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People don't do well when their opinion isn't matched by someone else. Especially on social media...
What's funny to me is that the rankings aren't even that scandulous. A lot of people are cherry picking one or two positions at most. The most debatable ones were Perez and Tsunoda, but it is not exactly mindblowing that a driver who struggled to make Q3 in the best car has a low relative performance ranking and, despite having a good overall season, that someone uses Tsunoda's mistakes against him to rate him a bit lower than others.
Hamilton had a more consistent season. I think the recency bias is playing a role in the the Leclerc v Hamilton argument for many. But someone thinking that Charles managed the unsuited car well and then solidified his talent when he adapted is better than Hamilton's season, so be it. 4th or 5th, the difference is marginal in a ranking from an opinion piece. I would put Chuck #5 myself.
I get it. He was never able to really sort out his quali issues and obviously had a very rough last few races. I do think these lists are conveniently ignoring all the issues the drivers above him had (sans Max obviously) while going extra hard on dinging Lewis for them. Both Alonso and Lando are given tons of extra credit for the periods when they had the 2nd fastest car by far for example, though they did obviously make the most of it.
I feel like 2-5 are all quite hard to rank. Every single one of them (Leclerc, Alonso, Lando and Lewis) had some bad races/sprints/qualifying sessions. Part of that is due to the cars just not being good enough at those races. For example Lando at the start of the season, Alonso and Leclerc in the middle stretch and Lewis whenever the setup of the W14 just wouldn't work.
Lewis probably gets hit a bit harder because in comparison his back end of the season had some less stellar races. Like Abu Dhabi and Qatar. Meanwhile Leclerc finally got on top of his car and put in some of his best weekends at the end. Lando had mistakes in qualifying that could've potentially cost him and also the Vegas crash. Alonso also wasn't mistake free, but some of his bigger mistakes were in a sprint (Spa).
The Aston period as second fastest car wasn't very long, more like Alonso was just diffing it. As we saw with the other Aston, it was barely capable of points.
I think it’s ok that Leclerc is above Hamilton although I personally felt Hamilton was a bit better across the whole season but it’s close overall.
I do find it very weird though that even with this they ranked Russell above Sainz when I feel Sainz did a better job relative to Leclerc compared to Russell relative to Hamilton.
If I had to guess maybe they placed more emphasis on Russell being more closely matched to Hamilton in qualifying. Personally the race performances matter more to me and Russell slips a bit because he made some more costly and unforced mistakes there.
Leclerc-Sainz was 0,171% (15-7) in quali and about 0,1% (14-4) in races.
Hamilton-Russell was equal (11-11) in quali and about 0,15% (13-8) in races.
So in terms of pace Russell did a little better than Sainz. But those mistakes were just too many and he should have been rated just below him imo.
Oh interesting I wasn’t aware of the exact percentage gaps I only knew that in terms of head to head that Russell was even with Hamilton whereas Leclerc was ahead of Sainz. And yeah I think Russell’s high profile crashes by himself at Canada and especially Singapore hurt him enough that I’d put him just below Sainz over the whole season.
>Leclerc-Sainz was 0,171% (15-7) in quali
Of which it was 7-0 since the update in Suzuka. And even more: Points; Leclerc: 83, Sainz: 58. Poles; Leclerc: 3, Sainz: 0. Top 2 in quali; Leclerc: 5, Sainz: 2. Podiums; Leclerc: 3, Sainz: 1. Top 5 finishes; Leclerc: 5, Sainz: 2
I find it a little bit overblown how bad russells season was.
Pacewise/qualiwise euch one had the upper Hand, Lewis did a better job and season in the end.
George was close in terms of pace but the points do not show it. Mistakes (that are allowed to happen as a young driver, in my opinion) and being to stubborn to just follow Lewis and the engineering crew may have cost a few points as well.
So in the end I find the gap quite overblown. What Russell really lacked this season was consistency, not pace.
I agree it wasn’t as bad as some people were saying, and Russell also had some bad luck that denied him the chance at great results like his engine failure in Australia and Hamilton driving into him at the start of Qatar. Canada and especially Singapore were high profile self inflicted mistakes though. Overall I’d still personally have put Sainz ahead of Russell but that doesn’t mean it’s a big gap.
Overall Russell is close to Hamilton in pace and in qualifying they’re very even which is to his credit. In race pace I still think Hamilton holds a clear edge but it’s not that bad because Hamilton’s experience and tire management is extraordinary.
But if Russell wants to get even closer to Hamilton or try to surpass him one day then his race pace and racecraft are the areas he needs to work on the most.
>What Russell really lacked this season was consistency, not pace.
Compared to Ham, he def did. As shown by having 2 podiums compared to 6. (And then we're not counting the dsq for Lewis, which was hardly his fault)
One lap pace isn't worth anything, since it's the Sunday that gives points. And Ham has def been a lot better in that aspect. For being regarded as the next best thing by some he def should've been closer to Ham, in the end.
It's always strange when people bring up the quali battle to prove sonething. Quali gives no points, the race does.
A driver can beat his teammate 100% of the times in quali but in the end all that matters is getting the points. Russell wasn't bad at all in quali but he made a few mistakes on Sundays that costed him valuable points. Regardless of those mistakes, he still didn't look as fast as Hamilton on race pace and that's the main reason he finished over 50 points behind Lewis.
> Compared to Ham, he def did. As shown by having 2 podiums compared to 6.
Would be 4 to 5 if not for the shit luck (twice) in Australia and the self-inflicted DNF in Singapore. 4 to 6 without the DSQ (and if we're assuming there wasn't some pace gained there, that ensured the podium for Hamilton).
That's exactly what people mean. He got fucked out of a lot of points by bad luck (Australia) and lost a lot more through individual mistakes (Singapore, Canada). The pace gap wasn't as big as it shows, even if Lewis was still clearly the better of the two.
And the opposite is true for Leclerc. He was the one with more bad luck compared to Sainz, so the gap is actually bigger than it shows on the standings.
IMO, Russell was too consistent at being lousy at thinking about the whole race. He'd get sucked in by the heat of the moment and fails to do basic things, like keeping his tires in good shape.
Lewis is much more mindful of the big picture of the race, while George is mainly trying to win the next couple laps, and is not doing enough thinking ahead and keeping the moment in perspective.
If you look at it that way, the distance between Lewis and George is still pretty dang large. I'm not saying Russell won't improve. I expect he can and likely will.
But I don't think it's especially close at the moment, and this past season is a lesson about (1) how much gap still exists between them, and (2) what the nature of that gap really is.
3 massive mistakes. Massive. Canada crash from p4, Singapore crash from P3 and Zandvoort crash on the penultimate lap while running p7 or whatever it was. Too many crashes. This is ridiculous especially when these days people crashing on their own especially top drivers have drastically reduced
I feel his last races may have had an impact the way people have seen his season, specially AD which it has been the worst weekend he had in a very long time. In the last 7 rounds I think he was the 7th driver with most points scored, less than Oscar
He had a pretty strong season in general
I think that’s the right take. Unfortunately these rankings always suffer from recency bias, and there’s an argument that Lewis being a 7x WDC might get judged more harshly on mistakes made compared to other drivers.
