With the final qualifying session of 2023 behind us, which drivers and teams mastered the art of the single flying lap this year?
Team mate battles
With his future in Formula 1 yet to be confirmed, Logan Sargeant would have been anxious to avoid ending the season without managing to out-qualify his team mate at least once. However a ‘double fault’ in Q1 at Yas Marina meant he did just that.Sargeant tripped the track limits twice, meaning he ended the session without a lap time. His team mate Alexander Albon therefore completed an unbeaten run against his team mate. Out of the occasions where both drivers set times in qualifying, Albon was ahead 19 times. On the other three occasions Sargeant failed to set a time – either due to track limits infringements or because he crashed – making this a clear whitewash for Albon.
A rookie driver going up against a more experienced driver will always face a challenge. Others with hundreds of start to their names did little better against their team mates.
Sergio Perez, for example, took a 19-1 thrashing from team mate Max Verstappen. Lance Stroll hardly fared better against Fernando Alonso, losing 19-3.
On the flip side, George Russell managed to even up the qualifying scoreline against team mate Lewis Hamilton, having trailed him 7-5 at the summer break.
| Qualifying scores | Max Verstappen | 19 – 1 | Sergio Perez |
|---|---|---|
| Charles Leclerc | 15 – 7 | Carlos Sainz Jnr |
| Lewis Hamilton | 11 – 11 | George Russell |
| Esteban Ocon | 8 – 14 | Pierre Gasly |
| Lando Norris | 15 – 7 | Oscar Piastri |
| Valtteri Bottas | 16 – 6 | Zhou Guanyu |
| Lance Stroll | 3 – 19 | Fernando Alonso |
| Kevin Magnussen | 7 – 15 | Nico Hulkenberg |
| Nyck de Vries | 2 – 8 | Yuki Tsunoda |
| Alexander Albon | 19 – 0 | Logan Sargeant |
| Daniel Ricciardo | 3 – 4 | Yuki Tsunoda |
| Liam Lawson | 3 – 2 | Yuki Tsunoda |
Methodology: Whichever team’s driver reached the later stage or set the faster lap time is judged the winner, unless either did not set a time
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Q1, Q2 and Q3 appearances
Q1 eliminations
Mercedes did the best job of clearing the first hurdle in qualifying. They only suffered one Q1 elimination all year, when George Russell dropped out in Hungary. Bizarrely, that was on the weekend his team mate scored their only pole position of the year.
Hamilton was one of only two full-season drivers who never dropped out in Q1 all season, the other unsurprisingly being Max Verstappen.
Tap each layer to compare eliminations and appearances by team mates.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Q2 eliminations
Dominant champions Red Bull had more Q2 eliminations than three of their rivals, and the same number as Aston Martin. This was chiefly due to Sergio Perez, who failed to take the car which annihilated the competition into Q3 nine times over the 22-round campaign. He fell six times in Q2 and failed to even get that far on three occasions.
Verstappen also dropped out in Q2 twice – once due to a technical failure in Jeddah, and again in Singapore, where the Red Bulls endured their sole truly uncompetitive weekend of the year.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Q3 appearances
Despite a poor start to the year in which they racked up many of their nine Q1 eliminations, McLaren rallied to amass 31 Q3 appearances by the end of the year – just two fewer than Red Bull. They were aided by Oscar Piastri contributing almost as many as experienced team mate Lando Norris.
Aston Martin made three fewer Q3 appearances than McLaren but clearly should have had more. While Fernando Alonso reached the final round 20 times, Lance Stroll only got that far on eight occasions.
