3rd ahead of Rosberg. Will Stevens' overhyped F1 debut results in a questionable 6th, whilst Bottas and Button do solid jobs.

Less solid are Maldonado, Gutierrez and Chilton. If you're averaging a performance of just over 5/10 each round, you're pretty hopeless...

...and here's my personal guide to the driver's abilities/performances from the mid-season table:

8-9 You’re driving fantastically each weekend. WDC potential.
7-8 Dependable, very solid, if sometimes unspectacular
6-7 Not bad, some good races, some bad
5-6 Not quite sure why you’re in F1

And a big pat on the back for Mr Daniel Ricciardo for winning the most "star man" awards throughout the 2014 season.

[Teretonga]

This is more accurate than many I have seen in the past from any number of magazines.
The fact that the racing results have reflected by so much the relative merits of the chassis and engines has made it easier to categorise relative abilities of drivers and especially the team mates.

Hamilton had a superior car but won 57.9% of the 19 races. His team mate (Nico) won 26.3% and Ricciardo won 15.8%. Looking at those statistics certainly makes it look like Lewis was a cut above Nico given they had the same car. We know Nico pushed Lewis hard for the title and lead it early on and again in most of the second half of the year till 4 rounds from the end of the year.

Of the 11 1-2 finishes Rosberg won 3 of them (Monaco, Austria and Brazil). The other 8 were won by Hamilton. Of the 7 times Rosberg finished ahead of Lewis across all events, Hamilton retired in 3 of them.

Ricciardo did superlatively well in a car that was well down on power but handled well and had superior roadholding to the rest.
Alonso had performed superbly, the results of Raikkonen probably reflecting the general level of the car to some degree. That Alonso outscored him to a rate of 293%of Kimi's score. It hasn't done anything to help Kimi's reputation but neither did Vettel do himself any favours, Ricciardo outscoring him by 142.5%, but nothing as poor as Kimi.

Of the rest, I don't regard Stevens as overhyped. it's just that the appearance in one event that results in a better result or an unexpected performance results in a score that is skewed higher than it should be.

I think Perez is a lot closer to Hulkenberg than is reflected in the Castrol table (also noting his star for Bahrain) and Magnussen's two stars should also have indicated that he is clear to Button than the second half of the season performances and the table demonstrate. How he copes with Alonso next year (if he's chosen) will be interesting, but I wouldn't rate Bianchi as being better than Magnussen.

Most of the rest are OK, Grosjean obviously is better than that and although at the lower end I think Chilton is underrated, and Ericcson is rated higher than both Sutil and Gutierrez, so maybe Monisha Kalternberg's decision is not so much just money but an astute valuation of the current drivers real potential compared with Ericsson

[John Turner]

I don't think Edd himself would regard his ratings as anything other than personal and subjective. I've disagreed on many throughout the season and I'm betting most of you have, too. Stating the obvious but in any analysis you would surely remove Lotterer and Stevens as their positions don't reflect anything other than his rating for one race in a long season. Ignoring them, you are quite close to the ratings of others in our other thread on the subject. My view is that Bottas, Button, Massa and Kyvat have been a bit more than solid, especially Button, since that McLaren hasn't been anywhere near as quick as the Williams for most of the season.