Rate the F1 drivers, 2020

Mr Jack

Mr Jack

Mr Jack

Caporegime
Joined
19 May 2004
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Nordfriesland, Germany
We've just passed the midway point of the season, so why not indulge our penchant for having overly opinionated discussions about what drivers are better or worse? The idea is to rate the drivers on their quality this year, not over their careers so no "Vettel was amazing in 2011" or "Gasly sucked donkey schlong in the Red Bull last year".

I've gone for a tier system - Great, Good, Ordinary, Bad, Ugly - because I don't think I can usefully decide who is 12th or 13th best. There's a way to run in the season yet, so I'll likely revise mine later. Hülk was only in for two races so I've not included him.

The Great: Drivers who are showing truly exceptional levels of skill and talent

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. I don't see much need to explain these.

The Good: These have really stood out from the field but aren't quite at the absolute best level

Daniel Ricciardo: Still short of a podium this year, but he's pulled a number of impressive performances, and I expect a podium from him by the end of the season.
Charles Leclerc: A 2nd, a 3rd, and a 4th place is an incredible return in that Ferrari, and he's been particularly impressive in Quali. Against that, he had that ugly collision with his teammate in the Styrian GP, and he seems to struggle to maintain his tyres more than Vettel.
Lando Norris: That opening podium hasn't quite been matched since, but he's delivered a healthy chunk of points none-the-less. Seems about level with Sainz in Quali, but better in the Race and has improved a lot since last year.
George Russell: He's consistently been getting that Williams up where it has no right to be in Quali, and his race pace has been equally impressive. However, he's made a few mistakes when it counts that have kept him out of the points. Last weekend, in Mugello, was a nice example; losing his best chance at a point in a bad restart.
Pierre Gasly: After an absolute horrorshow at Red Bull last year, he's got his head together and delivered brilliantly this year. The stars aligned to give him the win in Italy, but he's been very impressive at most races this season too, managing to be ahead of drivers in much better cars.

The Ordinary: Drivers who aren't awful but haven't really stood out either

Bottas: After an impressive opening race, he's just been nowhere. Hamilton comfortably has his measure in Quali, and he's struggled to match even Max at times. Italy was frankly embarrassing, and he seems to be getting increasingly morose.
Sainz: After a fantastic result last season, he's looked unable to match his teammate this year. Luck hasn't favoured him either.
Stroll: Another candidate for most improved driver, he has the measure of Pérez this year, and has scored good points through the season. Still needs to work on Quali pace, though, and should have won in Italy.
Pérez: A solid, decent, midfielder. He strikes me as the new Hülkenburg, better than many but not good enough for the top tier.
Ocon: After his year out, he hasn't looked all that. Struggling to keep pace with his excellent team mate, I think he's going to struggle to keep a seat in F1. Shame, there are many worse drivers who have stuck around for years.
Räikkönen: His most forgettable season and perhaps his last. I think it's time for him to retire. Still, he's stuck to the job of dragging that lump of an Alfa around and done okay given the machinery.
Latifi: I had expected to drop Latifi into the Bad or even Ugly tier, but looking over his year: yeah, he's not been fast, and Russell is clearly better, but he's also not making stupid mistake, causing accidents, and dropping the car like a lot of weaker rookies in bad cars before him. He's achieved what I'd expect a driver in a shopping trolley like that Williams to be achieving.

The Bad: the Drivers who are clearly performing worse than the rest but not delivering truly shocking performances.

Kvyat: Utterly outclassed by Gasly this season, I cannot imagine there will be a seat for him next year.
Giovinazzi: Even this second-rate version of Kimi is driving better than him.
Vettel: His performance this year has been so poor I'm tempted to put him in ugly. Nowhere near his teammate, making mistakes, and never looking threatening.
Magnussen: He's managing to get over the low, low bar of appearing better than his teammate, but that's about it. Actually retired from more races than he's finished this season, not through faults of his own.

The Ugly: The truly awful performers, those that are letting themselves and their teams down

Albon: A country mile behind his teammate in Quali, he threw away his best chance of the season with an overly aggressive move on Hamilton putting his car in danger it didn't need to be in. Otherwise, he's managed to finish in the best place available to him just twice (Stygian and Tuscan GPs), and usually had multiple cars between him and where he should be. A driver in the second best car on the grid should just be doing way better than this, and some midfield overtaking as he recovers from his dire position in the field doesn't make up for it. He seems like a nice guy but he's showing no sign of being F1 quality let alone top team quality.
Grosjean: Just quit already.
 
