Hungarian Grand Prix driver ratings
- Published on 05 Aug 2019 15:30
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- By: Fergal Walsh & Harry Mattocks
Hamilton once again found himself being out-qualified by teammate Bottas, but was at his very best in the race. After failing to pass Verstappen early on, the five-time world champion pitted for softs and went on an impressive charge during the last 20 laps to win his eighth race of the season.
Rating: 9.5
Taking his first pole position, Verstappen shone on Saturday and was on course for victory number three of 2019 until Hamilton passed him. However, there was little that he could do with an evidently inferior car, but Verstappen's spirit and Saturday performance once again showed that he is performing at the highest level.
Rating: 10.0
It was a bit of a miserable weekend for Ferrari, who was nowhere to be seen on Saturday and Sunday. After being out-qualified by Leclerc, Vettel mastered his tyre strategy in the race, setting 39 laps on the mediums and 31 on the softs to pass Leclerc in the closing stages of the race for the final spot on the podium.
Rating: 8.5
Leclerc once again got the better of Vettel in qualifying, which is becoming something of a habit recently. In the race, he made contact with Bottas on lap one and drove a tedious race to finish in fourth - a small boost after his DNF one week ago at Hockenheim.
Rating: 7.5
Sainz is really settling in at McLaren and is seemingly maximising every weekend in recent races. A second P5 result in a row, Sainz is fast becoming one of the stars of 2019 as he has already scored more points in 2019 than he has across an entire season in his previous years in F1.
Rating: 9.5
The struggles continued for Gasly in Hungary, as a poor start dropped him down the order and he failed to make moves. Only moving upwards when others made pit stops, Gasly couldn't get past the much slower McLaren, only adding to the building pressure on his shoulders at the moment.
Rating: 3.0
Raikkonen used his experienced head in the race to perfectly manage his tyres on a difficult stint and take home points for Alfa Romeo. Another strong drive from the Finn, who is still showing his worth in F1.
Rating: 9.0
Bottas was forced to enter recovery mode after he had contact with Leclerc on the opening lap. Coming back to finish eighth, Bottas' title fight took a major hit as he dropped major points to teammate Hamilton, and is now under pressure from Verstappen for second place.
Rating: 8.5
Another sterling effort from Norris in qualifying saw him at the head of the midfield once more. However, a slow pit stop proved costly in the race, as he looked set to finish the race in sixth or seventh. Nevertheless, another mature drive from the rookie.
Rating: 9.0
Albon has been one of the men in form recently, putting together a string of strong races. After being placed on a nice strategy on Sunday, the Thai-British driver secured another point for himself and Toro Rosso - his fifth top ten finish of the year.
Rating: 8.5
Perez managed to go very long on the hard compound tyres, running 51 laps. However, both he and Daniil Kvyat were unlucky at the end of the race to lose out on a points finish as their tyres fell off the cliff. Racing Point seemed to be off the pace all weekend, but after a disappointing weekend in Germany Perez bounced back well to be comfortably ahead of teammate Lance Stroll.
Rating: 8.5
It was quite a boring weekend for Hulkenberg, after the disappointment of crashing out of his home Grand Prix in Germany just a week ago. Renault seemed to be off the pace all weekend, but the German had a nice stint on the soft tyres at the end to finish in 12th.
Rating: 7.0
It is hard to judge the performance of either of the Haas drivers as they are running what are very different cars. Magnussen looked to be in good shape in the early stages of qualifying, but as soon as the track warmed up his pace disappeared. The Dane had a good battle with Daniel Ricciardo in the closing stages of the race but it was not the weekend he was hoping for.
Rating: 7.0
Ricciardo had a horrible qualifying, where his final run in Q1 was ruined by fighing for track position with Sergio Perez. Renault then opted to change his engine, meaning that the Australian had to start from the back of the grid. He ran very long into the race after starting on the hard tyres in order to try and recover, but it was not to be as points never looked like a reality.
Rating: 6.5
Kvyat was not in the best form on Saturday, as he was outqualified by his teammate Alexander Albon. However, he then had a good battle during the race with the Anglo-Thai driver, but ultimately came out the loser as his tyres fell off the cliff just before the end of the race.
Rating: 6.5
It was an amazing performance from Russell all weekend, as the British rookie just missed out on Q2 by 0.05s. This marked a major step forward for Williams, as the upgrades fitted to the car finally started to move the team forwards. However, more importantly for Russell, he was a huge 1.3s faster than teammate Robert Kubica over a single lap. He was unable to keep many of the cars that he outqualified behind him during the race, but nevertheless it was a great weekend for him and the team.
Rating: 9.0
Off the back of an excellent result in Germany and just missing out on a podium for Racing Point, Stroll had a rather underwhelming weekend in Hungary. He was outqualified by George Russell in a Williams on Saturday (partly due to Giovinazzi), but then was unable to match the pace of his teammate during the race.
Rating: 5.0
Giovinazzi was not all to impressive during the weekend, as he was way down on the pace of his much more experienced teammate Kimi Raikkonen. He received a penalty for blocking Lance Stroll in qualifying, and then could not move his way through the field in the race on a day where he had the car for points.
Rating: 4.5
This is becoming a common theme for Kubica, but it was another weekend to forget for the Pole. He was unbelievably far behind his teammate George Russell both in qualifying and the race, finishing last of the classified runners. You must now assume that unless he comes back from the summer break a different driver, then he will not be driving a Williams in 2020.