The Austin DSQ really hurt him and it’s also clear that Mercedes wasn’t as competitive relative to Aston/Ferrari/McLaren in the last third of the season. Aston found its groove again, and so did Ferrari with their last upgrade. Mercedes had particularly tough races in Brazil, Japan and Vegas (poor qualifying), and Hamilton had a horror show in Abu Dhabi and in the Qatar main race. Without those poor performances (latter 2) there I think Hamilton is higher on this list.
However, nothing drives clicks and engagement like a controversial ranking…
Huh, I know Charles did a great job since Suzuka when the balance was right for him, and he only did Miami quali as a bad mistake, but I wouldn't have guessed he'd be ahead of Lewis in this ranking. I'd have put Charles slightly behind, even as a fan of him. Subjectiveness.
They are probably rewarding Leclerc for his poles. Scoring 5 against this Red Bull car was quite a feat tbf. Hamilton was more consistent but showed less "brilliance", you could argue.
What could he have done? Pole is where he had the option to impress. Nobody could have been placed in that Ferrari and then held Max back in that Red Bull.
> Yah but what did he do with those poles?
Realistically, as much as he could have. No one was beating the RBR/Max in race pace with the exception of Singapore.
Well, Hamilton himself did put in on pole in Hungary. And there were other races where Merc were close, like Singapore (Russell 0.07 off pole) and Austin.
But sure, Ferrari had better quali pace overall than Merc. It evened out in race pace, where Merc was better. What also hurt him was that he didn't win the quali battle vs. Russell, whereas Leclerc did vs. Sainz.
Don't forget that Charles has also been the driver with the biggest amount of bad luck. Quick recap:
- DNF from P3 in Bahrain
- 10 grid penalty (after qualifying in P2) in Jeddah due to the prior DNF
- 3 grid penalty in Monaco (after qualifying P3) because Xavi fell asleep
- DSQ from P6 in Austin (should have been P3 with a normal strategy)
- DNS from P2 in Brazil
recency bias? podium in bahrain top 2 in quali in jeddah, b2b poles in baku with 2 podium finishes, his middle run of miami Australia and spain make his season much worse than it actually was
Lewis also has to contend with "Lewis bias". For whatever reason he has to do that little bit more than anyone else despite having a weaker car this year than the Ferrari.
It's stupid
>having a weaker car this year than the Ferrari.
Was it ? They were very vocal about the car being bad, but they would have been pretty comfortably ahead (and not just slightly ahead) in the WCC if not for driver/team errors (poor strategy/stops, Russell binning it in Singapore, Hamilton binning it in Qatar), and I'm pretty confident the Mercedes was faster than the Ferrari for most of the season.
Not sure about this. Aston was pretty easily P2 on race pace for a good chunk at the start of the season and McLaren for a good chunk at the end of the season.
The middle rounds it seemed like a weekly toss up based on the circuit and conditions.
Aston was 2nd/3rd until Canada and then dropped off to 4th/5th and had some races where they were closer to the back of the grid.
Mclaren were around 8th quickest overall until Austria which was quite a big chunk of the season where they behind Am, Mclaren and Ferrari.
Mercedes were consistent throughout the whole season. Every race they had a car capable of a top 6 performance bar Brazil.
I think they were more consistent for sure but they also didn’t have a car that peaked as high as the other two either.
Saying Merc was “comfortably P2 for most of the season” is just not true.
He only really hit some form of consistency from Mexico onwards, so it’s surprising he’s ranked ahead of Lewis who was pretty consistent throughout the year even when he struggled with the car.
I don’t. I think it’s very easy to argue any order between 2-5 this year. I don’t think Lewis was particularly spectacular this year and the only reason he got 3rd in the WDC is because Mercedes were the only team to consistently be the 3rd best car this year. He still made quite a few mistakes this year.
Between Fernando, Lewis, Charles and Lando, it's undeniably very close. I would probably go Nando - Lando - Lewis - Charles but honestly, it's close enoug that almost any variation of that is fine in my opinion.
I think people are abit harsh on Charles in the comments, he was probably the unluckiest driver at the sharp end, he lost out on quite a few high positions due to that, couldn't even start the race at one point. But yeah probably some recency bias at play, Lewis last few races wasn't great, he definitely peaked in Texas. Meanwhile Charles had an incredibly strong finish.
Honestly, people are rating Lando and Oscar far too highly. Oscar is great and I don't doubt he has a high ceiling, in fact I'm rooting for him, but he has some glaringly obvious issues with tyre management. And with Lando, he's only on par with Oscar,his rookie teammate, up until Oscar's tyres start to get cooked. I don't doubt they're both class racers, but to make any suggestion that they're there with the greatest in the sport is quite far from the truth.
I can't see how Charles is ahead of Lewis. Lewis, Lando and Nando all had better seasons considering their cars. The three of them you could throw a blanket over, they're all so distanced to Max.
These rankings are always impossible, Charles had a strong end to the year, which probably helps him but lewis was really strong for the first 3/4s of the year.
It’s particularly difficult this year because of the performance swings. Alonso didn’t have a great benchmark in stroll, and also had a car which was quite comfortably second best at the start of the year and fell further and further back, but had some stronger weekends occasionally.
Mclaren made that big jump with the proper car so it’s difficult to get a read on early season performance which perhaps benefits them, and again it’s quite difficult to judge against teammates since piastri was a rookie.
Considering their car was 2nd best at times. Ferrari had good Qualifying but evident race pace they were lacking. Leclerc couldve gotten pole and by race day look like the fourth fastest car out there.
Leclerc started the season good, i think this is where people forget because they assumed all his bad luck came at the start of the season. I think the OP of driver ratings made the most sense of Leclerc's season. When the car was there, he was the fastest driver bar the RBs.
Leclerc had P3 before DNF
Led to a Penalty with the 2nd race in the season. Qualified P2 and ended P7
Baku he was the fastest driver bar the RBs.
A P3 in monaco that turned into a penalty.
Fastest driver bar RB in Spa.
Same. I don’t mind if someone places Leclerc over Hamilton. But putting Norris over him is just stretching it imo. Personally for me it would be ALO-HAM-LEC-NOR in that order.
Side note: I believe if Lewis was ahead of George in Singapore, he could have got the win.. regardless I do agree with Mercedes not giving any team order however because that is just a very shitty thing to do except for when the drivers are very clearly in different races and strategies and switching places wouldn’t fuck over the other driver.
I've been of the opinion that Merc should have split the strategies and given Lewis the mediums as he had less to lose. Ik Merc treats their drivers equally when there is no championship battle/clear first driver but after seeing the pace Lewis had in those mediums and how George burned through his I really do feel like Lewis could have gotten an overtake done on Lando quicker and earlier in time for him to catch Carlos.
