[Driver] Drivers rating

[Taxi645]

Ok, I might have missed it (couldn't find any thread on it), but how do you rate the current line up of drivers based on the performance last 12-18 months?

I'll go first:


9.5+
Hamilton
Verstappen

9
Ricciardo

8.5
Vettel
Leclerc (trending up)

8+
Hulkenberg
Perez
Sainz
Norris (trending up)

8
Raikkonen
Bottas

7.5
Kvyat
Giovinazzi
Gasly (current situation makes him look bad)
Magnussen
Russell (hard to tell)
Albon (trending up)

7
Grosjean
Stroll

5
Kubica


EDIT: changed it from current-ish season to last 12-18 months.

[S griffin]

I like the list, although giving Gasly 7.5 might be a bit generous. 6 more like

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by S griffin

I like the list, although giving Gasly 7.5 might be a bit generous. 6 more like

I think, if given the chance Gasly will have a better 2nd half of the season (because he to will benefit from the engine and aero improvements, which will help him even more to feel more at home in the car).

The 2019 front wing change made the Red Bull very tricky to drive (lacking downforce and downforce consistency). Add to that the fact a) the car is completely built around Verstappen, b) in Austria in the race Gasly didn't have the aero upgrades Max had (and seemed to be very effective in addressing the aero issues with the car) and finally c) didn't have the Honda turned to 11.

Apart from that, anyone next to Verstappen will look somewhat worse than before. Last year Gasly performances were actually quite good. Maybe a 7 then.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

Ok, I might have missed it (couldn't find any thread on it), but how do you rate the current line up of drivers based on the current-ish season?

What criteria are you judging the rating on, and I'm guessing it is out of 10?

There are already a couple of ways that this is being done elsewhere, so interesting to see the comparison.

Autosport produce a list of driver rankings both by their staff and readers.
F1 official site produces a Power Rankings chart.
And obviously here, we have the DOTR polls.
Combining them all into one table gives:

Driver	Autosport	Readers	F1 Power	DOTR	Combined
Max Verstappen	8.78	8.38	45.1	7.11	8.88
Lewis Hamilton	8.67	8.43	44.1	6.89	8.77
Carlos Sainz	8.56	8.09	41.6	5.11	8.08
Valtteri Bottas	8.00	7.86	40.9	4.67	7.73
Charles Leclerc	7.44	7.52	39.2	5.56	7.64
Daniel Ricciardo	7.11	6.94	36.2	7	7.63
Kimi Räikkönen	7.44	7.32	37.8	5.67	7.55
Lando Norris	7.44	7.56	39.9	4.56	7.44
Daniil Kvyat	7.44	7.10	37.4	4.78	7.25
Sergio Pérez	8.00	7.28	36.9	3.67	7.14
George Russell	7.89	7.47	37.9	3.33	7.12
Sebastian Vettel	7.11	6.71	38.1	4.78	7.11
Alexander Albon	6.78	6.94	37.9	4.44	6.99
Nico Hülkenberg	7.22	6.95	35	3.44	6.71
Kevin Magnussen	7.11	6.72	34	3.33	6.54
Romain Grosjean	6.89	6.17	33	2.78	6.16
Antonio Giovinazzi	6.44	5.96	32	3.44	6.12
Lance Stroll	6.33	5.62	31	4	6.09
Robert Kubica	6.33	5.54	30	3.89	5.99
Pierre Gasly	5.44	5.19	29	3.56	5.55

** Estimates have been made for some of the lower drivers in the F1 Power ranking
Combined score is weighted to #/10**

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

What criteria are you judging the rating on,

I don't have a list of criteria or numbers to base my opinion on perse. It's just my assessment if one were to ask me; given an equal (not built around you) car and team treatment, how good would you think each would perform in a championship?

I try to the best of my abilities to exclude the influence of level of the car and the team from the equation. Call me unscientific or anything, but I estimate a lot of things by intuition. A very tricky method I admit, but often underrated as well.

and I'm guessing it is out of 10?

