F1 Driver Power Rankings: Round 2
Credit: Lars Baron / Staff — Getty Images
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — With the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in the books, here is the second iteration of this year’s F1 Driver Power Rankings.
↓20. Lando Norris (McLaren) Race Position: 17th
I’m calling it right now; Lando Norris will not be a McLaren driver by the start of the 2025 Formula 1 season. The McLaren car is hot garbage, and it can be seen from the mimics and attitude of Norris that he isn’t really engaged with the team either. I’m not a fan of Lando’s personality to begin with, but even I can tell that his behavior is a bit weird right now, with all signs indicating Lando’s unsatisfaction with the direction the team is heading. Once again a very bad qualifying led to a lackluster race. As one of the rare “young but experienced high-potential drivers”, Lando Norris will not want to be wasting his talent on a rebuilding team.
Previous Ranking: 15
↓19. Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) Race Position: 18th
Struggled throughout the weekend with pace. As a perfectionist, Bottas is also notorious for not owning up to his mistakes and shortcomings, usually instead asserting that it’s the car rather than him. That mindset could fly with driving a prime Mercedes, but as the undisputed No: 1 driver of Alfa Romeo, more is expected out of Bottas. It was an underwhelming performance in which he was never on pace with the rest of the field; a performance in which he needs to be accountable and self-critical with.
Previous Ranking: 8
↔18. Nyck de Vries (AlphaTauri) Race Position: 14th
Certain media members were very assured talking about how de Vries would fare in his first F1 season. Many were basing this on how “well” he served as the emergency driver last year covering for Alex Albon when the Williams driver suffered appendicitis right before the Italian Grand Prix. That drive earned him a seat this year, but he is yet to show the same “magic” this year. As a not-so-young rookie, de Vries is one of the most replaceable drivers on the grid, and therefore has to act fast to impress in order to retain his seat for next year.
Previous Ranking: 18
↓17. Logan Sargeant (Williams) Race Position: 16th
After an inspiring first race in Bahrain, Sargeant fell back on Earth with his performance in Jeddah. Although not a bad performance given the pre-season expectations, definitely a step back after the opening race weekend’s performance. Still, overall not a bad start to the season by the rookie.
Previous Ranking: 6
↓16. Alex Albon (Williams) Race Position: DNF
A bit of an underwhelming weekend compared to the last Grand Prix, Albon didn’t have the similar pace that he had in Bahrain, which could be attributed to the Williams car managing tire degradation better than other teams on the rough surface of Bahrain. Either way, a meh qualifying led to a so-so race that eventually ended up in a DNF. Truthfully, with or without the DNF, it didn’t seem as though Williams was going to score points in this race.
Previous Ranking: 10
↑15. Oscar Piastri (McLaren) Race Position: 15th
Although there was nothing but to go up after the previous race’s abysmal performance, Piastri managed to severely outperform Lando Norris in their second weekend as teammates. While my gut feeling is that that has more to do with Lando’s lack of care and focus at the moment, it still is a situation that could be interpreted as a positive sign by team CEO Zak Brown. Sneaking into Q3 while Lando qualified 19th was the cherry on top for Piastri to further exert himself as peers with Norris rather than be a de facto No: 2 driver.
Previous Ranking: 19
↓14. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) Race Position: 6th
Some may say I’m being harsh with this ranking for a guy that finished sixth in the race. But as a true and true Ferrari fan myself, I would say that he is lucky that he is even ranked this high. Despite qualifying fourth in the race, Sainz was once again terrible with his race pace, basically becoming a placeholder in the middle of the pack separating the podium challengers and the rest of the field. While the Ferrari car is less competitive to begin the season this year, it is still on par with Aston Martin and Mercedes. Sainz is not putting anything into the car to make it perform more than it is, and that is a huge problem if Ferrari has even the slightest of chances to challenge Red Bull’s RB19 this year. For the long term, if he does not improve in performance he will quickly fade into the Rubens Barrichello territory; a good driver that will never be ‘champion material’. His baseline performance is better than Leclerc, but he should be much better with his peak performance if he wants to change this narrative surrounding him.
Previous Ranking: 11
↑13. Zhou Guanyou (Alfa Romeo) Race Position: 13th
A relatively inactive race for Zhou. He did what could be done. Nothing major, nothing spectacular, but at the very least very consistent and reliable. He is not a shaky driver, so I expect his performances to be relatively steady throughout the year.
Previous Ranking: 14
↑12. Nico Hülkenberg (Haas) Race Position: 12th
A worse qualifying but a better race for Hülkenberg this time around, which is a reversal of what happened previously in Bahrain. The Haas car is no longer one of the worst cars on the grid, so being opportunistic is key for them to snatch results out of unexpected race circumstances. They will be on the hunt for these types of situations, which unfortunately for Hulk wasn’t really the case in Jeddah, which in turn led to a mediocre/lackluster P12.
Previous Ranking: 16
↑11. Kevin Magnussen (Haas) Race Position: 10th
I’d argue so far Hülkenberg has been more impressive and more in control of the car than Magnussen has been to start the year. Yet somehow, someway, it has been Magnussen that has managed to finish higher in both races. I don’t know what that says about the potential performance Magnussen might extract from the car in the future, but so far he has been consistently average while not driving at his best at all. Can’t really say much else other than we’ll see how his performance will vary from this mediocrity.
