Unfortunately, his brief race-leading cameo was undermined by having parked to the left of his grid slot, earning him a penalty. But that was still enough to earn him a front-row start.
He had a straightforward race, initially running third but then inevitably falling behind the recovering Verstappen.Ĭouldn’t have done much more with the machinery.Īlonso was on fine form in Saudi Arabia, although things did get a little untidy in Q3 – in which he failed to improve his pace and didn’t maximise the car. That allowed him to outpace Hamilton by three and a half tenths and earn himself a place on the second row. Russell revelled in being the Mercedes focal point given he appeared more comfortable with the unstable rear end of the W14. As with his team-mate, tyre degradation troubles meant it was a tough race and he dropped back from Sainz after a period pressuring him thanks to the toll taken by sitting in dirty air, but he would have had a better result had he started from the front row. That left him behind Sainz and, while he was quicker, the team didn’t intervene. With a 10-place grid penalty for taking a third control electronics, Leclerc made good progress early on but pitting just before the safety car denied him the kind of lift Verstappen got. Leclerc’s qualifying performance was outstanding, getting a Ferrari closer to the pace than looked likely (with the caveat that it was Perez he was chasing). Verdict: Saturday circumstances denied likely triumph. And despite his best efforts, even with car concerns, he wasn’t able to close the gap and had to settle for second. His recovery from 15th on the grid was executed in an intelligent, measured way but it was the deployment of the safety car that allowed him to get in touch with Perez. There’s no doubt that but for the driveshaft failure suffered before setting a serious laptime in Q2, Verstappen would have been comfortably on pole and won the race. Verdict: Seized his opportunity with both hands. That, notably Perez’s excellent safety-car restart and matching Verstappen in the final part of the race, elevates the ranking of his weekend even though he was only the second-fastest Red Bull driver. Without Verstappen’s driveshaft failure, Perez’s race would likely have had a clear run to second place behind his team-mate given the single-lap pace difference between the two.īut what really impressed about Perez’s performance is once the opportunity was presented to him, he delivered not only by taking only his second F1 pole position but also controlling the race. Therefore, the ranking will fluctuate significantly from weekend to weekend.Īnd 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 different significantly from the overall results. It’s simply about how they performed on a given weekend. 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 its foundations, and that it is not a ranking of the all-round qualities of each driver.
This creates what might be called a ‘zero-sum’ ratings system whereby there is a finite amount of ‘credit’ to be awarded (the 20 ranking positions).
#BEAT BLAST LOST LOVE DRIVER#
How close each driver got to delivering on the maximum performance potential of the car will be an essential consideration.
#BEAT BLAST LOST LOVE FULL#
This will be based on the full range of criteria ranging from pace and racecraft to consistency and whether or not they made key mistakes.
#BEAT BLAST LOST LOVE DRIVERS#
The 20 drivers will be ranked in order of performance from best to worst on each grand prix weekend.
But for 2023, we have modified our system to a ranking-based one. Since our launch in 2020, The Race has rated each driver’s performance out of 10. Here, for a second weekend, Edd Straw ranks (rather than rates) all 20 F1 drivers from best to worst based on their performance across the weekend. Red Bull once again set a remarkable pace to dominate the second round of the 2023 Formula 1 season, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.īut just as was the case in Bahrain a fortnight earlier, there were standout drives that garnered less attention further down the field (and two drivers in particular who’ll have been looking for the first plane out of Jeddah after races with no redeeming qualities).
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