Correct.

There are already a couple of ways that this is being done elsewhere, so interesting to see the comparison.

Autosport produce a list of driver rankings both by their staff and readers.
F1 official site produces a Power Rankings chart.
And obviously here, we have the DOTR polls.
Combining them all into one table gives:

** Estimates have been made for some of the lower drivers in the F1 Power ranking
Combined score is weighted to #/10**

Cool, thanks for putting in this compilation. I'm quite critical of some of these list, because they tend to be too much influenced by car performance, jingoism and other stuff. However it is indeed interesting to see those list and what we all think.

[steve_r]

Hamilton & Verstappen - 9 or 10

Stroll, Kubica, Grosjean, Giovanazzi - 5

2018 Gasly - 7

2019 Gasly - 5

Everyone else - 6 to 8

[Richard C]

The list crmalcolm put together... I can't argue with that one. My main comments here are...

1. Poor Gasly. It just seems his season has gone rather badly. Will RBR keep him in the car next year?
2. Poor Kubica. His car may be garbage, but his teammate is outshining him.
3. An improving McLaren is helping Norris to show his stuff.
4. It would be interesting to see Russell in a better car.

Richard

[S griffin]

Have to say the three rookies Albon, Norris and Russell have looked good so far. Obviously Russell is being held back by his car, but he’s certainly giving it his all, which is encouraging

[gert]

Is this a driver rating over the '19 season, the last 12 months or the last 18 months (i.e. the full '18 season combined with the '19 races we already had)?
That's 3 different things.

If it includes the full '18 season, there's no way Verstappen can be rated as 9.5+ since that would include the start of '18 where he made too many silly errors. Sure, he recovered more than nicely thereafter, but he didn't score too well on Autosport's rating and at one point in time was dead last on that list IIRC.


I can live with the list you put together but I think the rating is too high.
Hamilton and Verstappen would still top my list, but neither would have 9.5 (or 9.5+ even). 9.5 would be near perfect, and that's not exactly true IMO. Both have had had less briliiant moments too (e.g Verstappen's first 3rd of 2018 if you include that) so a 9.5 average would surely be out of reach.
(But so would be the 9 for Ricciardo, the 8.5 for Vettel and Leclerc etc etc ...)


I think Ricciardo would be a bit lower on my list and Sainz would be higher up.

Bottas should be higher up if it is only '19, but I'm not really sure what is included and what not.

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by gert

Is this a driver rating over the '19 season, the last 12 months or the last 18 months (i.e. the full '18 season combined with the '19 races we already had)?
That's 3 different things.

Apologies for not getting the original question clear. Try to answer the question:
Given an equal (not built around you) car and team treatment, how good would you think each would perform in a championship?

If it includes the full '18 season, there's no way Verstappen can be rated as 9.5+ since that would include the start of '18 where he made too many silly errors. Sure, he recovered more than nicely thereafter, but he didn't score too well on Autosport's rating and at one point in time was dead last on that list IIRC.


I can live with the list you put together but I think the rating is too high.
Hamilton and Verstappen would still top my list, but neither would have 9.5 (or 9.5+ even). 9.5 would be near perfect, and that's not exactly true IMO. Both have had had less briliiant moments too (e.g Verstappen's first 3rd of 2018 if you include that) so a 9.5 average would surely be out of reach.
(But so would be the 9 for Ricciardo, the 8.5 for Vettel and Leclerc etc etc ...)

So it's not perse a reflection of show performance, but rather how good a driver are they. In that light you shouldn't see a 10 as the best possible performance possible, but rather the best than can be humanly expected of a driver (and as we know, humans make mistakes).

I think Ricciardo would be a bit lower on my list and Sainz would be higher up.

Bottas should be higher up if it is only '19, but I'm not really sure what is included and what not.

