Top 10 drivers currently in F1

[trackdemon]

Spurred on by chat elsewhere (and not wanting to deflect that) I thought there might be an interesting debate as to who are the top ten drivers currently driving (or have driven this season for De Vries/Nico fans) in F1. Or, of course, 78 pages of bickering

1 Lewis Hamilton - obvious one isn't it? He entered F1 with exceptional speed and has only added to that with racecraft, maturity and leadership. His record speaks for itself.

2 Fernando Alonso - not so obvious. Arguably a man his own worst enemy with some poor careers choices (not least buddying up with a certain Flav), but on his day he has everything. His racecraft, aggression and absolute ability to nail quali laps for an entire race put him just ahead of 3rd place for me. 2 WC's doesn't do him justice, and it must be galling to know he's a handful of points short of 4 or 5 WC's. What could have been.

3 Max Verstappen - this'll be divisive as I bet many will think he should be 1 or 2 places higher. He probably should, but it's my OP Incredible speed, and has developed a level of consistency that shows he's matured nicely. I'd love to see him outside the RB bubble to judge him as a driver on his own; I feel all the greats prove their worth in more than one team.

4 George Russell - Hardly ever puts a foot wrong. I'm not convinced his incident with Valtteri @ Imola was anything but 50/50 and the fact he was even there in a Williams was impressive. As was his stunning stand in drive. As is his performance this season; it would be easy to sit in the shadow of the statistical GOAT, but he's proven he's probably just as fast on a Saturday whilst his Sunday drives are nearly Lewis' equal. Surely a WC in waiting if MB don't screw up the car in years to come.

4 Lando Norris - What a driver Lando is becoming (has become?). That's not judging against an off form DR, he just keeps on improving and extracts performance from an apparently tricky McLaren beyond what you might expect. And that's before factoring in his age, as a driver he seems mature beyond his years now and it shows in his lack of mistakes as he just bangs in performance after performance Saturday & Sunday. Really hope McLaren can deliver a car he can challenge up front in soon.

6 Charles Leclerc - Probably the last one I think is truly top level and could compete with any of those above in equal machinery. Just fantastically quick, and when it's going right he's untouchable. Still too error prone, but I bet that'll be ironed out in time (perhaps easier if he moves away from Ferrari).

7 Carlos Sainz - Ferrari was a big move, and he's shown himself to be more than up to the job. If Charles wasn't there he'd be a worthy leader. Might be a tiny margin off the ultimate Saturday pace of the other guys but it's fine margin stuff. Arguably more consistent than Charles too.

8 Pierre Gasly - Has shown impressive speed so often including that win. I wonder how he'd go in a Max free RB environment? But I can't ignore he didn't make the grade last time. Always seems capable of dragging an excellent points result out of the AT if it's dialled into the circuit.

9 Esteban Ocon - Good driver, likeable guy. Close enough to Fernando on pure pace to be impressive (yes I know he's higher in the WC, for reasons) and I think it's always an interesting measure of someone mental strength to be out the sport then come back in and perform. I think it's fair to say he has. Team leader material? Lets see if Alpine can give him a good car next season....

10 Nikita M.... just kidding. Tricky one this but I'm giving it to Sergio ahead of Bottas and Albon. We all know how difficult an environment RB seems to be with Max de facto no1, but Sergio seems an excellent fit - the best to try that seat in recent times. As Monaco showed, he's able to nick a win when Max can't and usually qualifies & scores pretty well. Certainly the delta is less than most of the recent incumbents of that seat. Some great drives in the past, he's obviously not WC level but I'd argue he's better at RB than Valtteri was @ MB.

There you go, tear me a new one. I'm sure some folks will think discounting Seb & Dan Ric because they've gone off the boil is harsh, but as much as I considered excellent past performance I naturally look at current performance too and they're not what they were sadly.

I've went for multiple options as I think it'll give a more balanced result, plus I dare say some can't separate Max & Lewis or Alonso & Leclerc.....

Edited by trackdemon on Tuesday 13th September 21:27

[trackdemon]

Paul671 said:

Verstappen should be top of this list. His horrible delusional fans let him down and he's a filthy driver when he's challenged but he is on top form right now, untouchable this season.

I'm not looking purely at current form. More a general feeling of who's THE BEST overall, which has to include past achievements

[trackdemon]

MustangGT said:

I would put Lewis at the top of the tree, with George, Lando, Max and Charles as approximately equal, possibly Max below them. He has proven to be blindingly fast in the RB, but for me, there are still questions about his race-craft, he has not really been in a position to be called upon to use it yet this year. Last year his race-craft was definitely very poor, consisting of move over or crash. I also think Danny should be on there based on his earlier performances.

