In the penultimate part of RaceFans’ mid-season driver rankings, four drivers who have performed strongly over the opening 12 rounds of the 2023 championship – just not quite enough to earn a place at the very top of the field.
8 – Oscar Piastri – McLaren
Oscar Piastri
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 3 | 19 |
| GP finish | 4 | 19 |
| Points | 34 | |
Imagine being the reigning Formula 2 champion, one of the brightest young prospects in years, and sitting out a full season of racing on the sidelines, after which you were bumping and then jumping into a race seat with an entirely new team at 22 years old. That is the difficult prospect that Oscar Piastri faced as he finally made his Formula 1 debut in 2023.
But despite all the expectation upon him and the inevitable rust of spending almost 15 months without a single race start to his name, it’s fair to say Piastri has enjoyed an impressive start to his F1 career. Although his introduction to the world championship was unexpectedly challenging.
After McLaren suffered a horrible pre-season testing programme, they entered the first round of the season knowing they were on the back foot with their car and Piastri managed just 13 laps in the Bahrain Grand Prix before an electrical problem struck, ending his debut far too early. However, he showed that his year out of racing had stunted none of his potential at the second round in Jeddah, getting through into Q3 in only his second F1 qualifying session. Then in the race, he suffered front wing damage at the start and pitted but ran the rest of the race on hard tyres, outpacing team mate Lando Norris and catching and passing fellow rookie Logan Sargeant on the final lap. He finished only 15th, but it had demonstrated how he was fully F1-ready.
The performance of the McLaren fluctuated wildly over the first half of the season and was not at its best in Miami, where Piastri made a strong start to move up five places and run in 14th before a brake-by-wire problem manifested to frustrate him over the rest of the race. Piastri was unable to match Norris in qualifying the vast majority of the time but he was only 0.018s slower than him in Monaco and kept his head over the weekend to record his second points finish at the end of a mistake-free event.
McLaren were hard at work brewing up a major upgrades package for their MCL60 and rushed it to Austria, where Norris was granted use of it. But when Piastri got his hands on the revised car at Silverstone, he did an excellent job to secure a stunning top three start right behind his team mate in qualifying. He challenged Max Verstappen on the opening lap and ran comfortably in third until a badly-timed Safety Car period enabled Lewis Hamilton to finish ahead and deny Piastri a maiden podium on his tenth grand prix start.
He backed up this performance in Hungary, again sitting behind Norris on the grid and spending the first 17 laps behind Verstappen after jumping into second place at the start. Although he faded through the rest of the race to finish fifth and well behind Norris, it was revealed that he likely suffered floor damage in the race. Then at Spa-Francorchamps, he out-qualified Norris on Friday, took second in sprint qualifying and led the sprint race after pitting for intermediate tyres before being caught by Verstappen and finishing second. Sadly on Sunday, a first corner clash with Carlos Sainz Jnr ended his race.
Although he sits three places behind and with just under half the points of his team mate, Piastri has already shown McLaren that he has the ability to hold his nerve at the front of the field despite being a rookie. If McLaren can keep their newfound performance up, his best results of 2023 may be yet to come.
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7 – George Russell – Mercedes
George Russell
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 2 | 18 |
| GP finish | 3 | 8 |
| Points | 99 | |
Russell was finally promoted into a full-time Mercedes race seat last year and ended up beating his seven-times world champion team mate over the course of his first season at the front of the field. It was inevitable, then, that there would be bigger expectations for him in 2023.
While Russell has certainly delivered some excellent performances through the first half of 2023, he sits at the midpoint of the season nearly 50 points behind team mate Hamilton in the championship standings – in stark contrast to 2022. Once again, Mercedes have not been as strong as they hoped or expected to be. While Hamilton has stood on the podium four times in the opening 12 rounds, Russell has done so just once.
His best round was in Melbourne, where he secured a front row start alongside Verstappen and muscled into the lead at the start, then pitted when the Safety Car was deployed to appear in a very strong position. Sadly, red flags put a heavy dent into his victory chances before a power unit failure ended them completely, leaving him without points from a very good weekend. He showed his skills again in Miami, easily out-qualifying Hamilton and passing multiple cars to work his way up the order and finish fourth behind the two Red Bulls and Alonso.
