2023 Driver Ratings

[ralphrj]

Autosport scores for 1st half, 2nd half and overall:

1H Rank	Driver	Score	2H Rank	Driver	Score	Overall Rank	Driver	Score
1	Leclerc	8.55	1	Verstappen	9.00	1	Verstappen	8.73
2	Verstappen	8.45	2	Hamilton	7.73	2	Leclerc	8.09
3	Russell	8.27	3=	Leclerc	7.64	3	Russell	7.82
4	Hamilton	7.73	3=	Alonso	7.64	4	Hamilton	7.73
5	Norris	7.36	5=	Russell	7.36	5	Norris	7.32
6	Sainz	6.91	5=	Sainz	7.36	6	Alonso	7.23
7=	Alonso	6.82	7=	Norris	7.27	7	Sainz	7.14
7=	Perez	6.82	7=	Ocon	7.27	8	Ocon	7.00
9	Vettel	6.78	9	Vettel	6.82	9	Vettel	6.80
10	Ocon	6.73	10	Perez	6.73	10	Perez	6.77

Edited by ralphrj on Tuesday 22 November 14:28

[PhilAsia]

mat205125 said:

ralphrj said:

Autosport's score out of 10 averaged over the season

Rank	Driver	Score
1	Verstappen	8.73
2	Leclerc	8.09
3	Russell	7.82
4	Hamilton	7.73
5	Norris	7.32
6	Alonso	7.23
7	Sainz	7.14
8	Ocon	7.00
9	Vettel	6.80
10	Perez	6.77

No idea if the raw data is available to be able to analyse, but would be really interesting to see the scores split in two, for the first and second half of the season.

I'm predicting an improvement in ranking for Sainz, a switch in places for Russell and Hamilton, and pretty much the same for others, if comparing the 2nd half of the season to the 1st.

I'd agree with that...EDIT lol except for Sainz (after turning the page) I thought he had finished strongly...??

Edited by PhilAsia on Tuesday 22 November 14:35

[ralphrj]

PhilAsia said:

I'd agree with that...EDIT lol except for Sainz (after turning the page) I thought he had finished strongly...??

Edited by PhilAsia on Tuesday 22 November 14:35

He did sort of. His average score was better but others improved as well.

[MustangGT]

HustleRussell said:

Zhou immediately exceeded my expectations (which weren't dismal). He had more pace and more fight in him from the get-go than I thought he would, and I cannot recall him making any blunders.

[Rant on]
Absolutely not getting at you HR, you are one of the more sensible posters on here.

But, I really hate that Americanism, what is wrong with 'start' or 'beginning'? It is as bad as 'gaining traction' when talking about anything other than vehicles.

[Rant off]

[MustangGT]

PhilAsia said:

mat205125 said:

ralphrj said:

Autosport's score out of 10 averaged over the season

Rank	Driver	Score
1	Verstappen	8.73
2	Leclerc	8.09
3	Russell	7.82
4	Hamilton	7.73
5	Norris	7.32
6	Alonso	7.23
7	Sainz	7.14
8	Ocon	7.00
9	Vettel	6.80
10	Perez	6.77

No idea if the raw data is available to be able to analyse, but would be really interesting to see the scores split in two, for the first and second half of the season.

I'm predicting an improvement in ranking for Sainz, a switch in places for Russell and Hamilton, and pretty much the same for others, if comparing the 2nd half of the season to the 1st.

I'd agree with that...EDIT lol except for Sainz (after turning the page) I thought he had finished strongly...??

Edited by PhilAsia on Tuesday 22 November 14:35

I agree with that in general, however, I would deduct a full 2.0 points from Max, simply because he is incapable of driving any where near Lewis without attempting to take him out. As witnessed several times again this year, not least AD practice and the Brazil race.

[wiliferus]

Generally agree with the OPs ratings.

However, my sticking point will always be Gasly. I just don’t rate him. He entered F1 to a fanfare with high expectations. He’s delivered very very little to show that he’s something a bit special.

That said, the Ocon Gasly show in ‘23 could be very interesting. I’ll be fascinated to see who comes out on top as the competitiveness is going to be off the scale!

[KaraK]

wiliferus said:

Generally agree with the OPs ratings.

However, my sticking point will always be Gasly. I just don’t rate him. He entered F1 to a fanfare with high expectations. He’s delivered very very little to show that he’s something a bit special.

That said, the Ocon Gasly show in ‘23 could be very interesting. I’ll be fascinated to see who comes out on top as the competitiveness is going to be off the scale!

I can't see Gasly making the cut as a top-tier driver worthy of championship(s) - but I do think he has good potential nevertheless. Next year will be very telling IMO. Clear (finally) of a Red Bull environment that didn't want him and that he didn't want to be in and up against a solid midfield yardstick in Ocon. If he doesn't demolish Ocon on the regular we'll know once and for all that he's a midfielder for life.