Fair enough, although I think Max is so imperiously faster than anyone he's been up against for years he deserves 3rd. His ultimate test will be moving to another team and/or when there is a genuine season long competition (like last season, where he showed himself less capable than Lewis). I know Danny is harsh, and I really want to see him bounce back, but his performance post RB - and particularly at McLaren - just dragged him out of the 10 for me.

[trackdemon]

Bo_apex said:

No Bottas ?

He beat all the other teams when at Mercedes.

Yup, harsh I know. But he beat others in the Merc when it was by far the best car, and often showed an inability to get through the field despite its superiority.

[trackdemon]

ajprice said:

BUt wHeRe iS tEh GOAT LATIFI?!?!?!

Busy looking at De Vries data

[trackdemon]

Zarco said:

Great poll btw.

Can we change it to list all the drivers and then pick 10? Might make sense then.

That's a good shout actually, I'll see if I can do that...

[trackdemon]

StevieBee said:

The problems with polls like this is determining the metrics upon which judgement is made.

Statistically, the list proposed by the OP is spot on. But that doesn't really make for lively debate so by what measures are we considering the rank order? Or is it just case of what we feel?

If the latter, then at the moment i 'feel' that Sainz is a better driver than Leclerc. But I can't clearly articulate why I feel that.

It's a good point, hence thinking a poll over time might give a clear picture. Stats only tell you some of the story, a lot of what I've written is stats mixed with gut feeling - and it's just an opinion so as valid a method as any....

[trackdemon]

C70R said:

Performance statistics only work when they are relevent, otherwise Schumacher would be in with a shout of being on this list.

To put Alonso, who hasn't won a GP in almost a decade, in second place made me stop reading properly there. That's nonsense.

Opinions and buttholes eh? Anyway, seeing as you think this is a load of crap I presume you'll toddle off....

[trackdemon]

trackdemon said:

Zarco said:

Great poll btw.

Can we change it to list all the drivers and then pick 10? Might make sense then.

That's a good shout actually, I'll see if I can do that...

Sadly not possible. I can change the existing ones but cannot add more....

[trackdemon]

Zarco said:

C70R said:

"Ooh, I'm going to post something controversial up and tell people to do one if they don't agree with it"

Ironic when you're the one who thinks Alonso is just some bloke who hasn't won in a decade.

you (C70) may think what I posted was controversial, but that's just your opinion. Just like what I posted is mine. But yeah, trolling and all that

[trackdemon]

Siao said:

I agree, the selection is rather limited!

Yep, soz about that. I'm not sure you can put more than 10 as it seems the default max, so naturally I just put in those I thought were the best 10 on the current grid....

[trackdemon]

KaraK said:

1. Hamilton - The most complete driver since Schumacher Snr, and while it's not the question I'd say LH and MSC sit in a bracket all of their own in the modern era. Only some uncharacteristic clumsy mistakes in the first half of the season last year and a butchering of the safety car rules cost him an 8th title.

2. Verstappen - He's undeniably a very special talent and incredibly, incredibly fast and makes very few errors - but he's not the perfect driver Christian Horner, Helmut Marko and David Coulthard would have us believe. His racecraft is dodgy as fk, veering into outright dirty at points. He's shown signs of improvement and maturing this year but it's hard to say how well that will hold if he finds himself with his back up against the wall again so the jury is still out for me.

3. Russell / Norris - I can't split them tbh, Russell has clearly shown himself to be the real-deal pace wise and his racecraft looks good. The rookie mistakes seem to have dried up but he's yet to find himself in a sustained high-pressure situation. Norris has gone from strength to strength and pulled off some incredible results in a midfield car, everyone focuses on the Ricciardo side of the equation but I don't think Lando gets enough credit. Rather than it being 100% that Dan has been "that bad" I think a fair portion of it is that Lando is "that good"

5. Leclerc - I reckon Charles is as fast as Verstappen/Norris/Russell and he's shown a cool headed crafty racecraft that I rate highly. But he still makes far too many rookie mistakes (none of the guys above him in this list would have dropped it like he did in France for example), if he can't get on top of that he's never going to be a champion so long as one of the above is in a competitive car.

6. Alonso - the old fox is as wily as ever and still has plenty of speed to back that up, but he has this incredible self-destructive streak out of the car and metaphorically speaking every time a light bulb blows he burns the house down and goes to live in the shed.