But despite these moments of brilliance, he also lacked the consistency to continue to deliver them regularly. He made mistakes in the wet in Monaco which cost him more points than he eventually scored in fifth, even despite a penalty, while an unforced error during the Canadian Grand Prix effectively ended his race after hitting the wall. He was solid in Austria, being one of only two drivers not to earn a single track limits strike, but was eliminated in Q1 in Hungary before recovering well enough to finish sixth. At Spa, he underperformed in both qualifying sessions and managed to get in Hamilton’s way on his final sprint qualifying run, but at least secured another top six in the grand prix.
Russell has shown he continues to have the speed to match Hamilton in the first half of the season, but he’ll want to ensure that he is more consistent over the remaining ten rounds of the year.
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6 – Charles Leclerc – Ferrari
Charles Leclerc
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 1 (x2) | 19 |
| GP finish | 2 | 11 |
| Points | 99 | |
Having gone from championship leader just three rounds into 2022 to, a year later, sitting tenth in the standings on just six points and 63 behind Verstappen at the equivalent point of the season, it was easy to understand why Charles Leclerc turned to writing piano music to cope with his emotions.
But while Leclerc did not help himself through 2022 with some unforced errors at key moments, his poor positioning at the start of this season had little to do with his driving. He showed that over the remaining rounds until eventually bringing himself up to fifth in the standings at the summer break, level with the man directly behind him in these rankings – Russell.
After early frustration, Leclerc was on fire in Baku. He not only secured a stunning pole for the grand prix on Friday, he repeated that achievement in Saturday sprint qualifying before taking second place in the sprint race. There was almost nothing he could do to stop the Red Bulls from simply driving around him in the DRS zone in both races, so a podium in third was the best realistic result he could have achieved. But after brilliance in Baku, Leclerc was mediocre in Miami. He crashed out at turn seven twice in the weekend – once in practice on Friday, then in Q3 on Saturday – but in the race he made no progress from seventh on the grid and admitted he was simply trying to get to the chequered flag.
More frustration followed at home in Monaco where he lost third on the grid due to an impeding penalty after he was not warned about Norris approaching him after his final Q3 run, eventually finishing where he started in sixth. But Leclerc started to struggle in damp conditions, which quickly became a problem as drivers kept having to deal with rain. He was knocked out of Q1 in 19th in Spain in intermediate conditions, then missed Q3 at the next round in Montreal before struggling again in the wet during sprint qualifying in Austria. However, he almost snatched pole position in grand prix qualifying and drove a strong race on Sunday to finish second behind Verstappen.
He got pole position at Spa courtesy of Verstappen’s power unit grid penalty and, once again, finished third behind the two Red Bulls who reaffirmed their dominance with their 13th straight victory. But it was another example of how Leclerc is able to be best of the rest when his car was capable – and of how he seems to have the measure of his team mate too.
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5 – Alexander Albon – Williams
Alexander Albon
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 8 (x2) | 18 |
| GP finish | 7 | 16 |
| Points | 11 | |
Albon stormed back onto the F1 grid in style in 2022, standing out as arguably the best driver of those in the worst cars. Having re-established himself in the series, his new team Williams would have been eager to see what he could do in year two.
If anything, Albon has performed even better through the first half of 2023 than he did last year. Helped by the fact that the entire field is closer this season than last – except for the clearly dominant Red Bulls – Williams is no longer the obvious slowest team on the grid. That’s not to say the FW45 is a top-five car or even a top-seven car, but Albon’s ability to get the most out of it is becoming increasingly clear.
He looked very strong yet again in Melbourne after reaching Q3 for the first time in 2023 and running in a genuine sixth place in the early laps. But then, a mistake at turn five caused a spike in tyre temperatures which led to him crashing out of the race at the next corner – easily his sourest moment of the season so far. At least he bounced back in Baku, securing seventh on the grid in sprint qualifying and just missing out on points in ninth in the sprint race before finishing 12th in the grand prix after some unfortunate Safety Car timing worked against him.
Even when the Williams was not in the fight for points, Albon continued to put his car in the upper midfield. Spain is the only time he has crossed the finish line lower than 14th so far, but even that was a better performance than Monaco where he crashed his car at the end of practice and ran off track briefly when the rain fell in the race but still finished 14th.
But after Monaco, Albon delivered consistently solid drives. He was just outside of the points in Austria – with 15 seconds of track limits penalties not influencing his position – and in Canada he made the most of a track that suited his car and secured his best result of the season with seventh, putting on yet another defensive masterclass to hold off faster cars with his old hard compound tyres.
