2023 Formula 1: Driver Rankings

Based on their 2023 performances only.

1: Max Verstappen. No surprise here. He was pretty much untouchable.

2: Fernando Alonso. With a good car, he didn't waste it. 5 podiums in the first 6 races. When the car was no longer competitive, he still extracted the most from it right up to the last lap of the season where he secured 4th in the WDC.

3: Lewis Hamilton. He performed pretty much every race in 2023. Rebounded from last season to beat his teammate easily. Perhaps struggled a little bit in the final 3 races. He looked very unmotivated which shouldn't be an excuse for someone in his position.

4: Lando Norris. Had to deal with an awful car to start the season, but once it was upgraded, Lando and his McLaren were a force. 7 podiums in an 11 race stretch. Extremely impressive. He openly admits he made too many mistakes in qualifying. Times when pole was within reach, and he would blow it. Hope he can clean that up a little.

5: Carlos Sainz. The only non-Red Bull driver to win a race this season. Widely recognized as not on the same level as Leclerc, yet he pumped in results and even scored a couple pole positions. Was destined to beat out his teammate in points once again, until some terrible misfortune in Vegas and a horrible "strategy" in Abu Dhabi ruined any hope.

6: Charles Leclerc. With 5 poles he showed he is capable of some incredible speed. Unfortunately he couldn't translate any of those impressive qualifying performances to a victory. He does have some incredibly impressive races. Vegas for example was tremendous. But he continues to make some amateur mistakes. A great drive to end the season hopefully gives him confidence for 2024.

7: Alex Albon. It easily could be the Latifi effect, where the 2nd Williams driver is so bad that it makes the star driver look better than he is. It has to be said that Albon is wrecking his Williams teammates worse than George Russell did, and George is no slouch of a driver. Officially defeating his teammate 22-0 in qualifying, plenty of shocking Q3 performances, and always in the mix for a possible point if things go well.

8: Oscar Piastri. The super hyped up rookie actually lived up to a lot of the expectations. Still a ways off of Lando, but he improved steadily throughout the season. Picked up a Sprint win and a couple of GP podiums. Hopefully the start to a bright future.

9: Pierre Gasly. The Apline was the 6th best car nearly the entire season. That means 11th and 12th is your likely finishing position behind the better 5 cars. Gasly had 11 point scoring finishes, including a podium at Zandvoort. A solid first season with a new team.

10: Estaban Ocon. Same deal as Gasly. 12 points scoring finishes including a podium. Finishing slightly behind his teammate while being the team veteran puts him a place lower than Gasly.

11: George Russell. He has the speed, equal or better than current Lewis Hamilton. However he is the victim of his own errors. Unlike the Ferrari boys, George Russell has terrible in-race strategy ideas. I credit his thinking out of the box, but I can't think of any time where his ideas proved to be a success. He also still can't seem to drive along side other cars, or walls for that matter. Give him respect for owning it. He didn't make any excuses.

12: Sergio Perez. By the standards of which the RB19 ultimately was capable of, Sergio did not have a great season. We must factor in the Max effect. Perez and other drivers before him can only get within 4 or 5 tenths of Verstappen. That's huge. The margins in 2023 are incredibly tight. A tenth between drivers can be worth several positions. Which is why qualifying was so incredible this season. While the fastest driver in F1 (Max) fights for pole, Perez naturally will be 4 or 5 tenths behind on a typical day. And that can mean 8 or 9th on the grid, or not even making Q3. His failings to get out of Q1 on more than a few occasions are flat out bad performances on his part, with no excuse. His silly collisions with other drivers, or silly mistakes from pushing to hard are all on him as well. He still accepts no responsibilities for his short comings. Having said that, he still finished 2nd in the WDC and did win 2 races. At the end of the day, he did deliver what the team expected from him.

13: Yuki Tsunoda. He has improved a lot, a heck of a lot since his rookie season. He likely will never be a top tier driver, but he did have some commendable performances in 2023.

14: Lance Stroll. We must remember he has one of the greatest drivers of all time as a teammate. He got thoroughly thumped by Alonso and was a disappointment time and time again when the car was good. But he did have some credible drives. Huge respect for his performance with 2 broken wrists in the opening race. He finished the season with 3 very good performances, including a 5th place finish from 19th in Vegas.

15: Nico Hulkenberg. It's hard rank a driver when their car is so bad. If we look at qualifying, Nico was impressively quick on quite a few occasions in 2023. He consistently had an edge over K-Mag most of the year. However, the Haas car was atrocious in the race. While Nico finished with 9 points, he did only score 1 points finish in the Grand Prixs. Yikes.

16: Valteri Bottas. The Alfa Romeo was particularly bad this season. He continues to struggle against his young teammate, but he does manage to keep an edge over the full 22 races.

17: Guanyu Zhou. The kid needs some luck on his side, but like they say, you make your own luck. He has the speed to compete with, or beat Bottas, he just needs to do it more regularly. Especially when it counts for points.

18: Kevin Magnussen. After beating Schumacher out of F1, you would think he would be the primary driver at Haas. Since he got out performed by Nico, we have to rank him lower.

19: Logan Sargeant. The worst driver on the grid. He did show some improvement over the season, he is just a long ways off of being anywhere close to Albon.

20: Liam Lawson. It's unfair to rank drives that had partial seasons within the rest, but Liam Lawson definitely was the best of the replacements. His first time in an F1 car and was able to perform better than Yuki. It's almost criminal he doesn't have a seat in 2024.

21: Daniel Ricciardo. A broken hand sure didn't help his return. We saw signs of the old Daniel, and we saw reminders he isn't different than the Daniel of recent years. What will we see in 2024?

22: Nyck De Vries. I have to feel bad for him as it felt like he didn't quite get the chance. Helmet Marko the career killer was quick to get rid of him, long before the car was remotely competitive. It is unlikely we will see him back in F1.

 

This is why I made the statement. Give the guy some credit. Charles IS the better driver. Charles is certainly faster, and when he's zoned in, he is one of the very few to challenge Max. The expectations for Charles has to be well above Carlos. Same car, alternative preferred strategies, lucky or unlucky, it doesn't really matter. After half a dozen races, Charles should already have a gap on Sainz. Unfortunately Charles continues to make a tremendous amount of mistakes all on his own doing. We have never seen the frequency of these type of mistakes from the likes of Max, Alonso, or Hamilton. For some time, especially after 2022, a lot of people were placing Charles as the 2nd best driver in F1, including myself. At least top 3. If that's really the case, then beating Sainz shouldn't be a problem in a 22 race season.

To summarize, I do think Carlos performed better based on his capabilities than Charles did.