A new Formula 1 season means it’s once again time for Edd Straw to rank the performances of all 20 drivers across qualifying and the grand prix.
Here’s who he thinks were the best performers at the season-opening Bahrain GP:
How do the rankings work?
The 20 drivers will be ranked in order of performance from best to worst on each grand prix weekend. This will be based on the full range of criteria, ranging from pace and racecraft to consistency and whether they made key mistakes. How close each driver got to delivering on the maximum performance potential of the car will be an essential consideration.
It’s important to note both that this reflects performance across the entire weekend, cognisant of the fact that qualifying is effectively ‘lap 0’ of the race and key to laying the foundations to the race, and that it is not a ranking of the all-round qualities of each driver. It’s simply about how they performed on a given weekend. Therefore, the ranking will fluctuate significantly from weekend to weekend.
And with each of the 10 cars fundamentally having different performance potential and ‘luck’ (ie factors outside of a driver’s control) contributing to the way the weekend plays out, this ranking will also differ significantly from the overall results.
Started: 1st Finished: 1st
This was textbook Verstappen, with the relentless battling to get the car right through practice followed by a well-executed qualifying, where he stole pole from a potentially quicker Ferrari.
He controlled the race as you would expect, taking fastest lap along the way and being as untouchable as you would expect a driver of his quality to be with a performance advantage.
Verdict: Picked up where he left off last year.
Started: 3rd Finished: 5th
Russell overachieved in qualifying thanks to being one of the few in Q3 to deliver something approaching the maximum the car was capable of. That earned him a surprising third on the grid.
After briefly running second, cooling management defined his race and fifth place was realistically the best he could have done considering the car issues and the race pace of the Ferraris.
Verdict: A strong start to an important season.
Started: 6th Finished: 9th
Alonso’s self-proclaimed overperformance in qualifying suggested the Aston Martin was better than it was.
That meant his race was one of regressing to the mean, which ultimately meant a lonely ninth place finish, that was as good as the car’s race pace would allow.
Verdict: Did what he could with the fifth-best car.
Started: 2nd Finished: 4th
Leclerc had the pace for pole position, setting the fastest time of qualifying in Q2, but admitted “the last lap wasn’t the best lap”.
That was partly thanks to having only one set of fresh softs available and feeling he lost rhythm and couldn’t nail the front-wing flap setting on the used-tyre run in Q3. But several small moments, notably at Turn 11, cost him.
The dramatic brake temperature offset, which there’s no indication he was responsible for, compromised his race and meant what he felt could have been second place ahead of Perez, turned to fourth.
Verdict: Shades Sainz given he’d likely have finished ahead without the brake problems.
Started: 4th Finished: 3rd
Q3 was disappointing, especially after a strong Q1 ensured he had two fresh sets of softs available, and he ended up a tenth off his team-mate despite Leclerc also underperforming.
Losing a place to Perez at the start ultimately cost him a shot at second place, as he wasn’t able to threaten the Red Bull driver despite never losing sight of him, which given the car-pace disadvantage was no great failure.
Verdict: Disappointing qualifying but a decent race.
Started: 5th Finished: 2nd
Perez was much happier with the entry stability of the car compared to last year, describing it as “a step better”.
However, he was too conservative into…
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