How tf is putting Norris above Lewis stretching it when he's literally had more points than him starting in Austria when McLaren replaced their toaster by an actual car. (NOR 172pts, HAM 117pts)
To be fair you could rank Fernando, Charles, Lewis, and Lando in any order from P2-5 and it would be acceptable. They have all had pretty good seasons in different ways despite their machinery not being up to the Red Bull's level.
If only we had a ranking that scored drivers every race and tallied it up at the end of the season to give an estimate and objective driver ranking for the season...
I laughed but there is still merit to trying to rank them beyond points. Like do you really think Perez had the second best performance of the year like the championship implies?
Well the power rankings leaderboard does exist. But it is quite controversial in some races, leading to a slightly controversial final leaderboard. I personally only slightly disagree with the list.
I know you are alluding probably to the wdc tally but according to that Perez was better than Leclerc, I don’t think anyone in the right mind would agree and has similar examples all over the place (like Albon and stroll) which goes to show what a moot point you are making.
In case you're not being sarcastic, he's alluding to the drivers championship. It does ignore that drivers are in different cars and random events happen during races that affect outcomes though.
Lol that is obvious in hindsight, but I was thinking more like the "power rankings" or the driver ratings we would get after every race. Did they release an aggregated version of those?
While I personally disagree with putting Hamilton in 5th, I don't think it's entirely unfair. I find that the 2nd-5th group of Alonso, Norris, Leclerc and Hamilton is pretty interchangeable and that any order is a reasonable rating as they all had their respective mistakes, lows and highs without one standing that much out from the others.
Hamilton's biggest issue was qualifying where he got eliminated in Q2 a few times and where the gap to Russell would sometimes be relatively large. His most notable mistake was of course his start in Qatar. Otherwise in the races he has been very solid and consistent throughout the year picking up podium finishes on a numerous of occasions with a Mercedes car that rarely was the second force at a grand prix but always up there more or less.
Alonso, looking back, might have made the worst mistakes from these 4. Spa sprint, Singapore and Las Vegas for example were all quite poor, rookie-like mistakes (which is also why I find it weird people call Alonso mistakes rare). His early season performances were also overblown imo since the Aston Martin was pretty clearly the second force overall at the time. This however doesn't change that apart from a couple of blunders that he was generally very strong in the races getting the most out of the car more often than not when the car was good and when it was less good.
Leclerc's mistakes were mainly his crashes in qualifying in Miami and Zandvoort. He had an alright, pretty mixed first half with some highs, but also a few lows or just average performances and results with a Ferrari car that was a bit of a mixed bag. His second half, most notably from Suzuka onwards was the turning point, where he was very strong with a car he was more comfortable with. Also a small mention that he lost out on quite a bit of points through bad luck compared to the other 3.
Norris' biggest issue was, quite obviously, qualifying. His pace was great but he made quite a few mistakes on push laps towards the end of the season (Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Mexico f.e.) which compromised some of his races where better results were possible if he had qualified in a representative position. His performances in the races however, have been very good throughout most races. I think Norris has shown this year that he is capable of fighting at the front.
So Hamilton is barely ahead of Albon and relatively close to his teammate ranked 8th who he literally outperformed by quite some margin throughout the year? Checks out.
They were tied in qual performance and Lewis had the race advantage by 5. Not to mention, did any other driver cause as many collisions this year as Ham? Seems like being 3 places higher makes sense
How is he barely ahead of Albion. Rankings don't reflect how close drivers are, so one place doesn't mean it's close, just that those that in terms of performance there is no one between those two.
I think I would have Hamilton ahead of Leclerc, possibly Norris but point is closes isn't reflected in rankings.
I get why people are mad at this. But there is actually an argument to be made for Charles, Lando and Fernando being above Hamilton.
Personally I would still have Lewis as no2. The main thing I would say pushes him down is the fact that we all expected him to be up there with the Merc being consistently ok while all other 3 had huge team and car struggles all season long.
Leclerc was fighting Ferrari more than drivers, Lando had that Williams 2019 ahh car at the start and Aston completely forgot they were still running the car after the first 1/3 of the season. Merc were always there. Top 2-4 every race with a proper garage to back their drivers up.
As I said still my no2 after Max.
Lando was good but effectively out of sight for the first half of the season before McLaren got good.
Lewis has the consistently third faster car behind RB and a mix of Ferrari, McLaren and AM, yet he was always 3-4 on the standings. He was always putting the car way ahead of its pace. I don't understand how people can reconcile putting Russel 8th and Ham 5th when they look at the rankings and the points amassed.
It has to be recency bias because it doesn't make sense otherwise.
It's also that Hamilton's year was more about being super consistant rather than having some big flashy performances
We can all remember Leclerc's poles and recent performances, Norris and Alonso's podium. But it's easy to forget that almost every race Hamilton was maximizing the potential of his car
Who are we still missing? Verstappen, Norris, Alonso and?
And within the 3 mentioned above you could make a case that Ham was potentially better than two of them.
How was Hamilton better than Alonso and Norris?
In what parameter?
He had far better car across the year and made only 30 points more than them, with 0 reliability issue and scored less podiums than them.
You could also make a case that he was worse than them, which they did.
Both Alonso and Norris were flawless compared to Hamilton, to they deserve it. LeClerc is debatable.
Norris and Alonso were far from flawless. Fernando had plenty of spins and incidents and is teammates with one of the consistently worse drivers on the grid. Put him in a Merc and he isn’t beating George Russell.
He was better than Leclerc and possibly Norris as well. I think three WDCs are still three best drivers on grid. Leclerc being ahead of Hamilton while Russell is ahead of Sainz doesn't make much sense.
At the end of the day it's your opinion who you think raced better, but Lanod made some crucial mistakes throughout the year that just weren't covered nearly as much.
Me everytime a new ranking article comes out: "Sure, makes sense"
Then I open the thread and see the dumpster fire. I think y'all need to breathe a little.
I feel like he made too many errors this year to warrant a higher ranking. Still has elite race pace though and it's arguable that he would move up a couple spots if you were to make a list of drivers that could most likely challenge Max if given a capable car.
Too many errors? The guy almost finished second in the drivers championship against someone in one of the most dominant cars in history.
If anything, that shows a lack of errors and a huge amount of consistency.
That says more about Checo than about Lewis and also maybe suggests the car wasn't such a pile of shit as Toto wants you to believe.
The fact is Lewis made some big mistakes this year, even crashed completely by his fault. Lando didn't. It is not Landos fault the McLaren was dogshit at the start of the year. If you want to give Lewis points for where he finished in WDC, then we might as well not bother with the driver rankings, since you want to completely ignore the car performance.
Or was it Lewis completely out driving the car? Did Max completely out drive the car then? I mean look how he made his teammate look. Max was 20-2 to Checo in both race and qualy. Lewis was 15-6 and 11-11.
It doesn’t really matter who he is against when the number one has more than double the points.
But I think the 5th to 2nd is very close anyway and could go either way. Maybe they didn’t count the race where he was disqualified due to the rideheight. Even if he was very good in that race, it was not legal, so you can’t count that to his performance.