I'd mostly agree with your list though with 2 changes,

The first is Sainz: I'd move him up to 'The Good'. He hasn't had the stand out performance like Norris has with his last lap drives at the Red Bull Ring but without his bad luck he'd be much closer to equalling Norris on points. I'm not sure either Sainz or Norris could make the step up to the great but they're the best team mates in seemingly being pretty equal.

The second change is LeClerc up to the great or Vettel down to the ugly. It's hard to know whether LeClerc is dragging the car higher up the grid than it should be or Vettel is massively under performing. Either way, I think the gap between them is large enough to promote or demote respectively.
 
1-5 with 5 being best

5: Hamilton, verstappen
4: sainz, Riccardo, leclerc
3: Bottas, Norris, Russell, stroll, gasley, Perez, kimi
2: magnussen, ocon, kyvat, gio, latifi
1:grosjean, albon, vettel

Vettel could go up one
Norris, gasley, Russell could all go up one. Sainz could come down one. So could leclerc

As above. Its hard to place leclerc due to vettel

To be honest the back markers I don't pay much attention to so can't really place

Id say I was disappointed in ocons year. But I always thought he'd be mediocre

I think max, Riccardo and Hamilton are the class of the field. With Riccardo in third

I dunno why. But I quite like stroll of late. He gets a lot of stick but has really shown himself to be there on merit. Maybe the lack of pressure helps.
 
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Greboth said:
The second change is LeClerc up to the great or Vettel down to the ugly. It's hard to know whether LeClerc is dragging the car higher up the grid than it should be or Vettel is massively under performing. Either way, I think the gap between them is large enough to promote or demote respectively.
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I think Leclerc has the talent to join Max and Lewis, but is too early in his development to be there just yet. Alongside his brilliance this year, you have the mistake taking out his teammate in the second race, and an apparent inability to manage the tyres as well as Vettel. Many times we've seen him need to pit sooner than Seb, and show greater tyre drop off before coming in. The combination of the two is why I put him there.

And if you choose to put Vettel in Ugly I don't think I'd argue hard against it. This has been an awful season for him.
 
I think Danny Ric in a Merc powered McLaren next year is going to push him up a few notches. Considering the talent that Renault were poaching a couple of years ago, their car isn’t reflecting it. Danny Ric is one of those drivers who I’m certain is making that thing look faster than it is.
 
The problem with Bottas is he’s mentally finished, you could see that last weekend. 4 years of being psychologically battered every year trying to better yourself and come back stronger and you do, but the other guy did so too. He is actually a quick driver as is the car so he’s often not to far behind but Lewis just has to much pace and driving ability . Who remembers when Lewis used to wreck his tyres in no time.

Not sure what you do with it tbh, same for red bull. Nobody wants to play for second place but I’m sure it pays well
 
I don't rate any of them particularly highly, Max, Charles and Lewis are obviously a level above the rest but the rest appear to be distinctly average.

Maybe its modern f1 that has dumbed down the hero factor, but they are all just corporate clones without much passion.
 
Regy53 said:
The problem with Bottas is he’s mentally finished, you could see that last weekend. 4 years of being psychologically battered every year trying to better yourself and come back stronger and you do, but the other guy did so too. He is actually a quick driver as is the car so he’s often not to far behind but Lewis just has to much pace and driving ability . Who remembers when Lewis used to wreck his tyres in no time.

Not sure what you do with it tbh, same for red bull. Nobody wants to play for second place but I’m sure it pays well
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Yeah he's done. You can just tell. Maybe it's a good thing. A lot of people do jobs just for the money. And on good money!
 
Looking back on this at the end of the year, I don't think much has changed. Kvyat had a stronger end to the year, especially in Imola, and perhaps deserves a bump to ordinary. I don't think we'll be seeing him again in F1. Norris didn't quite live up to the promise of the start of the year, and ends up behind Sainz on points. Enough, for me, to drop him down to the ordinary bunch. Stroll's bright early season vanished in a mixture of awful luck and Coronavirus, whilst Pérez just kept getting better culminating in his well earned victory at Sakhir after Mercedes stuffed their race in the pits and I think has earned a promotion to the good bunch.
 