Perhaps his strongest weekend was Silverstone, where he was consistently in the top three positions in practice, secured eight on the grid in qualifying and then on Sunday overtook Sainz in the later laps and kept Leclerc behind him to beat both Ferraris to the finish in eighth – an excellent performance in a weekend filled with outstanding drives. His car did not suit the Hungaroring, but Albon still gained five places from his starting position to finish 11th, just missing out on yet more points.
As cars are closer in performance this season, it’s becoming clearer to see those drivers who are able to make the difference in the midfield battle. He might be only 13th in the championship, but Albon has put together more outstanding and impressive race weekends than many of those ahead of him in the standings. And, unsurprisingly, no driver has outdone their team mate so heavily in the first half of 2023 than the way Albon has dominated Sargeant.
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2023 F1 season
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Diez Cilindros (@diezcilindros)
17th August 2023, 7:36
Pretty much the expected knowing that these four and VER-ALO-HAM-NOR were the remaining. I still think PIA, LEC and RUS are a bit higher, but it’s OK. Let’s wait for the way the top-4 is ranked tomorrow. VER-ALO-HAM-NOR is my bet, since HAM is beating a better driver than NOR is beating, ALO is destroying STR even more (and beating HAM with a maybe-slightly-slower car) and VER is VER.
Anuj Chopra
17th August 2023, 7:42
Agree VER-ALO-HAM-NOR is most probable. The only other possibility is VER-ALO-NOR-HAM
MacLeod (@macleod)
17th August 2023, 7:54
Lando had only the last 2 races where he impress us a bit before that he was soso (probaly dissappointed in McLaren car from the start)
SteveP
17th August 2023, 8:34
I know it’s difficult to distinguish between car performance and driver performance in many cases, but if this really is driver rating then VER should be lower than ALO at the very least.
Max has had little to do other than point the car neatly at the finish in most races so far.
Noted that his teammate has difficulties with the neat pointing at times, unless he intentionally pointed at barriers.
CarWars (@maxv)
17th August 2023, 8:45
And Alonso just has to keep making a mistake here and there, right? Alonso is good but he hasnt been great in the last races.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
17th August 2023, 9:03
I don’t know how you came to this conclusion to be honest. if Verstappen only has to point his car in the right direction and everything else is magic, explain Perez to me again, and you already noted this so you have realized this.
Yes, the Red Bull is a good car, no doubt, but it still takes a great driver to put the entire field on a second a lap for 20 laps straight. It still takes a good driver to pull that Monaco pole lap out of the bag. It takes a good driver to fight back through the field and take P1 basically on-track before the first pitstop window is even done and dusted with. He won ten of the twelve races, how could he be anywhere but number one on anyone’s list? No matter how you feel about him, even #TeamLH would have to yield on this one.
x303 (@x303)
17th August 2023, 11:34
What has #TeamLH to do in this @sjaakfoo? I thought the debate was about Alonso and Verstappen??
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
17th August 2023, 12:07
Not sure why that triggered you, but I’ll rephrase to clarify: “Even the most biased against Verstappen people would have to yield on this one.”
SteveP
17th August 2023, 13:50
Stick Alonso in the RB and Verstappen in the AM, then debate the “great” driver.
x303 (@x303)
17th August 2023, 14:08
I wasn’t ‘triggered’, I just asked a question @sjaakfoo. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mayrton
17th August 2023, 14:39
Zak Brown does not agree with you as he recently stated it us all Max and not RB displaying the dominance. I could see your point if Checo (like Bottas before) would always come in 2nd every race. But he certainly doesn’t.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
17th August 2023, 15:20
Difficult to argue that Verstappen is not putting the field on fire honestly.
David (@nvherman)
18th August 2023, 8:29
I’m sorry, if you think ALO has been as good as VER this season, you are clearly watching different races to most others.
Nick T.
17th August 2023, 23:37
Why should Russell or Leclerc be above Alonso, Hamilton, Norris or Verstappen?