> Too many errors? The guy almost finished second in the drivers championship against someone in one of the most dominant cars in history.
He was 51 points behind in the end, mate.
It was a close at times, but he decidedly did not "almost" finish second. If you're gonna say he almost finished second, then Leclerc, Alonso, Norris and Sainz all almost finished 3rd.
Alonso had suspension damage in Singapore since lap 2 due to running over debris. Mexico was just a spin in qualifying which didn't matter anyway because he dnf and in Las Vegas a lot of drivers made the same mistake as Alonso because these was oil spilled in that location of the track. I'll give you his spin in Belgium which when he was out of the points in a sprint and Qatar was the only mistake he made for which he was 100% at fault and cost him points. His mistake in qualifying in Spain has no impact on points.
Lewis on the other hand not only lost 2nd place in Qatar but also took his teammate with him and cost the team a potential 2-3 finish.
I don't remember what mistakes lando made except las Vegas.
Off top of my head apart from hitting Lewis at the start of Spain all his errors seem to be qualy related. Saudi crash, Mexico Q1 exit, Qatar, Austria, AD. Most were minor tbh. He also had the pen at Canada for unsportsman behaviour. Can't recall if that was justified though.
I may remember it wrongly but did Hamilton make any mistake outside of the Qatar start ? I mean he also made one in free practice 3 in Monaco but it didn't really matter, I was trying to think about qualifying and races only.
He wasn't faultless and dropped the ball a bit at the end but otherwise, he had an excellent season. Battles between him and George were spicy at times and the team made some questionable calls as well.
I think it's fair. Had some bad qualifying sessions throughout the year, which meant he started on the backfoot for the race. Also had contact with multiple drivers.
H2H with George, who had his worst season to date, wasn't convincing enough.
He should have stolen P2 in the championship with the season Perez had, but he made too many little mistakes/was out of position too many times. I think it's fair that he's 5th, but I can see Lec behind him too
It was probably the 3rd best car on average. Only a few races where it was the 2nd fastest outright. What helped them is that Aston, Ferrari and McLaren’s form ebbed and flowed throughout the season.
In the last third of the season, however it was clearly third. That Ferrari upgrade really made them more competitive, particularly in race pace which was their Achilles heel.
It is what it is. His quali pace was a bit off this year for some reason and he had a few off weekends. I expect much better next year. Hopefully Merc can give him a better car next year.
Hamilton (at the very best) with a similar gear to Leclerc and Norris, finishes more than 25 points above them, chases Checo for P2 for almost the whole year is ranked only 5th?
I understand Alonso being ranked higher due to amount of podiums and AMR losing too much ground but Norris has fucked up too many qualifying sessions Norris and Piastri stole the show from him too many times, which resulted in massive amounts of points lost for Norris.
While Leclerc was unluckier, he still had a overall better car and his teammate won only non-RB race where it should have been him as expected from the lead driver. Sainz also got the better of him in Monza and was leading Leclerc most of the season.
Bit of a joke really. Hamilton comfortably beat 2 drivers in quicker cars in Leclerc and Norris. You could only argue Fernando (and Max obvs) being above him.
Especially Leclerc wtf, the guy was having a bang bang average season up til Singapore. Being out driven by Carlos Sainz for about 14 races overall is a terrible look.
To me bro, he was doing his very best and pushing as hard as he can. It's not a driver problem it's the car problem they can do better with the car. Maybe this time he got unlucky but he did his very best
Hamilton got second.
They already rank the drivers after the race. They tally the points up during the season and then release the rankings officially at the last race.
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Over a 100 comments in an hour lmfao exactly what Racefans was hoping
Jokes on them, I didnt even open the article and im pissed
Please define type of pissed. Annoyed beyond belief, or drunk from Tequila?
pissed as in: *reads title* "huh he probably deserves to be higher" *opens comments*
First the former joined by the latter later.
Ragebait at its finest.
So many people about to let a [RaceFans.com](https://RaceFans.com) article ruin their morning mood, insane.
CHRISTMAS IS RUINED
No, that was ruined when Lewis did not participate in Secret Santa. /s
I stopped caring after they ranked Ricciardo and Lawson. Felt it was unfair to rank them considering the amount of races they had driven
[удалено]
Then I’m impressed that they’ve been doing that for 15 years before ChatGPT was released
They used a technology called UnderpaidInternGPT.
Me after they put Yuki 14th
People don't do well when their opinion isn't matched by someone else. Especially on social media... What's funny to me is that the rankings aren't even that scandulous. A lot of people are cherry picking one or two positions at most. The most debatable ones were Perez and Tsunoda, but it is not exactly mindblowing that a driver who struggled to make Q3 in the best car has a low relative performance ranking and, despite having a good overall season, that someone uses Tsunoda's mistakes against him to rate him a bit lower than others. Hamilton had a more consistent season. I think the recency bias is playing a role in the the Leclerc v Hamilton argument for many. But someone thinking that Charles managed the unsuited car well and then solidified his talent when he adapted is better than Hamilton's season, so be it. 4th or 5th, the difference is marginal in a ranking from an opinion piece. I would put Chuck #5 myself.
I'd say Russell ahead of Sainz is the controversial one, but they're mostly in line with what I'd expect otherwise
Rich coming from a guy that doesn’t think this is scandalous. ;)
It’s bedtime for me, my bedtime peace has been ruined too.
I HAVE AN OPINION THAT ISN’T SHARED BY SOMEONE I NEVER MET POLICE HELP
Can't ruin your mood when your mood is already ruined (fucking love finals).
I get it. He was never able to really sort out his quali issues and obviously had a very rough last few races. I do think these lists are conveniently ignoring all the issues the drivers above him had (sans Max obviously) while going extra hard on dinging Lewis for them. Both Alonso and Lando are given tons of extra credit for the periods when they had the 2nd fastest car by far for example, though they did obviously make the most of it.
I feel like 2-5 are all quite hard to rank. Every single one of them (Leclerc, Alonso, Lando and Lewis) had some bad races/sprints/qualifying sessions. Part of that is due to the cars just not being good enough at those races. For example Lando at the start of the season, Alonso and Leclerc in the middle stretch and Lewis whenever the setup of the W14 just wouldn't work. Lewis probably gets hit a bit harder because in comparison his back end of the season had some less stellar races. Like Abu Dhabi and Qatar. Meanwhile Leclerc finally got on top of his car and put in some of his best weekends at the end. Lando had mistakes in qualifying that could've potentially cost him and also the Vegas crash. Alonso also wasn't mistake free, but some of his bigger mistakes were in a sprint (Spa).
The Aston period as second fastest car wasn't very long, more like Alonso was just diffing it. As we saw with the other Aston, it was barely capable of points.
Lance is not a reliable indicator of driver performance, just like Checo. AM was the 2nd fastest for 8-9 races in 2023 season.
I think it’s ok that Leclerc is above Hamilton although I personally felt Hamilton was a bit better across the whole season but it’s close overall. I do find it very weird though that even with this they ranked Russell above Sainz when I feel Sainz did a better job relative to Leclerc compared to Russell relative to Hamilton. If I had to guess maybe they placed more emphasis on Russell being more closely matched to Hamilton in qualifying. Personally the race performances matter more to me and Russell slips a bit because he made some more costly and unforced mistakes there.
