My 2023 Formula 1 Driver Gradings

so another year in the bag school's out we're done Formula 1 is finished for the year oh however will we cope I can hop on with the same old rhetoric about how boring the season was and about how we long for a season like 2010 to just magically appear again and I mean I wouldn't necessarily be wrong about that but now's the time to have some fun happy attitude everyone good old good old happy times so as we do every year we're going to go through all the drivers that competed in Formula 1 this season and grade them on how well or poorly they did pretty simp formula it's grading from A+ straight through to f everything is being taken into account here so having one good performance in an fp1 session that was red flags after 10 minutes ain't going to save anyone's ass here nor is one bad performance going to deliver a driver in F we are fair in this channel except when we're not before we delve into this list however it is time to announce the driver of the year a long-standing long running 2-year tradition on this channel now there were some good candidates in Formula Regional this year Kim Antonelli absolutely tore it up winning both the European and the Middle Eastern titles in his debut runs and now he's on the fast track to Formula 1 skipping over Formula 3 for 2024 and going straight in to Formula 2 impressive but when it comes to winning two championships in the same year it's not quite as impressive as Roo Miata in Japan who completed the super formula and Super GT double to win both of Japan's Premier championships especially with the competition that's in there is nothing to scoff at to delve into motor bicycling is out of my wheel house but jet Lawrence absolutely dominated whatever he raced in this year and domination is the right word because look at this like seriously this year was ridiculous those are the same words that I would have used for Alex poo an indie car at some points this year he was literally unbeatable his form was such that people began to ask the question should he be in Formula 1 well maybe but then he would have to go up against the 2023 driver of the year yeah you all saw this coming and really was there anyone else say what you want about the rb19 but the speed and form from match this year was unbelievable his speed was incredible he drove like an angel and he defended like surf shark VPN in other words flawlessly hey hey hey hey hey come on you know I'm right because you know as well as I do that our alliance for online stuff has been rapidly increasing from streaming to keeping in touch with our loved ones to online shopping for Mr Santa Claus I mean we would like to think our information is safe but as our online footprint increases so does the need for proper security if you don't already know Sur Shar is a VPN service that protects your information by crypting all the data that you send through the internet keeping prying eyes from getting at it like seriously you really want what you've been browsing 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let's get into it at the very start of the year a mountain of hype surrounded a man who as it would turn out would crash and burn so horrifically that you almost had to wonder whether it was all part of some weird Kink of Dr helmet Marco we all know how brutal the Red Bull system is with their drivers but what happened with Nick deves was just a little bit rancid to be given only 10 races and perhaps not even that to prove your worth in Formula 1 is flat out not enough time it was a very harsh ACC ing no matter what your views are having said that in the races that he did have he was hardly impressive quite a few mistakes crept into his weekends and well yes he was technically a rookie there was some amount of expectation around him given the mileage he already had an F1 machinery and his prep heading into the season at alatar not a lot of people would have kept him on board with how he performed it's just the way it all ended gave everyone a salad taste in their mouths it really wasn't that fair but when you think about it when you think about how the drivers who replaced them fed was it really that unfair I mean take Liam Lawson for instance after being given the unenviable task of taking over the seat of a car that he had never driven before driving on tires he'd never tried before and given only 90 minutes of prep before having to qualify for a Grand Prix you'd forgive any person who at that point decided to sneak out before their inescapable Doom instead he kept it on the island and delivered a fairly commandable performance then in Singapore he delivered again in a big way getting points in his second race something D could not do in 10 Suzuka was a performance where you could argue that he outperformed his teammate did he do that in any of the other events no but whether he did or not isn't really the point and anyone who did expect that has been completely unrealistic what he delivered under those circumstances was beyond what was expected and that's all you really could ask of the guy I'm not entirely sure that he'll get another shot at Formula 1 sure there's promises but no guarantees you can't say however that he didn't give it his best shot so that's two rookies to kick this whole thing off how's about looking into the land of the somewhat free for the third what the is a kilometer when the dust settled in the hours after the chcken flag had fallen and Austin this year Logan's Sergeant became the first American in 30 years to score a point in Formula 1 who cares that he finished 