Rating: 4.0
Again, much like for his teammate Kevin Magnussen, it is hard to judge the performance of Grosjean due to the wildly unpredictable nature of the Haas VF-19. His car was working much better than Magnussen's during the heat on Saturday, but then did not have much race pace before the team were forced to retire.
Rating: 7.0
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Replies (15)
Login to replytempuser
Posts: 1
This website is straight-up bs, Verstappen got 10 as he always does and Hamilton got 9.5 despite the win, good start and great chase. Sign up just to write this comment. I usually like this website, but when it comes to driver ratings, damn this site is biased towards Verstappen(and I love the guy).
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
It is indeed, but to be fair as long as a bias is worn on its sleeve I'm fine with it. This is why I always am sure to remark that I'm a Honda nerd so that people know to bear that in mind when I praise them. ;) As for Hammy's score: he was outqualied by Bottas, and I believe they take FPs and Quali into account with the scores too, hence why Hammy lost some points, so I find it a generous score since he was beaten by Bottas in quali. But I agree Max was perhaps not a 10 this round. He did a great job all in all this weekend, but he wasted his tyres during stint 1. So I'd probably place him 9.5. But he is doing really well.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
Agree, they should at least say "joe bloe's driver rankings" as they don't clearly reflect what most people saw in the race weekend or what was going on trackside. These driver rankings are complete bs. I haven't even read them for a few races because I know they are going to give VER a 10 and nobody else. Ham had another perfect race despite not a perfect qualifying I think most people would have given him a 10. But to be fair, nowhere on this site do they say fair and unbiased reporting of F1 news. One column the site could do without. Let the drivers' standings speak for themselves.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I agree somewhat. That said, I don't think anyone read these rankings, or articles of this nature in general, to get a 100% objective experience. See Jim Sterling's "the 100% objective review" for a taste of what that'd be like. Subjectivity, if used well, contributes greatly to written works, and I generally feel they manage this pretty well here. Compare this to e.g Sky, where they are adamant of their objectivity yet are so up Hammy's arse he might wanna get some deworming medication prescribed for himself, and a 10/10 consistent rating is pretty mild.
I personally find these columns interesting because they give the publisher's view on them, followed by a discussion on what we agree and disagree with.
Fergal Walsh
Posts: 46
Please be assured that we are 100% not biased, we simply give the ratings as we see. Verstappen has consistently received high ratings because he's performed at such a high level.
Kean
Posts: 692
At times I quite enjoy reading driver ratings, not only on this site but on many other sites as well. And what they all have in common is that they vary, sometimes a lot. Ratings are subjective, which is part of the reason I sometimes like to read them and go "Oh this reporter thought so" or "Oh yeah, he's right about that" or "Nope, don't agree". You are of course entitled to your opinion, but I wouldn't call the site BS just because I don't agree with a rating (I often don't). It's not like a bad rating on a website is gonna affect the driver. What I like about this site, other than the reporting are the people leaving comments. Compared to other sites the people leaving comments are quite civilized (there are of course exceptions and I don't mean you), there are often disagreements and differing opinions but there is more often than not a good tone. I think you should change your name from tempuser to something more permanent and join the discussion.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
Hamilton clearly once again deserves a 10. Nobody else on the grid could have done that, being sick to boot. And I'm not really even a Ham fan. He showed his true grit.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
@ KEAN. Nicely said. Couldn't imagine a group of better folks to occasionally disagree with.
abhidbgt
Posts: 283
@Ram
Not defending anyone here. I don't think no one else could have done what Hamilton did if they had the same machinery as him. What he did is certainly praiseworthy but few weekends back when the conditions suited Verstappen he too did the same in Austria. I am not a Verstappen fan just saying. His defence at times have been questionable but he too did come through the field and won.
Sparky1
Posts: 15
I’m sure you intended to not be biased but I think you’re blinded by your admiration of Vstoop. He is a very good and fast driver. No doubt about it. It just appears he can never be worse than any other driver in your mind. The fact you rated him higher than Lewis this race shows you are biased. Did you think the 33 won the race??? I
Fergal Walsh
Posts: 46
We rate the weekend as a whole, not just the race.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
Sorry but that's a tough sell Fergal. My feeling is that he is correct and that the bias doesn't allow you guys to see the bias. If you really rate the whole weekend then you should post the entire scores and not just the total for the weekend so we can see how you arrive at those numbers. Granted, a driver can have a great weekend and not have a good race result, but a race win should count for more than what you guys are giving it. Considering that the 3 free practices are worth nothing, they should be weighted accordingly, so you're left with Qualy and the race. Unless someone crashes in free practice those 3 sessions mean nothing. Then, should someone only get a 9.5 because they were only pipped by a tenth of a second or two in Qualy? I don't think so, you've given Max 10s when he was out qualified(in every race except this one when he got pole). A race win should have more weight than anything else. Just saying, when even people who are fans of VER are saying you guys are being biased then maybe you should look at it. Or not, your site, your rankings, your call. It seems like the issue is more that you guys give him a 10 when others have clearly had a better weekend. But, it would take a certain amount of objectivity to see that.
Dert38
Posts: 376
you ham groupie isn't you
Sparky1
Posts: 15
I agree this website is bs when it comes to driver ratings. Whoever came up with this is delusional. I think you should call it The Maxi-Padded driver rating.
Dert38
Posts: 376
I disagree. Quite fair rankings!