[BTCC frog]

11. Oscar Piastri. Suggestions that Piastri was the best rookie since Hamilton were probably exaggerated. Suggestions that he was as good as, or even better than Hamilton were ludicrous. But while I am not sure I would rate Piastri’s rookie season on par with that of Verstappen or Leclerc, he still showed significant potential and looked like he may be a world champion of the future, especially considering his junior record of winning F3 and F2 as a rookie. Piastri was fairly consistent and made no significant mistakes, and got plenty of good results in the quick McLaren.

But the big negative against his season is just that he wasn’t particularly close to the pace of Lando Norris, and he often ended up way behind him in races and in qualifying. Norris may be one of the top drivers in Formula 1, but Piastri was rarely faster than him and often got left behind in the races. Tyre management was probably his biggest weakness, but that is something that will come in time, and I expect that he will be among the top Formula 1 drivers in the future. Piastri’s best drive of the season was probably holding onto second in Qatar, while beating Norris in Jeddah before the McLaren was good and getting fourth on the first race with the updated McLaren in Silverstone were other notable highlights.

12. Yuki Tsunoda (up four). The plethora of different drivers, all unknown quantities, in the second Alpha Tauri made it quite hard to judge how well Tsunoda actually did in 2023. He initially looked very good against De Vries, who had had a brilliant debut at Monza 2022 but had also just had a poor season in Formula e. Then his reputation was hit by the few races spent alongside rookie Liam Lawson when they were more evenly matched than Tsunoda would have liked. But generally outperforming Daniel Ricciardo in the final few races made Tsunoda look good again.

Abu Dhabi was the highlight of Tsunoda’s season with sixth in qualifying and eighth in the race, both well ahead of Ricciardo, while he also put in some nice drives to get points in Baku and Spa when the car wasn’t at its best. Eighth in Austin was also a great result although in Mexico he blotted his copybook by throwing away points in a collision with Piastri, and finishing behind Lawson in Suzuka was a bad result for him. Tsunoda has significantly improved over his three seasons in Formula 1 and has generally eliminated the abundance of errors that plagued his first two seasons. At his best, he will probably be a good midfield driver like Ocon or Gasly, and may be considered a reliable number two at Red Bull in the future, although he wouldn’t challenge Verstappen.

13. Nico Hulkenberg. Driving a Haas that ate its tyres so quickly meant that Hulkenberg’s season was mostly about qualifying. He only finished in the points in one Grand Prix all season, taking seventh in a fine race in Albert Park that was his best drive of the season. Had the restart lasted long enough for positions to count, he actually would have finally taken that elusive first podium, although it would have been a very fortunate and underwhelming way to do it.

The rest of Hulkenberg’s season was all about putting in an extraordinary qualifying lap to make the top ten and then going backwards in the race and ending up outside the points, never actually being that close. He was generally faster than Magnussen in the races as well as in qualifying when the advantage was significant. In total, he made Q3 on eight occasions, and while second place in Canada stands out, it was quite lucky and the laps in Spain and in Austria were his most impressive. Hulkenberg was clearly the better Haas driver and proved that he was worth his return to the grid in 2023. Hopefully the Haas will have more competitive race pace then.

14. Valtteri Bottas (down two). The first half of Bottas’ season was totally anonymous, and he was often bettered by Zhou, while occasional races when the Alfa Romeo had pace, such as Hungary, seemed to be spoiled by Bottas’ racecraft continuing to be the worst on the grid. It seemed his heart wasn’t really in it anymore. But in the second half of the year, he stepped up a level and managed to consistently outpace Zhou Guanyu, while putting in some occasional flashes of the Bottas who did so brilliantly on his initial signing for Alfa Romeo.

Bottas’ season looked like it would go well after a great drive to eighth in Bahrain, but a series of poor results when he had no pace at all such as Jeddah, Baku and Catalunya which was affected by damage, turned this into a one-off. In the second half of the year, Bottas was almost always ahead of his teammate and scored points in Monza and Qatar with good drives, while he made Q3 again in Mexico and in Las Vegas where he was unlucky not to score. But the car was good enough for so much more in Hungary. I think Bottas is probably past it now, and while he was much better at Mercedes than he was given credit for, it is now time to retire.