12th on track y'all are just nitpicking at this point nah really how has he been this year because of popular opinion is anything to go by this guy should have been thrown to the wolves and replaced with Mick Schumacher and well yeah his year has been littered with mistakes and his qualifying form has been atrocious been completely dominated by his teammate he has been closer to that teammate of his than we either notice or care to admit over the second half of the Season there was some noticeable Improvement and for a rookie nowadays he hasn't been that bad having said that he wasn't all that great either and I am a bit skeptical as to whether or not he'll improve substantially in his second year in the game and he's going to have to because there are major prospects in junior racing that may be only one year away from being ready to take on Formula 1 so I mean I guess you could say he's living on borrowed time a bit maybe he can get a sick and Lease at life like Kevin Magnuson did having said that I'm not sure where exactly that guy sits right now either at the start of the year when Hearts were looking slightly okay there was one driver that seemed to be making a world of difference and his name was not Kevin Magnuson but as the second half of the Season came around the pendulum swung a little bit and now gter Steiner had the ever presentes migraine reminding him that he had just fired a driver 12 months ago only to end up with results not that much different from now with KM mag scoring most of H's points finishes this year it is perhaps a little unfair to say that he hasn't had a good season but he's had too many appearances on the wrong side of q1 and in times where his teammate was getting into Q3 that just isn't good enough which is strange because I could have sworn that he had done better this year and I'll Echo those exact same sentiments with Joe on you now yeah man has some killer threats and has are amongst the best on the grid by that token he deserves to stay on the grid for 110,000 years and there have been a fair few times this year where he's put on some pretty good performances but the thing is they haven't been as frequent as we thought they were even superhero performances such as qualifying in Hungary were balanced out by terrible ones such as the race in Hungary then you look at the pace deficit to his teammate sure that guy is a 10 time race winner but he ain't in a Mercedes no more and even his form has been relatively questionable over the last 18 months but race winner rookie world champion it doesn't matter your teammate is still your teammate that is who you have to perform against and when you're losing the qualifying and race battles this badly and with two seasons under your belt we have to posee the question is Janu really the dude that should be in that second salba seat if he is he needs to sort out that deficit and in some respects Barry's teammate I mean that's Formula 1 I know it sounds cruel but it really is survival of the fittest especially against teammates no matter how you accomplish it like just ask Daniel Ricardo after drowning like a blun tee in a horror movie during his last year at McLaren no one really expected the honey badger to return to racing in 2023 but after Marco's gamble on passports back fired on him The Smiling assassin was called upon to fill the void and immediately it turned out to be the right call Hungary was a decent outing Spa was well me but after returning from injury he started to deliver and in Mexico City he proved again to everyone why people in the padic hold him to high regard not every performance has been great it must be said and it's a big if as to whether or not he has much more in reserve whether or not he could take the fight to the three-time rning world champion and yeah I say that knowing what happened in the past but times are different and just for now at least it's just good to see Daniel Ricardo back in a Formula 1 car that does not look at a corner in the same way that niik hulkenberg looks at a Podium you know it's funny because in round three this year he almost got one but that's the story of his life nearly getting the podium for the first half of the Year Hulk was the gleaming light for H Jean and Gunther having him born aoft on a Golden Throne to each race as the H again went through the motions of starting out pretty well before remembering that it had an Italian heart but even as the form of the car began to fade away what you wouldn't expect is for the form of the drivers to go along with it but you do get the sense that the magic we saw from him at the start of the Season flew into the Bermuda Triangle of Formula 1 and especially in RAC trim where even if he qualified well enough on Saturday he disappeared just as fast on Sunday so what we've got here is is two relatively average ratings from har perhaps the car is masking their efforts a little bit but having said that whenever you have a star standout driver in a car like that you typically see a sign or two that we're just not seeing now that's kind of the story with salba right now too and I know all of this sounds way too harsh but if I were to be fair to these drivers well that would just be boring wouldn't it it is a bit difficult for these guys to offer up a defense although that wouldn't really matter for vter bought us because defense has never really been his thing it is a bit telling about how his year has been when you don't quite know what has been more memorable his driving or his ass calendars although much like us quite a bit of that could be down to