Gasly is my driver of the year.

He put in some outrageous performances for that Alpha Tauri (won Italy) and spanked Albon in the big sister car a few times too.

Lewis did well to find a rhythm but I’d expect that from a 6 time world champ (in order to win the 7th). I feel he upped his game in 2018 and we haven’t seen anyone come close to challenging him.
 
Slam62 said:
I don't rate any of them particularly highly, Max, Charles and Lewis are obviously a level above the rest but the rest appear to be distinctly average.

Maybe its modern f1 that has dumbed down the hero factor, but they are all just corporate clones without much passion.
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It doesn't have the personality or atmosphere it used to in the old days. It's got way to formal.
 
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Nasher said:
It doesn't have the personality or atmosphere it used to in the old days. It's got way to formal.
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The sport as a whole probably is, but on the driver side outside of the car it's much looser now, especially with the likes of Ricciardo, Norris and Sainz around, than it was in the mid-late 00s, where most of the drivers in particular were just robotic PR machines who occasionally raced cars - there's still a lot of that around, but they are generally much better on that front than they used to be.

I don't think it helps that much of Sky's coverage in the UK is like some old mans smoking club with little in the way of insight, warmth or even interest in what they cover. The only real positives on their books these days are Kravitz and Chandhok - even Brundle is a pale imitation of his former self.
 
this_is_gav said:
The sport as a whole probably is, but on the driver side outside of the car it's much looser now, especially with the likes of Ricciardo, Norris and Sainz around, than it was in the mid-late 00s, where most of the drivers in particular were just robotic PR machines who occasionally raced cars - there's still a lot of that around, but they are generally much better on that front than they used to be.

I don't think it helps that much of Sky's coverage in the UK is like some old mans smoking club with little in the way of insight, warmth or even interest in what they cover. The only real positives on their books these days are Kravitz and Chandhok - even Brundle is a pale imitation of his former self.
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But they aren't even allowed to say what they like, there is always the PR/Marketing man looking over their shoulder (literally).
 
Nasher said:
But they aren't even allowed to say what they like, there is always the PR/Marketing man looking over their shoulder (literally).
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That's hardly a new thing. The PR person has been around as long as drivers have regularly been interviewed in the paddock. Certainly since the early 2000s, probably earlier. I remember Ann Bradshaw walking around with Hill and Mansell in the early 90s.
 
Feel sorry for K-Mag - the car is a dog and keeps breaking down. Grosjean is hardly a decent benchmark so its hard to show his quality.

I guess Russell has done that for Williams though - dragging possibly the worst F1 car that team has ever produced in to Q2 and off the back of the grid quite a bit.
 
The FW43 is definitely not the worst Williams. While it's still one of the slowest along with Haas and earlier in the year Alfa, it's far better and closer than last years car and gives a glimmer of hope that they can move up the grid with the new regulations for 2022.

As for Haas it's still a bit of an enigma. Last year Grosjean was awful and I was bemused why he was kept on; Magnussen seemed to have the legs on him and while he had some very questionable etiquette on an off the track, was less error prone than Grosjean. However this year they've been as bad as each other, and that Pietro Fittipaldi, a solid driver but hardly considered a future star, has come in and mixed it with Magnussen kind of cements their choice to ditch both. That said, if both Magnussen and Grosjean knew or expected to get shown the door at the end of the season then it was hardly great motivation.

I know they've only ever had three full-time drivers but Haas still feels like a bit of a dead end for drivers. They appear to have little ambition, desire or long term plan other than Steiner swearing and shouting a lot. It's a team that seems alien compared to every other team for some reason. A bit like a better managed and financed version of one of those late 80s to early 90s start ups that were around for a few years whose idea of success was to prequalify occasionally and survive from year to year.
 
this_is_gav said:
I know they've only ever had three full-time drivers but Haas still feels like a bit of a dead end for drivers. They appear to have little ambition, desire or long term plan other than Steiner swearing and shouting a lot. It's a team that seems alien compared to every other team for some reason. A bit like a better managed and financed version of one of those late 80s to early 90s start ups that were around for a few years whose idea of success was to prequalify occasionally and survive from year to year.
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I get the impression that Haas F1's plan was to enter the sport, stick it out until the budget cap came in, and then hope to compete once the playing field was more level.
 
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