15. Daniel Ricciardo (up four). The whole point of the Red Bull second team, in all its guises, is to test out and develop drivers who might one day have a chance of driving for Red Bull. And so it was an absolute no-brainer to drop Nyck de Vries and give Ricciardo the second half of the season to prove his worth. Had he performed as he did in 2020 and previously, he could have taken the Red Bull seat for 2024 from the underperforming Perez. But if he drove like he did with McLaren, he could have been ditched at the end of the season. The hand injury sustained in Zandvoort prevented Ricciardo from getting the full half-season and spoiled the plan somewhat, meaning he is having a second season with Alpha Tauri, but on the evidence of this half-season, he unfortunately looked more like McLaren Ricciardo than Renault or Red Bull Ricciardo.

The one exception to this came in Mexico City, where Ricciardo brilliantly qualified fourth and finished seventh, although Tsunoda’s penalties made it hard to judge how much this was down to the car. Hungary was also a good performance as he outqualified Tsunoda and recovered well after being hit on the first lap. But the rest of the season, he was outpaced by his teammate who is not considered a future champion and who was soundly beaten by Gasly in 2021-2022. Even if Tsunoda has improved, it did not look like Ricciardo at his best and while I think he should be given half a season next year to prove that he can still be a Red Bull driver again, the half-season he should have got this year before the interruptions, if Ricciardo is not clearly better than Tsunoda next year then it would make sense to replace him with Liam Lawson at mid-season.

16. Sergio Perez (down eight). For most of his career, Perez was among the top drivers in the midfield, and although 2021 was slightly disappointing, he showed in 2022 that he was the ideal second driver for Red Bull. But this season, Perez’s level dropped significantly, and he had by far the worst season of his career. Yes, he completed his ultimate job of finishing second in the championship, but there has never been an easier set of circumstances to do that, driving a dominant, 100% reliable car that is the fastest at every race bar one, and with the closest challengers so inconsistent that Hamilton ended up as his closest rival despite the Mercedes being the fourth-best car at most races, and him not having his best season. Perez started the season well with the win in Jeddah where he held off Verstappen, and Baku being pretty much on merit.

But after Verstappen hunted him down and beat him in Miami from ninth on the grid, Perez’s season turned sour. While Verstappen was consistently and relentlessly delivering race wins, only three more times did Perez qualify in the top six on the grid despite having the best car for another 16 races, often missing Q3 due to track limit violations, or mistakes, or sometimes just a complete lack of pace. He usually was better in the races when recovering, but only in Spa and Monza did he manage to finish second in a car that Verstappen won every race after Baku in, bar one. And Perez made so many silly errors that cost him points, such as turning in on Leclerc in Mexico, t-boning Albon in Singapore and Magnussen in Japan, or getting penalties in Zandvoort and Abu Dhabi that cost him podiums, or losing battles with Alonso and Leclerc on the final lap in Brazil and Las Vegas despite having a faster car. And Monaco was the worst of all with a crash in qualifying and multiple incidents in the race. He is fortunate to have kept his Red Bull drive for another season due to a lack of other options, but in any other year but 2023 he would have lost second in the championship. Being teammate to Verstappen seems to have mentally drained Perez and he is unlikely to get a contract extension. Hopefully he finds his form again in a lesser team from 2025, rather than retiring.

17. Zhou Guanyu (no change). Perhaps the most anonymous driver on the grid in 2023, Zhou seemed to have made a step up from his rookie season and was generally closer to Bottas, although Bottas also looked less competitive than previously. Zhou had a few strong races where he scored points and pretty much matched his teammate in the first half of the season, before falling behind in the second half and it was difficult to make an impression in a car that was among the weakest on the grid, with fewer occasional rounds where it was quick than the Haas, Williams or Alpha Tauri.

One such round was Hungary and Zhou did make the most of qualifying by beating Bottas to fifth on the grid, although he fluffed the start and then hit Ricciardo and ended up well outside the points. Qatar was another such race, and he did very well to make the points, just behind his teammate. His best drive of the season came in Spain where Bottas struggled with damage, but Zhou was much faster than him and finished ninth on merit. There weren’t really any significant mistakes apart from skating off in the wet in Zandvoort, and he was certainly better than other drivers on the grid, but generally Zhou wasn’t really fast enough, and it is difficult to see him retaining his seat once Audi take over Sauber and the need for his money is less.

18. Kevin Magnussen (down four). For many years, I had wondered if the Grosjean-Magnussen pairing at Haas was actually leaving more time on the table than appeared to be the case. And while he was better than Mick Schumacher in 2022, it wasn’t by much and Schumacher seemed to have more potential, raising questions about if the right Haas driver had made way for Hulkenberg. Unfortunately, 2023 was a terrible season for Magnussen and he was comfortably outpaced by the returning Hulkenberg, particularly in qualifying, although the car perhaps didn’t suit his driving style as well as it did Hulkenberg’s.