Your might say a fairer way to rank the drivers might be to give scores because a straight rank might make it appear drivers are way lower than someone in the top 3 even if the performance difference isn’t that great, but this approach will always get more clicks. 😛
Jere (@jerejj)
17th August 2023, 7:49
Pretty much expectable order & I share the above predictions about the remaining quartet.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
17th August 2023, 7:58
Got to say that although this is based on the ratings each weekend for the drivers, I think Albon is way too high here. It may say that the car is no longer at the bottom, but it does have some pretty clear major advantages compared to most teams, and that is straight line speed. Albon has been very good at getting the positions to begin with, but given you often see much faster cars with DRS stuck behind him even on the straights, it to me implies the williams major strength has made it a far more competetive car this year than the article suggests. Plus it doesn’t help at all that Albon’s team mate is by far the weakest on the grid, which could well be another thing hiding that the williams is indeed this strong and maybe Albon should have been doing even better still.
The fact that he’s had a self inflicted DNF as well as a race with so many track limit infractions that he gets 3x 5 second penalties as well as all mentioned above, it makes me all the more think he’s been seriously overrated. Not that I think he’s been bad overall, but I couldn’t rate him higher than any of the drivers on this page.
Even Bottas for example hasn’t crashed out at all or earned any penalties during the races, and arguably I would say overall this season, the alfa romeo has become weaker than the williams and without Bottas having bad luck accross 5 weekends, it is highly likely that he would have more or less the same points as albon. It also should be said that Bottas has had several weekends too that were pretty close to the points.
Most of the rankings seem about right, but albon just seems unrealistically high.
Jmlabareda
17th August 2023, 8:31
The way this ranking is going with some dubious calls as usual, and the past observed massive bias towards Alonso, it’s not out of the question this site will rank him #1
Todfod (@todfod)
17th August 2023, 8:44
What’s dubious? I might swap Russell and Piastri.. but Albon has been absoutely mega this season, and Leclerc slightly less so.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
17th August 2023, 9:04
Have to agree, you can argue on positions till kingdom come, but I struggle to see fault in these rankings along with their explanations.
MichaelN
17th August 2023, 9:14
Has Albon been that good, or is the general perception of the Williams several seasons out of date, and his only comparison a rookie who is still trying to find his footing? For example Norris wasn’t that special when partnered with Sainz, was granted a ton of credit for beating a lacklustre Ricciardo (although he did take his win, while Norris squandered two chances to do the same), and now Piastri is seemingly inheriting some of that inflated status by being quite close, and sometimes faster, after just a dozen races.
The differences between some of these rankings is either very subtle (a ranking by its nature suggests the gap between each place is similiar), or the criteria by which the drivers are valued are counted somewhat at random, with a big emphasis on high points, and bonus points for the English.
x303 (@x303)
17th August 2023, 11:41
Norris has improved since he was partnered with Sainz. Athletes form vary during their career, not taking that into account is misleading.
MichaelN
17th August 2023, 17:29
Maybe he has, but being partnered with a confused Ricciardo and now a rookie makes that hard to judge. Form does indeed vary, and it doesn’t always go up. Some improve and then hit a limit, while others have one exceptional season that they are never able to replicate.
It’s always important to note that in F1, “slow” can be as meaningless a difference as two tenths of a second over a five and half kilometer race track. But that’s the game they’re playing, so it’s fair to exaggerate those differences within the context of F1. In a broader perspective all drivers on the grid are pretty great at what they do. They wouldn’t be there otherwise.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
17th August 2023, 18:06
Norris did NOT squander russia 2021, hamilton played for the title and ensured 2nd place by putting intermediates on; norris’ only chance on first win was gambling on staying on slicks, he tried it and worked well as long as conditions were intermediates, and when they hit full wet he couldn’t go on any more.
Jmlabareda
17th August 2023, 13:54
A simple example is Perez in 17th, i get it that he has underperformed but putting him that low is just not plausible
1) If he was really under performing that badly he would have been fired already
2) He was well beaten by Max in other years, I believe with similar head to head metrics. Yet now he is 17th in the rankings, a purposefully dubious call to generate more clicks and comments
3) pick a few drivers ahead of him and swap them … do we really think the likes of Yuki Tsunoda would perform better in a Red Bull than Sérgio? Or that he wouldn’t get more of that AT than Yuki?
David BR (@david-br)
17th August 2023, 10:37
I think these 4 are fine.
Alonso though. He’s a truly awesome self-flattery machine. I mean, he’s a great driver in many ways, but not the fastest and certainly the most risk-averse. But somehow he’s always ‘out-performing the car’. Really? There’s just something too symptomatic of his post-2006 career in this year’s performance: almost but not quite. Can’t help thinking Leclerc or Norris would have made more of that car earlier in the season. And Hamilton was the one to break the Red Bull pole run.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
17th August 2023, 15:33
@david-br probably for Leclerc or Norris, though there wasn’t much more to gain than third, so he mostly maximised I would think. He had a few little cracks though, like in Belgium trying to overdrive a declining car or generally the ultimate one-lap pace in Q3, though we’ll never know if they would have done better of course.