the car how the hell can you truly prove yourself when the car leaves you in Midfield hell with no Prospect of points unless Ferrari be themselves there have been Morel this year of the VY that we know of the one that can extract just about everything out of the car some standout performances which were masked by factors outside of his control but the main thing is that he has clearly had the measure of his teammates and as long as he keeps on doing that there's not a lot of reason to get rid of him because in this sport beating your teammate is everything that said salba is nowhere near as brutal as the Red Bull program at alpat drivers typically never last beyond a third year so I guess Yuki soda must be shaking like Wesley Snipes in an IRS building at the beginning of the year not a lot of people were confident that he would survive the year I mean hey I was one of those his new teammate was a go-karting Prodigy a Formula 2 Champion a Formula E world champion the Works yet Yuki had his measure very clearly he lived to fight another day and if anything he started to look like a million bucks the car was slow at the start of the year but his remarkable consistency brought on some awesome results however once Lawson and Ricardo came into the team the competition ramped up and we started to see the mistakes again and while Yuki was the faster driver over Liam barely when it comes to Ricardo well that's a little bit more complicated what's the conclusion to draw from Yuki season well that it was pretty good but there is an asterisk had Danny Rick been his teammate for the calendar year I seriously doubt that Yuki would have stayed ahead of him in the driver's standings and the mistakes one could argue would have been double what they were this year in your third year of Formula 1 you've got to be able to harness that because eventually the powers that be are going to run out of patience I mean just ask Alex albon he knows all about it thankfully though the pain and abject misery is behind him he's no longer having to fight for fourth fifth or sixth in a Red Bull he's having to fight to even get in the top 10 in Williams doesn't sound much better but when you get those results it's somehow more rewarding less is more apparently over the last few years we would hero worship anyone who could get points in a Williams but to albon well that's just Sunday Williams are nowhere near back to their Glory Days and we would all love to see them head back to the promised land Allah are the days of the brummy mammoth yeah the odd knuckleheaded gymnastics didn't really help his Crusade but for the majority of the year albon has been a fast reliable driver extracting the most he could out of that car and getting valuable points for the team with the Canadian Grand Prix being but an example of what he can do Ferrari are supposedly interested in him and I ain't surprised although I am somewhat surprised that they are looking for something a little bit less chaotic they could of course take a huge Punt and hire say estan okon wait what what did I mean by that well I'll talk about that in a second for now let's discuss how was okon's season of 2023 in a word very good no wait that that's two words but I guess that's appropriate because he seems to be delivering more Alpine are in a weird limbo right now where the car isn't bad but it's not really great either with other cars around them yying around all the time they're getting caught in a rut where they should have placed much better this year than they actually did but it wasn't for lack of trying on the driver's part okon's performances such as in Monaco and Las Vegas were exceptional here was a dude who was clearly quick and could deliver the goods for the team most of the time he is proof that Alpine have a solid solid lineup however there had been times this year where he caved into his inner frenchness which was slightly unhealthy toward his task of finishing a race there was something else too when he broke ranks in Vegas disobeyed team orders passed his teammate and went off to save his own skin it provoke memories of the 1982 French Grand Prix and if you're unfamiliar that's not a good thing because it effectively dissolved the partnership and melted the team from the inside out faster than one of the turbos did and that is saying something alping just can't afford to have that happened here too because okon has been pretty damn good but slightly better I would argue has been Pier gazi to go up against a dude who gave a two-time world champion in itch is a hell of a marker to beat him straight up would have been kind of unrealistic but in the qualifying battle this year gazley won and while estban could claim that he got a podium in Monaco gazley also got one in sanv gazley has exceeded most expectations put upon him this year the level of competition in that team combined with getting settled in and all other bits of Witchcraft that comes when moving house n none of that really seemed to perturb him it wasn't the perfect yeah but then again only one person on the entire grid had that even with what we know he could do he did kind of surprise us this year and this could only be a good thing for Alpine to have two very strong drivers in their lineup both of whom are just as good as each other both of whom could score valuable points for the team so Aston Martin are you listening because despite L strw displaying a decent first and third Act of the year the middle part of the season was played with performances that rathered that of a slaugh a rave coming back from injury so soon