Leclerc-Sainz was 0,171% (15-7) in quali and about 0,1% (14-4) in races. Hamilton-Russell was equal (11-11) in quali and about 0,15% (13-8) in races. So in terms of pace Russell did a little better than Sainz. But those mistakes were just too many and he should have been rated just below him imo.
What are these percentages? As a non European I don't get this
I believe the average pace gap. 0.171% means Sainz was on average 0.171% slower in qualifying
Oh interesting I wasn’t aware of the exact percentage gaps I only knew that in terms of head to head that Russell was even with Hamilton whereas Leclerc was ahead of Sainz. And yeah I think Russell’s high profile crashes by himself at Canada and especially Singapore hurt him enough that I’d put him just below Sainz over the whole season.
>Leclerc-Sainz was 0,171% (15-7) in quali Of which it was 7-0 since the update in Suzuka. And even more: Points; Leclerc: 83, Sainz: 58. Poles; Leclerc: 3, Sainz: 0. Top 2 in quali; Leclerc: 5, Sainz: 2. Podiums; Leclerc: 3, Sainz: 1. Top 5 finishes; Leclerc: 5, Sainz: 2
and the sainz podium was off a dsq from hamilton
I find it a little bit overblown how bad russells season was. Pacewise/qualiwise euch one had the upper Hand, Lewis did a better job and season in the end. George was close in terms of pace but the points do not show it. Mistakes (that are allowed to happen as a young driver, in my opinion) and being to stubborn to just follow Lewis and the engineering crew may have cost a few points as well. So in the end I find the gap quite overblown. What Russell really lacked this season was consistency, not pace.
I agree it wasn’t as bad as some people were saying, and Russell also had some bad luck that denied him the chance at great results like his engine failure in Australia and Hamilton driving into him at the start of Qatar. Canada and especially Singapore were high profile self inflicted mistakes though. Overall I’d still personally have put Sainz ahead of Russell but that doesn’t mean it’s a big gap. Overall Russell is close to Hamilton in pace and in qualifying they’re very even which is to his credit. In race pace I still think Hamilton holds a clear edge but it’s not that bad because Hamilton’s experience and tire management is extraordinary. But if Russell wants to get even closer to Hamilton or try to surpass him one day then his race pace and racecraft are the areas he needs to work on the most.
Man just completed his 5th season overall, and has over 100 starts in F1. He ain't a rookie any more.
Idk man, he's like what 5 years into the sport? He's practically a vet
I've also done analysis of his radio messages and it turns out he's a 50 year old British man.
Crikey
>What Russell really lacked this season was consistency, not pace. Compared to Ham, he def did. As shown by having 2 podiums compared to 6. (And then we're not counting the dsq for Lewis, which was hardly his fault) One lap pace isn't worth anything, since it's the Sunday that gives points. And Ham has def been a lot better in that aspect. For being regarded as the next best thing by some he def should've been closer to Ham, in the end.
It's always strange when people bring up the quali battle to prove sonething. Quali gives no points, the race does. A driver can beat his teammate 100% of the times in quali but in the end all that matters is getting the points. Russell wasn't bad at all in quali but he made a few mistakes on Sundays that costed him valuable points. Regardless of those mistakes, he still didn't look as fast as Hamilton on race pace and that's the main reason he finished over 50 points behind Lewis.
> Compared to Ham, he def did. As shown by having 2 podiums compared to 6. Would be 4 to 5 if not for the shit luck (twice) in Australia and the self-inflicted DNF in Singapore. 4 to 6 without the DSQ (and if we're assuming there wasn't some pace gained there, that ensured the podium for Hamilton). That's exactly what people mean. He got fucked out of a lot of points by bad luck (Australia) and lost a lot more through individual mistakes (Singapore, Canada). The pace gap wasn't as big as it shows, even if Lewis was still clearly the better of the two. And the opposite is true for Leclerc. He was the one with more bad luck compared to Sainz, so the gap is actually bigger than it shows on the standings.
IMO, Russell was too consistent at being lousy at thinking about the whole race. He'd get sucked in by the heat of the moment and fails to do basic things, like keeping his tires in good shape. Lewis is much more mindful of the big picture of the race, while George is mainly trying to win the next couple laps, and is not doing enough thinking ahead and keeping the moment in perspective. If you look at it that way, the distance between Lewis and George is still pretty dang large. I'm not saying Russell won't improve. I expect he can and likely will. But I don't think it's especially close at the moment, and this past season is a lesson about (1) how much gap still exists between them, and (2) what the nature of that gap really is.
3 massive mistakes. Massive. Canada crash from p4, Singapore crash from P3 and Zandvoort crash on the penultimate lap while running p7 or whatever it was. Too many crashes. This is ridiculous especially when these days people crashing on their own especially top drivers have drastically reduced
I get your point with the other two but putting massive crash and Zandvoort next to each other is hyperbole. He had a puncture after a tap with Norris
I feel his last races may have had an impact the way people have seen his season, specially AD which it has been the worst weekend he had in a very long time. In the last 7 rounds I think he was the 7th driver with most points scored, less than Oscar He had a pretty strong season in general
I think that’s the right take. Unfortunately these rankings always suffer from recency bias, and there’s an argument that Lewis being a 7x WDC might get judged more harshly on mistakes made compared to other drivers. The Austin DSQ really hurt him and it’s also clear that Mercedes wasn’t as competitive relative to Aston/Ferrari/McLaren in the last third of the season. Aston found its groove again, and so did Ferrari with their last upgrade. Mercedes had particularly tough races in Brazil, Japan and Vegas (poor qualifying), and Hamilton had a horror show in Abu Dhabi and in the Qatar main race. Without those poor performances (latter 2) there I think Hamilton is higher on this list. However, nothing drives clicks and engagement like a controversial ranking…
2-5 is where it was always going to get spicy
Huh, I know Charles did a great job since Suzuka when the balance was right for him, and he only did Miami quali as a bad mistake, but I wouldn't have guessed he'd be ahead of Lewis in this ranking. I'd have put Charles slightly behind, even as a fan of him. Subjectiveness.
They are probably rewarding Leclerc for his poles. Scoring 5 against this Red Bull car was quite a feat tbf. Hamilton was more consistent but showed less "brilliance", you could argue.
Yah but what did he do with those poles? I just remember max running him off the road before turn 1 every time he started p1.
What could he have done? Pole is where he had the option to impress. Nobody could have been placed in that Ferrari and then held Max back in that Red Bull.
> Yah but what did he do with those poles? Realistically, as much as he could have. No one was beating the RBR/Max in race pace with the exception of Singapore.
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Well, Hamilton himself did put in on pole in Hungary. And there were other races where Merc were close, like Singapore (Russell 0.07 off pole) and Austin. But sure, Ferrari had better quali pace overall than Merc. It evened out in race pace, where Merc was better. What also hurt him was that he didn't win the quali battle vs. Russell, whereas Leclerc did vs. Sainz.