Overinflating always a bit for sure but he’s quite achieving though, and so far this year the only one who impressed me more is Verstappen.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
17th August 2023, 8:58
It seems like every year the F2 champion has the same problem: no F1 seat. As the F2 is more or less synchronised with F1, it means by the time the F2 championship has sorted itself out most or all of the F1 seats have been taken. If the F2 season finished about this time of the year, then there’d be several potential uncontracted seats across the grid for F1 next year.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
17th August 2023, 9:12
I don’t think the duration of the championship is an issue here. A great F2 driver will be contracted long before the end of the championship, we’ve seen this in the past with the likes of Charles and George, it’s not really a problem.
The problem lies in that rule. The champion has to leave F2 no matter what, even if he has nowhere to go. It’d be much better if they removed that rule and made different rules. There’s two I’d like to see implemented. The first would be an age limit. Roberto Mehri is older than most the F1 grid, why is he driving in F2 (occassionally)? The second rule needs to be a maximum amount of seasons, I’d suggest no more than 4 (If you do > 50% of races in a season that counts as one season), and then you have to go. That effectively removes pay drivers like Nissany from continuously occupying seats in the series. Now if you can’t prove yourself to an F1 team in 4 seasons, than you probably don’t have the quality F1 looks for.
Finally, of course, we just need more teams and more seats. I’ve also long advocated sprint races be converted to a “rookie series” where each F1 team fields either one or two rookies and they fight for a rookie championship and their points count towards the regular WCC. That way FOM gets their sprints, and we get a fun Saturday event that doesn’t detract from the main race. But what do I know, I’m no Stefano.
x303 (@x303)
17th August 2023, 11:49
This is an interesting idea, but some F2 teams probably rely on the money brought by the pay drivers. Removing that income stream may not necessary open up a seat to a talented but broke driver.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
17th August 2023, 12:10
As far as I know, all drivers in F3 and F2 have to pay for their seats, there’s no such thing as a non-pay driver.
x303 (@x303)
17th August 2023, 14:10
Fair point.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
18th August 2023, 10:34
However, subsidised seats still exist. This means there are “pay drivers” and “pay-even-more drivers”. Removing income streams mean more “pay-even-more drivers”.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
18th August 2023, 10:35
Or fewer teams. Which would aggravate the issue.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
17th August 2023, 20:55
@sjaakfoo Yes, I like this idea. It is becoming more apparent the Sprint Races should have their own Championship table, so it wouldn’t be difficult for the teams to field at least one driver who is supposed to be race fit but seldom gets to normally drive, e.g. the Reserve Driver. It would also enable teams to give their academy drivers the opportunity to be seen by a wider audience.
Thank you to everyone who has commented. I think they all had merit.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
18th August 2023, 10:33
@sjaakfoo However, this is entirely dependent on whether the driver is in the right team’s development scheme for the seat availability in a given year.
I think it would be good if F2 was timetabled to happen in the first half of the season and F3 in the second half of the year. This would enable F2 drivers who aren’t aligned with the “right” driver scheme to compete for F1 seats (as their performance is known early enough to sway teams who want to look outside their usual driver development scheme for whatever reason) and F3 drivers are similarly able to fight for F2 seats regardless of their membership or lack of same of the “right” driver development scheme (at the moment, the strongest F2 seats most often go to the same driver development schemes, less because of skill or even money and more because of timing availability).
MichaelN
17th August 2023, 9:22
That’s on the FIA for making F2 a championship that pretends to be the ‘road to F1’ rather than a solid racing series on its own. They can’t force F1 teams to hire every F2 season’s champion, so just let these guys stay in F2. M a ybe a second title will give them that opportunity. And if others can’t beat a champion, maybe they too need more time and experience before moving up.
drmouse (@drmouse)
17th August 2023, 10:44
Well, technically they could. They make the rules for both F1 and F2, they could add a rule to F1 which forced someone to give the F2 champion a seat.