at the start of the year was commendable and for the first few races he actually wasn't that bad but from there the consistency was horrendous unacceptable actually some bad mistakes seeped in and the pace deficit to his teammate was bad then for whatever reason he began to wake up post Qatar and in Sal Paulo and Las Vegas he was starting to look like a born again Aeron but while the end of the year was decent for so lelot we can't be under any Illusions here for 200 4011 years now we've been talking about the same damn thing consistency the consistency and that consistency issue might very well have cost Aston Martin fourth place in the constructor's standings that is a lot of money lost when your teammate has breached the 200 Point marker for the year yet you couldn't even get close to 100 it makes those few good performances that he has had not quite as important as all those other bad ones if he is to stay in Formula 1 he needs to sort it out now the excuses end here they should have ended 3 years ago he's no rookie anymore but even then some would argue that Oscar piastri who himself was a rookie showed better stuff this season actually that's not too much of an argument isn't it were the consistency issues yeah a little bit but you would expect that of rookies with the limit on testing and other handicaps young drivers are faced with nowadays expecting a rookie to come firing out of the gates with no issue whatsoever isn't just unrealistic it's straight up delusional yet with Oscar pastry you get the sense that he's one of the better prepared rookies we we've seen in a long time once McLaren completed the greatest turnaround in form since Burger King stopped selling HSE meat we began to see past's performances a little more clearly then the podiums came then he got his first Sprint race win in Qatar and throughout the whole time he emanated a sense of calm and coolheadedness that we just don't see from many drivers nowadays who if you told them they were losing 0. one of a second per lap would throw their steering wheel across the garage and initiate a hunger strike translated from bull into English what I'm trying to say here is that Oscar piastri has showed a lot this year and there is more to come he's showing all the key ingredients of a future world champion and you know I thought the same thing a couple years ago with George Russell but after the season that he had I got to start wondering whether I jinxed him or if I was just a little bit wrong becoming a meme at the start of the year was about as good as it got for dear old George the battle between he and his final boss of a teammate was relatively close at the start of the year he was on fire in Melbourne both figuratively and literally but then the upgrades started to come in from that point on the battle was clearly slanted and Mr Russell was not the beneficiary that's not to say however that the deck was stacked against him after all you do have to work with what you're given in qualifying trim he remained fairly solid over the course of the season but his race results have been pretty average when you look at him on paper and it has severely hurt him in the driver's standings mistakes in Canada and Singapore for instance were about as welcome asight for Toto Wolf's eyes as an invitation to Christian Horn's by Mitzvah it's not totally gloom and doom we have seen Morel of the guy throughout the year and we know what George Russell can do which is what has made a lot of this year a disappointment can you hear that yeah that's the sound of char Clair's car because it isn't running huh get it get it I'll see myself out here The Misfortune for shl this year has been bordering un laughable to a joke whether it be mechanical issues betrayal by the laws of physics or Ferrari's somewhat liberal attitude to Common Sense there is no denying that so many damn points have gone begging he hasn't been totally immune from culpability it must be says throwing his cut into the sandbox in Melbourne was slightly ill advised but there were a lot of positives that came from this year he showed a hell of a lot of speed five po positions however they came getting onto the podium five times and Performing clutch moves that had everyone weak at the knees in 2022 Ferrari started out extremely well looking like the team we all wanted them to be before falling away as the season went on arriving at rock bottom and proving that Enzo died in vain this year however it's been the other way round and that's encouraging for next year I mean I hope but that upti in form has to apply to both shl and caros signs because it's not as if he's had bulletproof reliability this year either whatever the argument may be for L's misfortunes it shouldn't dilute the good stuff put in by signs he may not quite have the outright speed and RAR pace of sha most of the time but he's still damn solid enough to be able to pick up the pieces when the Prancing hunt decides to rear its head in races such as Singapore he proved that sometimes he can actually be best than the man himself using Lando Norris as a for of Defense keeping him just close enough to give him DRS and ward off a Merk attack but just far enough away so that Lando wouldn't catch him with his draws down so close yet so far for Lando in terms of getting his Maiden gr pry win by all means he should have had one by now but he has been a constant nearly man this year once McClary finally found themselves however it came to be Lando finally found himself in contention for podiums on the regular and in the event that the r engaged in a rare