Bottas surprised me start of the season, but he seemed to have stopped over performing.


Ricciardo, beat Vettel and gave Verstappen a good run for his money, I felt he was a slightly tougher teammate for Max than Sainz, but only slight.

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

The list crmalcolm put together... I can't argue with that one. My main comments here are...

1. Poor Gasly. It just seems his season has gone rather badly. Will RBR keep him in the car next year?
2. Poor Kubica. His car may be garbage, but his teammate is outshining him.
3. An improving McLaren is helping Norris to show his stuff.
4. It would be interesting to see Russell in a better car.

Richard

1 Gasly; I think having to drive a car that has the combination of not suiting your driving style AND being aerodynamically inconsistent, does provide the right platform to perform. If the Austria aero updates have indeed adressed the latter, than at least he'll have a car he can have SOME confidence in.
2 Kubica, yeah it was a nice story while it lasted, but F1 is a though world.
3 Mclaren: Norris and Sainz both!
4 Russel: For sure!

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

I think, if given the chance Gasly will have a better 2nd half of the season (because he to will benefit from the engine and aero improvements, which will help him even more to feel more at home in the car).

The 2019 front wing change made the Red Bull very tricky to drive (lacking downforce and downforce consistency). Add to that the fact a) the car is completely built around Verstappen, b) in Austria in the race Gasly didn't have the aero upgrades Max had (and seemed to be very effective in addressing the aero issues with the car) and finally c) didn't have the Honda turned to 11.

Apart from that, anyone next to Verstappen will look somewhat worse than before. Last year Gasly performances were actually quite good. Maybe a 7 then.

As I was saying:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/gasly-red-bull-fp1-british-gp/4493110/?nrt=54

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

As I was saying:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/g...493110/?nrt=54

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is one practice session, FP1 at that and as the article notes...

light rain limited running in the final half an hour and distorted the order.

Let's see how things progress through the weekend. That's not me saying... he will do poorly, just that it's too early to signal a Gasly rebound.

Richard

[Anyopenroad]

I don't think we can properly judge Verstappen until we have seen how he handles challenging for a title in a properly competitive car.

In a sense at the moment he can only shine by being aggressive and bringing the best out of a car that isn't a title contender.

What Hamilton has learned is how to get the most out of the times things aren't going so well, knowing when to fight and when to take the result, how to handle the mind games and added pressure and microscopic attention to private life and demeanor.

I don't dispute Verstappen is a 9.5+ talent. But there's more to being the best than that. As such I would still put Hamilton in a class of his own above the rest of the field.

I also think 7 is too generous for Stroll. He's out of his depth and only driving because daddy bought him a team.

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by Anyopenroad

I also think 7 is too generous for Stroll. He's out of his depth and only driving because daddy bought him a team.

Yes you are probably correct. I do feel however sometimes he does really well for the talent he has. Thing is a driver like Verstappen has so much brain capacity left apart from driving an F1 car at the limit that he can easily handle stuff like rain, cars around him, strategy, tyre management.

For a driver like Stroll that's quite different probably the reason why things fall apart much more easily.

[S griffin]

Stroll has talent, but doesn't show it often enough. He had a good race in Canada and did once get a podium at Baku, thanks to staying out of trouble, while more experienced drivers didn't.

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Stroll has talent, but doesn't show it often enough. He had a good race in Canada and did once get a podium at Baku, thanks to staying out of trouble, while more experienced drivers didn't.

Of course he has some degree of talent otherwise daddy money would not suffice to be in F1. However, relatively speaking, I reckon he makes mistakes much more often.

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is one practice session, FP1 at that and as the article notes...



Let's see how things progress through the weekend. That's not me saying... he will do poorly, just that it's too early to signal a Gasly rebound.

Richard

So as I was saying....

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

So as I was saying....

I haven't watched the race yet, but it seems from reports that he did well! Hope he keeps it up.

Richard