Only one of the 22 drivers to start a race this year never made it into Q3. That was Nyck de Vries, whose replacements Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson did so once each. Nonetheless, their AlphaTauri team spent less time in Q3 than any of their rivals.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2023 average grid
| Rank | Driver | Average | Best | Worst |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Max Verstappen | 3.18 | 1 (x12) | 15 |
| 2 | Charles Leclerc | 4.95 | 1 (x5) | 19 |
| 3 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | 5.77 | 1 (x2) | 16 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | 6.09 | 1 | 13 (x2) |
| 5 | George Russell | 6.45 | 2 (x3) | 18 |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso | 6.91 | 2 (x4) | 19 |
| 7 | Lando Norris | 7.95 | 2 (x3) | 19 |
| 8 | Sergio Perez | 9.27 | 1 (x2) | 20 (x3) |
| 9 | Oscar Piastri | 9.64 | 2 | 19 |
| 10 | Pierre Gasly | 11.14 | 4 | 20 |
| 11 | Esteban Ocon | 11.27 | 3 | 19 |
| 12 | Alexander Albon | 11.95 | 4 | 18 |
| 13 | Nico Hulkenberg | 12.32 | 5 | 20 (x2) |
| 14 | Lance Stroll | 12.82 | 3 | 20 (x4) |
| 15 | Daniel Ricciardo | 13.71 | 4 | 19 |
| 16 | Liam Lawson | 13.80 | 10 | 19 |
| 17 | Yuki Tsunoda | 13.82 | 6 | 20 |
| 18 | Valtteri Bottas | 13.86 | 7 (x2) | 20 |
| 19 | Kevin Magnussen | 15.09 | 4 | 20 |
| 20 | Zhou Guanyu | 15.64 | 5 | 20 (x2) |
| 21 | Nyck de Vries | 16.60 | 12 | 20 |
| 22 | Logan Sargeant | 16.82 | 6 | 20 (x6) |
Become a RaceFans Supporter
RaceFans is run thanks in part to the generous support of its readers. By contributing £1 per month or £12 per year (or the same in whichever currency you use) you can help cover the costs of creating, hosting and developing RaceFans today and in the future.
Become a RaceFans Supporter today and browse the site ad-free. Sign up or find out more via the links below:
2023 F1 season
- FIA president cleared of alleged interference in two 2023 races
- First week viewing figures for new Drive to Survive season fall again
- Max who? Drive to Survive season six prefers its favourite faces
- RaceFans’ complete 2023 season review
- The F1 drivers who pulled off the 10 biggest charges through the field in 2023
Iosif (@afonic)
26th November 2023, 8:34
Great article! This is really embarrassing for Perez in one of the most dominant cars ever.
MichaelN
26th November 2023, 11:59
For sure, that’s the thing that stands out. Even just the number of Q3 appearances is sub-par.
Russell and Sainz can’t quite match their teammates, but as the averages show they’re usually not far behind.
Pérez’ average of 9th (!), which is also the 8th best ranked, in that car is just very bad.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
26th November 2023, 12:48
I actually think the very mixed record of Perez probably tells us that this isn’t “one of the most dominant cars ever,” certainly not in qualifying trim. If you look back to the end of the Mercedes era, for example, Bottas had something like 100 Q3 appearances in a row. They’ve definitely had the edge in races, largely down to superior tyre wear, but in qualifying we haven’t seen dominance by any historical standard.
DaveW (@dmw)
26th November 2023, 15:20
RBR gave up a lot of poles. But they had one of the most dominant cars ever by far. The record books will have no asterisks on that. It’s hard to imagine another team beating that wins and points-share record ever.
I believe the comparison to Pérez’ disastrous qualifying goes mainly to show that Bottas was a very good qualifier and has a case as being a superior F1 driver to Pérez, mainly in his discipline and lack of critical errors as well as pace. Just look at today where Perez has another poor weekend in a car that casually smoked the field. If anything his performance underlines the car’s dominance. RBR laid waste to the field in every metric, even qualifying, with a hand tied behind its back.
melanos
26th November 2023, 16:25
Only with a vast ignorance of F1 history, or voluntary blindness (or both) can such a canard be stated.
The form of the rest of the teams has kept changing along the season, and while RBR’s pace has usually been more dominant on Sundays, in the late part of the season there has been a razor’s edge between Fezza and RBR for quali.
Alex
26th November 2023, 9:00
I like these visualisations as a way to dig into the stats. However, after clicking into a subcategory, I don’t see a button for getting back to the big picture. Perhaps someone could add that / check it appears on all browsers?
ALM
26th November 2023, 11:10
right click
Sumedh
27th November 2023, 17:21
But what to do on phones?