Thinking of driver rankings, we all know who was #1, but who was your #2 and #3? My top 5 would be: 1) Max Verstappen - this is obvious 2) Charles Leclerc - 3 wins, performed good when the car was good. Abu Dhabi sealed it for me. 3) Fernando Alonso - the car was a tractor yet he scored points 16 times. Outscored Stroll 2.92:1, the highest of any driver pairing. 4) Carlos Sainz - 2 wins, also performed well when he had a good car. Considering he knew he was leaving Ferrari, he still delivered in most of the races. 5) George Russell. Beat his 7x champ teammate pretty thoroughly. 2 official wins, but crossed the line 1st 3 times. The car was the best a handful of times, but it was 3rd or 4th best the majority of the season. Why not Lando? He under-delivered too many times while having the best car. Bottom 3 would be: Perez Stroll Sargeant
1) Max. duh 2) Russell- beat Hammie. 4 poles and 3, errr 2 wins in the 4th best car 3) Chuck- won Monaco and Monza in a Ferrari. say no more 4) Lando- has carried McLaren from the outhouse to the penthouse. 8 poles and 4 wins despite more internal, team and rival drama than you can shake a stick at. 5) Piastri- made Lando look like a chump more than once. great racecraft for sophmore season.
Agree with your 2nd and 3rd. 2/ Charles, and the car, was much better this year on the tires enabling him to get maximum performance out of the car. 3/ Alonso, the master of defense. There was almost always a big gap between him and the car in front of him (not his fault) and a long line behind him. If only he had a front row contender, the racing would be amazing.
Disagree on Piastri - he had a 3-4 race run where he was on it but the rest of the season Lando was pretty clearly better in the same car. Sainz was more consistently up with or outperforming his (frankly even better) teammate. I think Alonso and Hulkenberg deserve mention.
Sainz underperformed against Leclerc for 2024 and since he's been Leclerc's teammate....not by much though. I have the stats(quite lengthy) should you need them-->Leclerc vs. Sainz.
it's actually the opposite- Lando had 6 races (China to Spain) where he significantly outperformed (and gained huge points over) Oscar but the remainder of the season they were very close. no poles for Oscar and 8 for Lando is a better argument. but Oscar's racecraft and mind games are far superior to Lando, despite Oscar having 80 fewer GP starts.
if it wasn't remotely close why did Lando spend so much time whining about his teammate and team orders
I don't think Lando was whining about his teammate, I believe he wanted the team to sacrifice Oscar at any given opportunity to give Lando any fighting chance to win the championship.
well you don't have do that if your teammate is the clear #2 behind you. McLaren is in an interesting spot-the best driver lineup for 2025, bar what Red Bull does with their second seat. if they can keep Lando/Oscar from becoming Prost/Senna they could have a great run of success for a number of years. it's actually a similar situation, Lando/Senna super quick but temperamental, Oscar more calculating and better racecraft like Prost. Lando more likable, Oscar likes to play the villan, etc
He was pretty clearly behind for the last 7 races so it didn't end up mattering. The one race he was ahead the title was already over. I don't get the hype, he had a nice 5 race run in the middle of the season but the races surrounding that he was mostly behind.
for most of the season, Oscar was closer to Lando in points than Lando was to Max. Lando was never really in a WDC fight, I think the closest he got was 40 points? Lando was psychologically destroyed by Max at Austria, and by Oscar (and/or the team) at Hungary and again at Monza and mind you, I rated Lando higher than Oscar in my top 5 let's see your list...
Oscar isn't the number 2 driver, they let them race pretty evenly and that kind of was the point. Lando was had a slim chance at the WDC and he and the media started to suggest McLaren treat Oscar as the #2. I do agree with your comparo to Prost and Senna. I would say Ferrari has the strongest driver line up in 2025 but there is potential for Ferrari to really shoot themselves in the foot next year.
we are in agreement on Oscar not being the #2 driver....which got into Lando's head more than it got into Oscars (which kinda makes him the #1 driver) next year at Ferrari will be very interesting. even Lewis seems to think he's past his prime. Charles is at his peak. how they handle that will be interesting. so nobody else wants to share their list?
Not sure who I would say is the best, but I would say that the drunk driver who crashed into the tree in my yard was probably one of the worst.
2024 Drivers ranking ? 1) Verstappen 2) Norris 3) Leclerc That's how they finished in the WDC ! Anything else is purely subjective ...
Max got it ALL out of the car even after it fell off. Chuck to me at least is the #2 driver. That last drive needs to go up on a wall someplace. Norris and Carlos are both good. I think Norris is not as technically as good as Carlos or Charles.
Leclerc, hands down. I've been critical of him, but he was great this season. Ferrari's technical issues in Canada and Silverstone are the only thing that kept him from P2. He showed phenomenal pace on old tires, and made wicked passes all year long. Max Leclerc Russel Norris Hamilton Sainz Piastri.
SKY F1 ratings: https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/13270873/f1-driver-ratings-2024-ranking-this-seasons-grid-featuring-max-verstappen-lando-norris-lewis-hamilton-sergio-perez-and-more
Verstappen Leclerc 3rd place is a bit more toss up. I guess one of the Brits Norris or Russell. Norris handily beat his teammate, but on the other hand underperformed compared to what his car was capable of. Russell got wins, but those were races the Merc was clearly the fastest car, so you could say easy wins (the cold races). Kinda hard to judge Russell when his teammate was so abysmal.
Giving Alonso a 6.5 is criminal. Max outscored Perez 2.88:1 and they're scored 9.5 vs 3.5 Alonso outscored Stroll 2.92:1 and they're score 6.5 vs 4.0.