occasion of being met for victory it never happened for him though which is a shame because most of the year was Exceptional from the lad his streak of four podiums from Singapore to Austin was the longest on the entire grid by one driver even when McLaren were in the trenches at the beginning of the year Lando sha there too 2023 was a weird year for that team it started off all doom and gloom before eventually morphing into so much promise it was the complete opposite for eston Marson and that was a shame as for a while it appeared that we would see the first win in 10 years for Fernando Alonso we didn't know heading into this year whether the lord of the eyebrows had pulled off a stroke of Genius in his move to Aston or whether this was but another cursed career move that slowly disintegrates while he watches helpless and to start off with it appeared that it was the former Podium after Podium after Podium Stella performances left right and Center it just felt right watching Fernando tear it up in a car that was finally competitive for him he absolutely demolished his teammate for the vast majority of the year it might not be a high bar but you play the hand you dealt he fell away a little bit toward the tail end of the year but he still wrangled a Podium out of it with a legendary last lap tussle with a car that was much faster than his own at the brilliant ENT Lagos I do fear though that his time at Aston may have peaked already if that's the case he's in for more of the same familiar pain that he's become accustomed to ever since Renault banished the color blue but so long as he can have a competitive enough car it is still an experience to watch the master at work and while with Mercedes the grass is a slight Tad Greener you can say the exact same thing about Sir leis Hamilton I don't have a better segue Sumi 2022 was a strange year in that Lewis did not achieve a win either on track or in the teammate battle the hope for many was that 2023 would be the complete opposite that he would come in Superman the field win 34 out of 22 races and create world peace that didn't quite happen but this year we kind of saw something else from Lewis he was certainly the better driver in the teammate battle at MK despite some of the problems at various points in the year and while Russell's position and the standings is offset with some points that have gone begging a slew of podiums couple with the PO position in Hungary when the car was still being as recalcitrant as a cat in a bath gives Lewis a rating like this sure not perfect and it may not have been a 2020 style domination Year from him but you can only perform as well as your car and there's not a hell of a lot that you can fault him over for this year you sure as hell wouldn't think about letting him go whereas with Sergio Perez the answer to that has more recently been one of um maybe I don't know and as a fan of the guy it pains me to say that because we know what sheo can do the early part of the Year proved that or at least on paper it did and let me forget the time in 2019 when valter bought us looked like a giant slayer before eventually melting once Lewis started to be himself every single person watching though knew just how hard it was going to be for czecho to mount a full-on assault at the title but no one expected him to struggle as badly as he did while his teammate was running away winning everything inide czecho was hard pressed to just make it onto the podium he outlined his inability to adapt as quickly as one of the reasons behind these struggles not much of an excuse but as someone else has mentioned in some Far Away region of Formula 1 Reddit in 2021 Cho finished fourth in the standings in 2022 he was third and this year he finished in second place if these Trends continue hey but I don't know what czecho struggled with this year Max V stappen had no such issue with you could talk about the car all you want I don't care this year was one of the most impressive Seasons I have ever seen from a Formula One driver not simply because he won races it was how he controlled the race nay the weekend even when he would struggle with the car sit up on Friday when he would occasionally miss out on proposition to give us all some fing Hope come Sunday he would turn full on Superman and remind everyone that yeah he is all that we can start the conversation about just how great this guy is and pretty much most of the year he did that they're talking about AI taking over but why bother when you could just clone darl match here I'm talking up a lot of stock here but how can I not how can anyone not because apart from his heated conversations via comms his tendency to tango with other drivers and those few races where he didn't take the win it was virtually Flawless this year when you maximize you and your car's potential over 20 times a year you end up with two things a points total that's as bloated as a beach whale and a rating that looks like this so that's 2023 what will happen next year well I know some of you are hoping for a much more interesting season and hey I'm right there with you but until then um something something don't be a minus and I'll see you all [Music] later know

Channel: Josh Revell

Views: 255,059

Keywords: f1, formula 1, f1 2023, formula 1 2023, f1 ratings, f1 driver ratings, f1 driver gradings, max verstappen, fernando alonso, lewis hamilton, 2023 f1 driver ratings, 2023 f1 driver gradings, f1 driver rankings, 2023 f1 driver rankings

Id: XWq2T2izVvM

Length: 25min 32sec (1532 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 30 2023