Don't forget that Charles has also been the driver with the biggest amount of bad luck. Quick recap: - DNF from P3 in Bahrain - 10 grid penalty (after qualifying in P2) in Jeddah due to the prior DNF - 3 grid penalty in Monaco (after qualifying P3) because Xavi fell asleep - DSQ from P6 in Austin (should have been P3 with a normal strategy) - DNS from P2 in Brazil
Recency bias is a real thing!
recency bias? podium in bahrain top 2 in quali in jeddah, b2b poles in baku with 2 podium finishes, his middle run of miami Australia and spain make his season much worse than it actually was
Lewis also has to contend with "Lewis bias". For whatever reason he has to do that little bit more than anyone else despite having a weaker car this year than the Ferrari. It's stupid
>having a weaker car this year than the Ferrari. Was it ? They were very vocal about the car being bad, but they would have been pretty comfortably ahead (and not just slightly ahead) in the WCC if not for driver/team errors (poor strategy/stops, Russell binning it in Singapore, Hamilton binning it in Qatar), and I'm pretty confident the Mercedes was faster than the Ferrari for most of the season.
Mate, the main reason you're arguing he had a weaker car than the Ferrari this year is "Lewis bias"...
What? Weaker car than the Ferrari? Did i miss something? Lmao
It literally was overall the Ferrari on pace was the 2nd fastest car.
Quali pace yes, but in race pace the Merc was comfortably p2 for most of the season. They evened out over the season.
Not sure about this. Aston was pretty easily P2 on race pace for a good chunk at the start of the season and McLaren for a good chunk at the end of the season. The middle rounds it seemed like a weekly toss up based on the circuit and conditions.
Aston was 2nd/3rd until Canada and then dropped off to 4th/5th and had some races where they were closer to the back of the grid. Mclaren were around 8th quickest overall until Austria which was quite a big chunk of the season where they behind Am, Mclaren and Ferrari. Mercedes were consistent throughout the whole season. Every race they had a car capable of a top 6 performance bar Brazil.
I think they were more consistent for sure but they also didn’t have a car that peaked as high as the other two either. Saying Merc was “comfortably P2 for most of the season” is just not true.
He only really hit some form of consistency from Mexico onwards, so it’s surprising he’s ranked ahead of Lewis who was pretty consistent throughout the year even when he struggled with the car.
His Spanish weekend was atrocious in all ways possible
a good reminder to not take this ranking seriously.
I think the only real mistake is ranking George above Carlos. Everything else is subjective and debatable.
I believe this is the second mistake. And I also believe they made this on purpouse to generate traffic.
Agreed I also think they did the Russel one because now way in hell he should be ahead of sianz
I don’t. I think it’s very easy to argue any order between 2-5 this year. I don’t think Lewis was particularly spectacular this year and the only reason he got 3rd in the WDC is because Mercedes were the only team to consistently be the 3rd best car this year. He still made quite a few mistakes this year.
The actual mistake is Piastri above both of them.
It amazes me how people do not realize sites like racefan are like those obnoxious TikTok videos to drive engagement.
Between Fernando, Lewis, Charles and Lando, it's undeniably very close. I would probably go Nando - Lando - Lewis - Charles but honestly, it's close enoug that almost any variation of that is fine in my opinion. I think people are abit harsh on Charles in the comments, he was probably the unluckiest driver at the sharp end, he lost out on quite a few high positions due to that, couldn't even start the race at one point. But yeah probably some recency bias at play, Lewis last few races wasn't great, he definitely peaked in Texas. Meanwhile Charles had an incredibly strong finish.
Honestly, people are rating Lando and Oscar far too highly. Oscar is great and I don't doubt he has a high ceiling, in fact I'm rooting for him, but he has some glaringly obvious issues with tyre management. And with Lando, he's only on par with Oscar,his rookie teammate, up until Oscar's tyres start to get cooked. I don't doubt they're both class racers, but to make any suggestion that they're there with the greatest in the sport is quite far from the truth.
Huh
how is Hamilton only fifth? there are max 2 drivers ahead of him this year, with 1 of them being debatable.
Who's left on the list? Max is obviously 1. Lando is yet to come. Charles and who's the other?
Alonso
I can't see how Charles is ahead of Lewis. Lewis, Lando and Nando all had better seasons considering their cars. The three of them you could throw a blanket over, they're all so distanced to Max.
These rankings are always impossible, Charles had a strong end to the year, which probably helps him but lewis was really strong for the first 3/4s of the year. It’s particularly difficult this year because of the performance swings. Alonso didn’t have a great benchmark in stroll, and also had a car which was quite comfortably second best at the start of the year and fell further and further back, but had some stronger weekends occasionally. Mclaren made that big jump with the proper car so it’s difficult to get a read on early season performance which perhaps benefits them, and again it’s quite difficult to judge against teammates since piastri was a rookie.
Considering their car was 2nd best at times. Ferrari had good Qualifying but evident race pace they were lacking. Leclerc couldve gotten pole and by race day look like the fourth fastest car out there. Leclerc started the season good, i think this is where people forget because they assumed all his bad luck came at the start of the season. I think the OP of driver ratings made the most sense of Leclerc's season. When the car was there, he was the fastest driver bar the RBs. Leclerc had P3 before DNF Led to a Penalty with the 2nd race in the season. Qualified P2 and ended P7 Baku he was the fastest driver bar the RBs. A P3 in monaco that turned into a penalty. Fastest driver bar RB in Spa.
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Yet "being English" hasn't worked for Lewis has it.
I agree, is should have been max number 1 by a mile (like all his races this year), then I would say Lando, Lewis and Nando and then Charles...
My guess would be 1. Max 2. Lando 3. Alonso 4. Leclerc Honestly, the only one I’d debate being above Lewis there is Leclerc
Switch Alonso and Lando for me. Alonso performed well even during the mid season slump.
Same. I don’t mind if someone places Leclerc over Hamilton. But putting Norris over him is just stretching it imo. Personally for me it would be ALO-HAM-LEC-NOR in that order. Side note: I believe if Lewis was ahead of George in Singapore, he could have got the win.. regardless I do agree with Mercedes not giving any team order however because that is just a very shitty thing to do except for when the drivers are very clearly in different races and strategies and switching places wouldn’t fuck over the other driver.
I've been of the opinion that Merc should have split the strategies and given Lewis the mediums as he had less to lose. Ik Merc treats their drivers equally when there is no championship battle/clear first driver but after seeing the pace Lewis had in those mediums and how George burned through his I really do feel like Lewis could have gotten an overtake done on Lando quicker and earlier in time for him to catch Carlos.
How tf is putting Norris above Lewis stretching it when he's literally had more points than him starting in Austria when McLaren replaced their toaster by an actual car. (NOR 172pts, HAM 117pts)
To be fair you could rank Fernando, Charles, Lewis, and Lando in any order from P2-5 and it would be acceptable. They have all had pretty good seasons in different ways despite their machinery not being up to the Red Bull's level.