[heebeegeetee]

KaraK said:

wiliferus said:

Generally agree with the OPs ratings.

However, my sticking point will always be Gasly. I just don’t rate him. He entered F1 to a fanfare with high expectations. He’s delivered very very little to show that he’s something a bit special.

That said, the Ocon Gasly show in ‘23 could be very interesting. I’ll be fascinated to see who comes out on top as the competitiveness is going to be off the scale!

I can't see Gasly making the cut as a top-tier driver worthy of championship(s) - but I do think he has good potential nevertheless. Next year will be very telling IMO. Clear (finally) of a Red Bull environment that didn't want him and that he didn't want to be in and up against a solid midfield yardstick in Ocon. If he doesn't demolish Ocon on the regular we'll know once and for all that he's a midfielder for life.

I was very impressed with Ocon for keeping Hamilton at bay for as long as he did in the wet at Japan.

Conversely, I noticed at the Hairpin at Suzuka on 1st lap, all the drivers kept off the racing line except Sainz, who then immediately binned it of his own accord. I admire Sainz's efforts in doing the best job that he can, but he's clearly not top level. Having said that Charles made yet another mistake at final chicane, but nevertheless I think Charles is clearly way better than Sainz.

Re the driver's ratings, we are told that Hamilton was called upon to do more in the way of trying different set-ups etc of the Merc in the first half of the season (at least), whereas George was allowed to get on with doing his own thing. Do we accept this, and has that been taken into account when rating Hamilton's year?

[KaraK]

heebeegeetee said:

Re the driver's ratings, we are told that Hamilton was called upon to do more in the way of trying different set-ups etc of the Merc in the first half of the season (at least), whereas George was allowed to get on with doing his own thing. Do we accept this, and has that been taken into account when rating Hamilton's year?

I do accept that they were doing that - it was pretty clear that, particularly in FP sessions Merc were trialling and exploring some pretty extreme setups on Lewis' car. Which makes sense from a team point of view - you've got a car you're struggling to understand because the real-world behaviours aren't correlating with what you were able to simulate in the wind tunnel and on CFD so you've got to push, pull and twist all the different setup levers and knobs you have available to try and understand it. Given the extremely limited track time available do you use your relative rookie, whose feedback is going to be naturally limited or do you use the driver you've who is not only the most experienced with the Merc cars but far more F1 experience full stop? This would then have a natural knock-on effect on the rest of the weekend but again the more experienced driver is going to be in a better position to mitigate that impact. It's telling that around the time they stopped doing this so much (Canada) is when Lewis seemed to gain a slight advantage over Russell and started clawing the qualifying head-to-head back and his Sundays improved too.

(As a side note the ability to get up speed quickly is an often overlooked skill IMO - and it's one where Max in particular absolutely excels, the amount of times he'd have a disrupted Friday with reliability issues, or giving FP1 up to the junior etc and it would be like water off a duck's back. All the top-tier drivers are pretty good in that regard but Max is probably the best of the current grid, probably with Alonso not far behind)

So I do cut Lewis some slack in the ratings for that period - if anything doing that sort of work is a positive for him. It may not have a direct visible connection to results but I think doing that sort of work absolutely paid dividends for Merc's overall results in the latter half of the season. What really hurt his rating for me was that, by Hamilton standards, he made a few more clumsy-ish mistakes through the year than would be normal for him.

[vaud]

Not a bad set of ratings.

I think Hamilton gets a bit dinged as he was given extreme setups in the first half of the year as a guinea pig for the dog of a car, I'd probably rate him alongside Russell.

[Rotary Potato]

vaud said:

Not a bad set of ratings.

I think Hamilton gets a bit dinged as he was given extreme setups in the first half of the year as a guinea pig for the dog of a car, I'd probably rate him alongside Russell.

I think past performance casts a long shadow over this year's ratings at Mercedes.

Lewis is a multiple time world champ who has shown (again and again) he can produce amazingly fast and consistent results across a whole season. Anything less than that feels like a step down from his ultimate potential.

George had his first season in a (relatively) competitive car, so had no real historic benchmark to be measured against. His ultimate potential was unknown. Nothing about his performance this year felt like a step down.

So while the two finished very close in absolute terms (ignoring actual points - looking at performances across a season), one took the step up that fans hoped he would - but couldn't be certain about. The other took a step back from his mercurial best that we know he can perform at across a season. And it feels to me like those factors were taken into account in these ratings.

[KaraK]

Rotary Potato said:

I think past performance casts a long shadow over this year's ratings at Mercedes.