7. Sainz - Very fast, great racecraft, but he's prone to overdriving when he's on the back foot and makes silly mistakes. Also he's never seemed to quite shed that mid-field mentality and I don't know if I could see him stringing a championship campaign together.

8. Albon - since he (more or less) escaped the environment at Red Bull he's got his head on straight and pulled out some impressive performances in a not-at-all impressive Williams

9. Gasly - I'm putting him above Perez because I think his highest peaks are higher than Sergio can manage, even if Sergio manages to be more consistent. I'm also giving him a fair amount of slack here because he's been vacillating between anonymous and shoddy this year

10. Perez - There's a valid place in F1 for a solid journeyman, someone who is largely a safe pair of hands you can trust to bag consistent constructor points, and of all the journeymen currently there Perez is the best. Fast enough to not only get those points but also to bring himself into play as a strategic piece (particularly with his tire-preservation skills), the gap to Verstappen has increased since the car's handling swung more to Max's style than his own (not knocking RBR for that in the slightest BTW- the Max-spec car has a higher overall performance and you'd have to be an idiot not to want to give your main championship hope the best car you can)

Solid assessment, nice

[trackdemon]

Presuming Ed said:

If your talking whos has the best record over the last 10 years then obviously Hamilton but no way is he number 1 this season.

If I'm a team boss looking to put 2 drivers in a new team for next year I'd choose (in roughly this order)
Max
George Russell
Lando Norris
Charlie Leclerc
Lewis
Carlos Sainz
Albon
Alonso
Ocon
Perez

Nope, it's far than just a statistical analysis otherwise there'd be no point in a poll. I'm interested in gut feel based on the drivers overall performance up to now (which naturally includes stats)

[trackdemon]

Zarco said:

oyster said:

Zarco said:

Great poll btw.

Can we change it to list all the drivers and then pick 10? Might make sense then.

Yet 65 (at the time of this post) have voted? Peculiar.

The OP definitely asks which are the 10 best drivers currently in F1, then duly offers a poll of just 10 to choose from.
I bet I can guess what the 10 will be

It's not like you can even select them in order either

Jeez. Don't like it, don't participate It's not like I could put any more than 10 in the list, so obviously I was going to put my personal 10.

For the apparently hard of thinking, the voting system will (and has) created an order from the 10 listed. Geddit?

[trackdemon]

Tbf Alonso has had 3 DNF this season to Estebans 1. His average is 4.5 per race he finishes, so giving him another 13/14 puts him well in front of Ocon... tbf Ocon had one DNF too, but Fernando would still be in front all things being equal.

[trackdemon]

C70R said:

trackdemon said:

Tbf Alonso has had 3 DNF this season to Estebans 1. His average is 4.5 per race he finishes, so giving him another 13/14 puts him well in front of Ocon... tbf Ocon had one DNF too, but Fernando would still be in front all things being equal.

So you're saying that edging Esteban Ocon is sufficient criteria to be the second best driver on the grid? Surely that makes Ocon third?

Or, you know, you could just read what I wrote in the OP. But you're not here to add anything constructive and will see what you want to see, ergo I'll just ignore

[trackdemon]

Zarco said:

HustleRussell said:

oyster said:

I can still not like it and comment!

Is it best currently or best historically of those currently in F1?

See thread title

Is it current form or over their career? Title could be taken both ways.

People could argue the likes of Vettel are not as good as they used to be.

My thinking was over their career + current form; hence Vettel & Danny not making my 10. But it's naturally open to interpretation, so if your gut feel is that Lando is the best, give him a vote!

[trackdemon]

kambites said:

Yeah because the second one makes no sense whatsoever. The thread title is utterly unambiguous!

I thought so. I also thought this might create some lively but interesting debate, but PH being what it is nowadays it's just being dragged into pedantry. Shame, but useful reminder why folks don't bother

[trackdemon]

paulguitar said:

Are you starting to regret this thread, OP?

I very rarely start threads these days, after making an appalling error of judgment by doing a thread asking if I could live without cruise control. I had NO IDEA of the upset and wailing that was to come...

Regret too strong a word, but I should have known better

[trackdemon]

C70R said:

But, in fairness to the OP, Alonso has scored 7 points less than Ocon this year. So he must surely be in with a shout.

Does being a dick come easily to you or does it take practice? Either way you're doing an excellent job

Alonso 3 DNF
Ocon 1 DNF

Alonso 2WC
Ocon 0WC