That’s not necessarily that I think they should.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
17th August 2023, 12:27
@drmouse I think employment laws might prohibit something like that. The FIA would need to mandate that a team removes one driver from their current role (even if giving them another position in the team) and replace them with another. That seems quite unfair and anti-competitive, since the team might be forced to hire a less competitive driver, or forgo on sponsorship deals etc. for something outside of their control. And which team would the F2 graduate be forced upon? How long would they need to keep them as a full-time driver if they underperform?
drmouse (@drmouse)
17th August 2023, 10:56
I do think this rule needs looking at. If there is no guaranteed “promotion” to F1, denying the champion another season is really harsh. I’d rather see something like a limit on the number of seasons someone can take part and/or elimination of the lowest finisher(s) in the championship.
Coventry Climax
17th August 2023, 11:50
I’m not sure if I’m in favor of it myself, and it would need a rather extensive ‘across series system overhaul’, but some sort of promotion/degradation would be a forced solution. At least it matches the FIA’s (unrealistic) idea that F3-F2-F1 is the (only) ladder to climb.
That, and the word forced is why I’m not so sure myself if I’d actually like to see that implemented.
Coventry Climax
17th August 2023, 11:23
That implies that the people in F1 are not aware of the driver quality in F2 until the F2 Championship is over, and I think it’s safe to say that is not the case.
There’s nothing that withholds F1 from contracting an F2 driver before the championship is over. Sure, they theoretically may set their eyes on someone, where that driver then messes up massively and misses out on superlicense points. I think though, that it’s quite safe to assume the teams have enough insight, and in F2 data as well, to judge driver quality before the season is over. I’m sure a clause in the contract to provide for the unforseen is not a problem.
To me, there must be other or at least more reasons why F2 drivers have so much trouble reaching into F1.
Before the FIA more or less shut the door for drivers from other series, by a change to the superlicense points ‘awards system’, F2 drivers were already frequently skipped.
Asanator
17th August 2023, 13:47
I think the problem (aside from the number of seats/teams in F1) is more that the F2 champion is usually already contracted to one of the F1 teams driver academies. Drugovich was unusual in that respect. Most F1 teams have current drivers on multiple year contracts and if they don’t have the clout to ‘place’ an academy driver in a team further down the grid then there is no-where for them to go other than a reserve/watch and learn role. Even if one of the other F1 teams are interested in them most will be reluctant to be a training ground for another teams academy driver. All of the F2 champions (2017 onwards) have made it onto the F1 grid eventually even if it did take De-Vries a round about way to get there. He wasn’t helped by the fact that he took 3 season to win the F2 title and by then there was an up and coming Norris in McLarens plans.
David
17th August 2023, 11:18
Albon above Leclerc.
That is hilarious.
F1Genova (@f1genova)
17th August 2023, 13:08
agreed
so much recrecy bias, lando has been good the last couple races, all of a sudden he’s a top 5 driver. gimme a break man
Edvaldo
17th August 2023, 13:50
Leclerc has not been that much better than Sainz to be so ahead.
And Albon may be too high too. He, like Alonso, races alone, we don’t really know how much of that is his work or the car that is not that bad as the other driver make it seem.
drmouse (@drmouse)
17th August 2023, 14:17
I think that’s the one I disagree with the most, too. Sainz hasn’t been quite as good as Leclerc, but he hasn’t been bad enough to warrant such a large gap, for me.
MichaelN
17th August 2023, 17:31
Yes, Sainz has been very harshly rated. He has been very consistent, and while he lacks the highs, his averages are very good. As mentioned in the other article, his qualifying is 2nd best (!) of all. And in the races he’s on average closer to Leclerc than Russell is to Hamilton.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
17th August 2023, 19:24
I think albon is surprisingly high, even though he had a good season, we’re talking about a 14 places gap compared to his team mate, and leclerc and sainz also have too big of a difference compared to what I’ve seen during the season; apart from that, I was expecting these 4 to come now because realistically, the other 4 have generally been top tier.
Janith
18th August 2023, 12:28
There is no logic behind ranking Leclerc that low. He has always been faster than his teammates throughout his career. A phenomenal talent with already 3 podiums this season. And one robbed at the opening grand prix. Let’s not forget Sainz is no mediocre driver. He had Norris under control when he was at McLaren before moving to Ferrari.
bosyber (@bosyber)
19th August 2023, 7:13
Given the very low position Sainz is in, one could also conclude the ranking overestimates the Ferrari team and car though.
administrasi bisnis
23rd August 2023, 13:02
Thank you this post is very good, Since when did you become a blogger?