Lewis is a multiple time world champ who has shown (again and again) he can produce amazingly fast and consistent results across a whole season. Anything less than that feels like a step down from his ultimate potential.

George had his first season in a (relatively) competitive car, so had no real historic benchmark to be measured against. His ultimate potential was unknown. Nothing about his performance this year felt like a step down.

So while the two finished very close in absolute terms (ignoring actual points - looking at performances across a season), one took the step up that fans hoped he would - but couldn't be certain about. The other took a step back from his mercurial best that we know he can perform at across a season. And it feels to me like those factors were taken into account in these ratings.

Yes to an extent I've taken what I think a driver's "true" level is into account and that's effected (some) of the individual ratings. If asked I'd likely say that Lewis is the best driver on the current grid, but while I think he did a good job this year I don't think he was at his absolute best which does affect how I see his performance this year. By contrast Russell seemed to handle the spotlight that comes with a bigger team well and seemed to improve on some of this weaknesses from previous years, I don't think we've seen Russell's ultimate potential yet - it's still pretty early days in his career.

I don't think it's really possible to ignore this sort of thing - and I don't really think that it would be desirable to do so even if you could. As a silly example if Usain Bolt goes out and runs a 100m race at the Olympics in 12 seconds people will say that he's done a bad job, if (for some reason) I (a forty-something, out of shape bloke with a dodgy knee) am in the next lane over and do an identical time the same people would call it phenomenal.

I think this is one of the key reasons why Ricciardo has come in for so much flak these last two years, including in my list. He's emphatically not a 3/10 driver in general terms - there's no way in hell Stroll is a "better" driver than Daniel for example but he scores higher in this list because Stroll did about as well as could be reasonably expected of him, whereas Danny Ric fell way, way short of how good he can be.

[anonymous-user]

Alonso at Monaco was a laughing stock, his only desire was to lose two seconds a lap on the car in front to keep Lewis behind him. Doesn’t deserve an “8” as per OP. “6” is about right, he shone in a few races but then he has been doing this a while…

[PhilAsia]

pablo said:

Alonso at Monaco was a laughing stock, his only desire was to lose two seconds a lap on the car in front to keep Lewis behind him. Doesn’t deserve an “8” as per OP. “6” is about right, he shone in a few races but then he has been doing this a while…

15 years and 7 (8) WDC of festering bitterness. Quite an incredible attitude for sweet FA to hold on to.

[spikyone]

Presuming Ed said:

Well apart from Lando being given a generous score., I'd have given him a 7/10, it seems rather fair. analysis

Aside from running a bit wide and tagging Leclerc in Brazil I don't remember Lando doing much wrong this year - if anything I'd have given him an 8.5/9. The only guy outside the top 3 teams to take a podium, annihilated his team-mate, and beat both Alpines in the standings. They might have had less reliability but the Alpine was the faster car at most races.

Had Danny Ric been as much as average this season, Lando's performances would've lifted McLaren above Alpine in the standings.

[JonChalk]

spikyone said:

Presuming Ed said:

Well apart from Lando being given a generous score., I'd have given him a 7/10, it seems rather fair. analysis

Aside from running a bit wide and tagging Leclerc in Brazil I don't remember Lando doing much wrong this year - if anything I'd have given him an 8.5/9. The only guy outside the top 3 teams to take a podium, annihilated his team-mate, and beat both Alpines in the standings. They might have had less reliability but the Alpine was the faster car at most races.

Had Danny Ric been as much as average this season, Lando's performances would've lifted McLaren above Alpine in the standings.

The McLaren was a bit of dog in the second half of the season - the Alpine easily had the legs of it most of the time (any time Ocon is on a par with Lando, you know it's the car being st), and so did the AM occasionally.

[PhilAsia]

JonChalk said:

spikyone said:

Presuming Ed said:

Well apart from Lando being given a generous score., I'd have given him a 7/10, it seems rather fair. analysis

Aside from running a bit wide and tagging Leclerc in Brazil I don't remember Lando doing much wrong this year - if anything I'd have given him an 8.5/9. The only guy outside the top 3 teams to take a podium, annihilated his team-mate, and beat both Alpines in the standings. They might have had less reliability but the Alpine was the faster car at most races.

Had Danny Ric been as much as average this season, Lando's performances would've lifted McLaren above Alpine in the standings.

The McLaren was a bit of dog in the second half of the season - the Alpine easily had the legs of it most of the time (any time Ocon is on a par with Lando, you know it's the car being st), and so did the AM occasionally.

I am in your camp. I think that Lando could mix it with Lewis, Max, Russell and Leh Curleyhrke (in that order of racing prowess) - with Lando around Russell levels...all of this IMHO of course...