Magnussen did have some decent races, with Miami a particularly strong one as he qualified a fortunate fourth but held onto a point, and he also scored points in Jeddah and Singapore, where he qualified brilliantly. Qualifying in Las Vegas was another highlight and he generally got closer to Hulkenberg as the season progressed, but these were exceptions and in general he was usually struggling to clear Q1 while his teammate made the top ten, and then falling to the back in races as the Haas ate its tyres. But it wasn’t enough to rate him above the bottom group of drivers for the season. Magnussen hasn’t ever lived up to the promise of his first season in 2014 and I suspect 2024 might be his final season in Formula 1. However, it is possible that the next car will work better and suit him more and he could get the better of Hulkenberg.

19. Lance Stroll (down four). Although he has always been among the least competitive drivers in Formula 1, Stroll has always had the occasional great performance in him and in the last few years, seemed to be becoming more consistent. However, he took a significant step backwards in 2023 and had his worst season for some time. Perhaps it was the introduction of Fernando Alonso to the team that made Stroll look particularly bad, but he was frequently a huge margin off the pace of his teammate, and also got involved in too many incidents.

Stroll did have a good start and end to the season, with sixth in Bahrain with the injured hand probably his best drive, and a possible top six lost to mechanical problems in Jeddah. He found his form again in Brazil with a fine drive to fifth, and was quick also in Las Vegas and in Abu Dhabi. But there was an extended time between those races when he was miles off Alonso’s pace, particularly in Miami, Canada, Zandvoort although this was a theme at almost every race and making too many mistakes, such as crashing in Singapore and getting in many incidents in Monaco and Silverstone. There were rumours of him leaving Formula 1 at the end of the season and while the improved form at the end will surely keep him in until the end of 2024 and he still has the seat as long as he wants it for now, maybe Lawrence Stroll will decide to sell the team in the near future. Felipe Drugovich would surely have scored more points in the Aston Martin this year.

20. Nyck de Vries. For a driver to lose their seat after just ten races is harsh, particularly considering De Vries is a Formula 2 champion, a Formula e champion, and had had such an extraordinary debut in Monza 2022 where he finished ninth. The sacking was probably more a reflection on the team’s need to test out Ricciardo, but at Alpha Tauri, De Vries never gave the impression he would become even an average Formula 1 driver, certainly not a potential Red Bull driver, so it made far more sense to run Ricciardo. The fact that Liam Lawson performed so much better relative to Tsunoda when suddenly put in the car mid-season was a poor reflection on De Vries.
De Vries didn’t have any terrible weekends apart from Baku, where he crashed in qualifying and the race, but generally he was quite some distance off Tsunoda’s pace, beating him only in Monaco after his teammate suffered brake problems although that was still a decent drive. He is highly unlikely to drive in Formula 1 again, but is returning to Formula e where hopefully he will win races once more.

21. Logan Sargeant. Perhaps it is harsh to rank him below De Vries, but it is based on the fact that De Vries was slow and uncompetitive but made only one significant mistake in Baku, whereas Sargeant crashed on multiple occasions but was still a long way off Alex Albon’s pace and never outqualified him all season. I would still say that Sargeant has more potential than De Vries as he had a few strong weekends, but it was a disappointing season, and I am quite surprised that he looks set to keep his Williams drive for next year.

The highlights of Sargeant’s season were his first race in Bahrain, finishing twelfth and very close to Albon, while Interlagos and Silverstone were also near-misses of the points, and he managed it in Austin which was quite fortunate after the disqualifications and the decision not to review the results after track limit infringements went unpunished. Qualifying seventh in Las Vegas was also a brilliant result and probably the best moment of his season. But Sargeant ranks at the bottom because he crashed too often and made too many unforced errors like Singapore and Japan, while still never really being on the pace of teammate Alexander Albon. He will probably get a second season, but I don’t expect him to last much longer than that in Formula 1.

No rank – Liam Lawson. Five races isn’t quite enough for a fair ranking, but Liam Lawson had a very impressive cameo appearance and definitely deserves a Formula 1 drive in the future. He matched up to Tsunoda at least as well as Ricciardo did in the second Alpha Tauri despite being a rookie joining mid-season with no testing, and both Singapore and Japan were fantastic races, making Q3 and scoring points in the former and beating his teammate on merit in the latter. Apparently he has already got a drive with Alpha Tauri for 2025, but I think he might be in the car from the summer break onwards next season, either because Ricciardo has been deemed not good enough and dropped, or deemed certainly good enough and promoted.