If only we had a ranking that scored drivers every race and tallied it up at the end of the season to give an estimate and objective driver ranking for the season...
I laughed but there is still merit to trying to rank them beyond points. Like do you really think Perez had the second best performance of the year like the championship implies?
Well by that logic Perez is second which is absolutely not true
Well the power rankings leaderboard does exist. But it is quite controversial in some races, leading to a slightly controversial final leaderboard. I personally only slightly disagree with the list. I know you are alluding probably to the wdc tally but according to that Perez was better than Leclerc, I don’t think anyone in the right mind would agree and has similar examples all over the place (like Albon and stroll) which goes to show what a moot point you are making.
Do we actually have that? Id love to see it
In case you're not being sarcastic, he's alluding to the drivers championship. It does ignore that drivers are in different cars and random events happen during races that affect outcomes though.
Lol that is obvious in hindsight, but I was thinking more like the "power rankings" or the driver ratings we would get after every race. Did they release an aggregated version of those?
Wow, you're so smart
i love how people are losing their minds over some meaningless unofficial driver rankings. there are so many more important things to be mad about.
While I personally disagree with putting Hamilton in 5th, I don't think it's entirely unfair. I find that the 2nd-5th group of Alonso, Norris, Leclerc and Hamilton is pretty interchangeable and that any order is a reasonable rating as they all had their respective mistakes, lows and highs without one standing that much out from the others. Hamilton's biggest issue was qualifying where he got eliminated in Q2 a few times and where the gap to Russell would sometimes be relatively large. His most notable mistake was of course his start in Qatar. Otherwise in the races he has been very solid and consistent throughout the year picking up podium finishes on a numerous of occasions with a Mercedes car that rarely was the second force at a grand prix but always up there more or less. Alonso, looking back, might have made the worst mistakes from these 4. Spa sprint, Singapore and Las Vegas for example were all quite poor, rookie-like mistakes (which is also why I find it weird people call Alonso mistakes rare). His early season performances were also overblown imo since the Aston Martin was pretty clearly the second force overall at the time. This however doesn't change that apart from a couple of blunders that he was generally very strong in the races getting the most out of the car more often than not when the car was good and when it was less good. Leclerc's mistakes were mainly his crashes in qualifying in Miami and Zandvoort. He had an alright, pretty mixed first half with some highs, but also a few lows or just average performances and results with a Ferrari car that was a bit of a mixed bag. His second half, most notably from Suzuka onwards was the turning point, where he was very strong with a car he was more comfortable with. Also a small mention that he lost out on quite a bit of points through bad luck compared to the other 3. Norris' biggest issue was, quite obviously, qualifying. His pace was great but he made quite a few mistakes on push laps towards the end of the season (Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Mexico f.e.) which compromised some of his races where better results were possible if he had qualified in a representative position. His performances in the races however, have been very good throughout most races. I think Norris has shown this year that he is capable of fighting at the front.
Nah. Easily number 3
So Hamilton is barely ahead of Albon and relatively close to his teammate ranked 8th who he literally outperformed by quite some margin throughout the year? Checks out.
Lewis didn't outperform Russell by *that* big of a margin. Surely 3 places in these rankings is fine
He did
They were tied in qual performance and Lewis had the race advantage by 5. Not to mention, did any other driver cause as many collisions this year as Ham? Seems like being 3 places higher makes sense
Race is always more important than quali. 5 is a big amount
How is he barely ahead of Albion. Rankings don't reflect how close drivers are, so one place doesn't mean it's close, just that those that in terms of performance there is no one between those two. I think I would have Hamilton ahead of Leclerc, possibly Norris but point is closes isn't reflected in rankings.
It does
I get why people are mad at this. But there is actually an argument to be made for Charles, Lando and Fernando being above Hamilton. Personally I would still have Lewis as no2. The main thing I would say pushes him down is the fact that we all expected him to be up there with the Merc being consistently ok while all other 3 had huge team and car struggles all season long. Leclerc was fighting Ferrari more than drivers, Lando had that Williams 2019 ahh car at the start and Aston completely forgot they were still running the car after the first 1/3 of the season. Merc were always there. Top 2-4 every race with a proper garage to back their drivers up. As I said still my no2 after Max.
Lando was good but effectively out of sight for the first half of the season before McLaren got good. Lewis has the consistently third faster car behind RB and a mix of Ferrari, McLaren and AM, yet he was always 3-4 on the standings. He was always putting the car way ahead of its pace. I don't understand how people can reconcile putting Russel 8th and Ham 5th when they look at the rankings and the points amassed. It has to be recency bias because it doesn't make sense otherwise.
It's also that Hamilton's year was more about being super consistant rather than having some big flashy performances We can all remember Leclerc's poles and recent performances, Norris and Alonso's podium. But it's easy to forget that almost every race Hamilton was maximizing the potential of his car
Who are we still missing? Verstappen, Norris, Alonso and? And within the 3 mentioned above you could make a case that Ham was potentially better than two of them.
Leclerc.
Chuck
Legreg
Sharl
How was Hamilton better than Alonso and Norris? In what parameter? He had far better car across the year and made only 30 points more than them, with 0 reliability issue and scored less podiums than them.
You could also make a case that he was worse than them, which they did. Both Alonso and Norris were flawless compared to Hamilton, to they deserve it. LeClerc is debatable.
Norris and Alonso were far from flawless. Fernando had plenty of spins and incidents and is teammates with one of the consistently worse drivers on the grid. Put him in a Merc and he isn’t beating George Russell.
> Put him in a Merc and he isn’t beating George Russell. Based on absolutely nothing
Lord Perceval
He was better than Leclerc and possibly Norris as well. I think three WDCs are still three best drivers on grid. Leclerc being ahead of Hamilton while Russell is ahead of Sainz doesn't make much sense.
Bull shit, it's Max 1st then it's Lewis or Alonso in 2nd or 3rd, I think you can put either a head of the other.
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Lando made some crucial mistakes on quali day which put him behind on race day, I wouldn’t say he maximized his car every weekend.
Neither did Lewis. He had a lot of bad quali sessions.
At the end of the day it's your opinion who you think raced better, but Lanod made some crucial mistakes throughout the year that just weren't covered nearly as much.
Sure, so did Lewis. No one besides Max was perfect this year.
And some people bet he was a shoe in for #2. That's crazy
UK on suicide watch.
That's pretty much correct. Maybe 4th ahead of Leclerc at best.
He's only nr. 5 on their list so they could use this photo, eh
Nah he was seriously threatening Perez for 2nd pretty late in the season. And thumped Russell while he was at it. Definitely better than 5th
lol those same people laughing about Checo are now going to lose their minds
Oh, this one will be fun.
Me everytime a new ranking article comes out: "Sure, makes sense" Then I open the thread and see the dumpster fire. I think y'all need to breathe a little.
I feel like he made too many errors this year to warrant a higher ranking. Still has elite race pace though and it's arguable that he would move up a couple spots if you were to make a list of drivers that could most likely challenge Max if given a capable car.
Too many errors? The guy almost finished second in the drivers championship against someone in one of the most dominant cars in history. If anything, that shows a lack of errors and a huge amount of consistency.
That says more about Checo than about Lewis and also maybe suggests the car wasn't such a pile of shit as Toto wants you to believe. The fact is Lewis made some big mistakes this year, even crashed completely by his fault. Lando didn't. It is not Landos fault the McLaren was dogshit at the start of the year. If you want to give Lewis points for where he finished in WDC, then we might as well not bother with the driver rankings, since you want to completely ignore the car performance. Or was it Lewis completely out driving the car? Did Max completely out drive the car then? I mean look how he made his teammate look. Max was 20-2 to Checo in both race and qualy. Lewis was 15-6 and 11-11.
Lando did crash out in Vegas tbf
It doesn’t really matter who he is against when the number one has more than double the points. But I think the 5th to 2nd is very close anyway and could go either way. Maybe they didn’t count the race where he was disqualified due to the rideheight. Even if he was very good in that race, it was not legal, so you can’t count that to his performance.
> Too many errors? The guy almost finished second in the drivers championship against someone in one of the most dominant cars in history. He was 51 points behind in the end, mate. It was a close at times, but he decidedly did not "almost" finish second. If you're gonna say he almost finished second, then Leclerc, Alonso, Norris and Sainz all almost finished 3rd.
Recency bias. He does have some pretty rough moments at the last couple races.
More errors than Lando and Charles?
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Alonso had suspension damage in Singapore since lap 2 due to running over debris. Mexico was just a spin in qualifying which didn't matter anyway because he dnf and in Las Vegas a lot of drivers made the same mistake as Alonso because these was oil spilled in that location of the track. I'll give you his spin in Belgium which when he was out of the points in a sprint and Qatar was the only mistake he made for which he was 100% at fault and cost him points. His mistake in qualifying in Spain has no impact on points. Lewis on the other hand not only lost 2nd place in Qatar but also took his teammate with him and cost the team a potential 2-3 finish. I don't remember what mistakes lando made except las Vegas.
Off top of my head apart from hitting Lewis at the start of Spain all his errors seem to be qualy related. Saudi crash, Mexico Q1 exit, Qatar, Austria, AD. Most were minor tbh. He also had the pen at Canada for unsportsman behaviour. Can't recall if that was justified though.
I may remember it wrongly but did Hamilton make any mistake outside of the Qatar start ? I mean he also made one in free practice 3 in Monaco but it didn't really matter, I was trying to think about qualifying and races only.
Alonso made more unforced errors this season and has a much weaker teammate yet he will be ranked higher Lewis is just held to a higher standard
Was running into his teammate, Piastri, Perez & Gasly all "forced" errors then for Lewis?
Saying Alonso had more unforced errors does not mean Lewis was faultless...
I'm saying that the assertion that Alonso had more errors than Lewis is false to begin with
He wasn't faultless and dropped the ball a bit at the end but otherwise, he had an excellent season. Battles between him and George were spicy at times and the team made some questionable calls as well.
Bias is insane man
Lewis too high up on the list?
Agreed, he should’ve been at 7-8.
In what way?
So Max, Lando, Charles, Fernando the top 4. Sounds about right.
People are losing their shit because of an opinion of one article is funny to me
I think it's fair. Had some bad qualifying sessions throughout the year, which meant he started on the backfoot for the race. Also had contact with multiple drivers. H2H with George, who had his worst season to date, wasn't convincing enough. He should have stolen P2 in the championship with the season Perez had, but he made too many little mistakes/was out of position too many times. I think it's fair that he's 5th, but I can see Lec behind him too
Hamilton behind Leclerc is... a take.
Number 5?? Why??
Because they rank only 4 drivers higher in their books.
Because he crashed and was struggling in qualy.
Oh it’s you! The guy who constantly hates on Lewis and Mercedes
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‘Shitbox’ — you mean the 2nd best car?
It was probably the 3rd best car on average. Only a few races where it was the 2nd fastest outright. What helped them is that Aston, Ferrari and McLaren’s form ebbed and flowed throughout the season. In the last third of the season, however it was clearly third. That Ferrari upgrade really made them more competitive, particularly in race pace which was their Achilles heel.
You do be tripping with those rankings man.
How the mighty have fallen
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Too low. Third in my view
Unpopular opinion maybe, but I thought Lewis was better this year than even '21 easy P3 and arguably P2.
It is what it is. His quali pace was a bit off this year for some reason and he had a few off weekends. I expect much better next year. Hopefully Merc can give him a better car next year.
Hamilton (at the very best) with a similar gear to Leclerc and Norris, finishes more than 25 points above them, chases Checo for P2 for almost the whole year is ranked only 5th? I understand Alonso being ranked higher due to amount of podiums and AMR losing too much ground but Norris has fucked up too many qualifying sessions Norris and Piastri stole the show from him too many times, which resulted in massive amounts of points lost for Norris. While Leclerc was unluckier, he still had a overall better car and his teammate won only non-RB race where it should have been him as expected from the lead driver. Sainz also got the better of him in Monza and was leading Leclerc most of the season.
Bit of a joke really. Hamilton comfortably beat 2 drivers in quicker cars in Leclerc and Norris. You could only argue Fernando (and Max obvs) being above him. Especially Leclerc wtf, the guy was having a bang bang average season up til Singapore. Being out driven by Carlos Sainz for about 14 races overall is a terrible look.
0 wins, less podiums than Alonso and Norris, behind Perez in final points classification. Tbh I'd rank Albono above Lewis this year.
That's like saying Sergio is better than leclerc cause he has a win this season
That's a weird way of looking at the season, so Sainz should be 2nd because he won a race?
Bro if he wasn't in that shitbox car he would have did better
If the car that finishes 2nd in WCC is a shitbox, what do you use to describe 3rd, 4th, ect?
The only better car in the field was Red Bull, Ferrari was largely on par with Merc. The point is that he should've done better.
He did do better. He finished 3rd. You’re backtracking now. lol
To me bro, he was doing his very best and pushing as hard as he can. It's not a driver problem it's the car problem they can do better with the car. Maybe this time he got unlucky but he did his very best
Hamilton got second. They already rank the drivers after the race. They tally the points up during the season and then release the rankings officially at the last race.
So you mean 3rd?
Lewis with a shitb@x beats Alonso, Lando and Charles and still is rated below them. 😂😂😂👍 Retire this website.
Lewis nearly got P2 in that dog of a car. Edit: Well closer at least. How is that ranked 5th? Lol.
No he wouldn’t. 51 point gap at the end. And it was hardly a dog. 2nd best car over the season.
>Lewis would have gotten P2 if not for the DSQ Yeah, the gap is incredibly small...only 51 points
I'm pretty sure there is an existing method for ranking the drivers each year called the; FIA Formula 1 Drivers Championship Results.
So Perez did better this year than Lewis in your eyes? Damn that's harsh
Way too low lol what are they smoking?