Previous Ranking: 17
↑10. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) Race Position: 11th
We’ve seen enough of the AlphaTauri to say that the car is not a good one. Although nobody has their hopes high considering the team’s budget (or more so their intent to spend) as the developmental/B-team of Red Bull, the car seems to completely have lost out on the midfield challenge. So any result throughout the rest of the season will be an outcome squeezed out by a lot of luck as well as the outstanding drive of the driver. Tsunoda had an impressive drive this race, but the uneventful race and the lack of raw pace of the AlphaTauri led him to barely miss out on points as Magnussen’s Haas passed him late in the race.
Previous Ranking: 13
↓9. Pierre Gasly (Alpine) Race Position: 9th
Back-to-back solid races from Gasly. He’s showing that he is on the same level as his teammate Esteban Ocon. While Ocon might be the slightly faster driver, Gasly stands out with his reliability as well as his ability to outperform the limits of the car, which makes the two teammates equally as dangerous. The rivalry between them will be one of the highlights to watch throughout the season.
Previous Ranking: 5
↑8. Esteban Ocon (Alpine) Race Position: 8th
A back-to-form race for Ocon after his ‘disasterclass’ display in Bahrain in teaching us how to get multiple time penalties simultaneously. Jokes aside, he is one of the most talented drivers on the grid, and with the current standing of the Alpine car’s performance, a P8 is a very solid rebound result.
Previous Ranking: 20
↓7. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) Race Position: DNF
It was another impressive race for Lance Stroll until a car failure forced him into retirement. Since this ranking is mostly an indication of driver performance over other factors and circumstances, Stroll’s performance up to the DNF warrants a spot just outside our ranking’s top five. We’re starting to see the baseline car performance of the Aston Martin, and it is good to see that Stroll has the consistency to not underperform the car’s potential.
Previous Ranking: 3
↑6. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) Race Position: 7th
In a race he started 12th because of a grid penalty for replacing car parts, Leclerc put in another impressive display, one that once again was far better than his teammates. While Ferrari chose not to during the race, my gut feeling was that he could have possibly challenged Hamilton for P5 had Ferrari applied team orders and let the faster Leclerc go past the struggling Sainz. I expect Leclerc to be the biggest challenger to the third podium spot in Australia GP alongside Fernando Alonso.
Previous Ranking: 9
↑5. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) Race Position: 5th
Hamilton has still not quite come to grips with his new car. Everyone knows Hamilton’s surprise at the lack of improvement Mercedes has made with their cars from last year, which is a sign of potential drama to ensue later on during the season with Hamilton’s contract set to expire. While Hamilton has reiterated multiple times that he will not retire and likes to stay with Mercedes, the fact that the contract issue is not resolved is something to be concerned with. A frustrating year might lead to Hamilton potentially seeking a different team that could help him challenge for the record-breaking eight world championship; something he desperately covets to achieve before retiring for good. With all this uncertainty looming over Hamilton and the team, the race result is a good one considering Hamilton is yet to fully embrace and utilize the car.
Previous Ranking: 7
↑4. George Russell (Mercedes) Race Position: 4th
It was a better weekend in general for Mercedes. George was able to challenge and overcome both Ferrari’s as well as Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin. Although he wasn’t able to match Alonso’s car, for a minute he ended up with the 3rd place podium thanks to time penalties applied to Alonso. Although a correct reversal by the FIA eventually led to the initial Alonso podium being reinstated, it was a weekend that both Mercedes and Russelll can be happy about. On the bigger picture, it was another race where Russell was on par or even better than Hamilton, which is another factor in how Mercedes might evaluate the contractual situation with Hamilton as he heads into free agency.
Previous Ranking: 12
↓3. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) Race Position: 3rd
It was another successful weekend for Fernando and Aston Martin. They are slowly establishing themselves as the second-best driver-car combo on the grid. At this moment it is still evident that challenging Max and Checo in their Red Bull car is going to be a bit of a difficult task to overcome, so in the meantime the entire F1 community is waiting for Aston’s midseason car upgrades to see how much can the gap possibly close by the end of the season. Either way, even if the gap remains unchanged by the end of the year, it would still be a tremendous season for Aston; one that would potentially set them up as one of the premier teams of the next 2-3 years.
Previous Ranking: 1
↔2. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) Race Position: 2nd
A very dominating display by both Red Bull drivers. Despite a mechanical issue in qualifying causing him to start the race 15th, Verstappen cleared every other car besides Pérez with great ease, prompting F1 announcer David Croft to quip that the car made everyone else’s look like an F2 car. The combination of Max and this year’s RB19 looks very similar to the Mercedes-Hamilton combo of the previous years where Mercedes basically never faced a serious challenge outside of their own second driver. While Verstappen barely snatched the extra point necessary to give him a one-point lead in the championships after two races, it seems very likely that Pérez will not be able to hang with him over the course of the record-breaking 23-race F1 calendar. Unless God is merciful to F1 fans who want a competitive year, I expect Verstappen to produce another personal best season since no one appears to be on the same stratosphere as Red Bull yet.
Previous Ranking: 2
↑1. Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) Race Position: 1st
On a weekend where his most likely competitors Verstappen and Leclerc suffered from mechanical issues, Checo was the star of the weekend. Qualifying on pole, as well as leading the race for the most part in dominant fashion, Pérez didn’t let anybody challenge him during the race, and never really let any tension ease into his lead despite a creeping Verstappen behind him. A solid win that should have normally given him the title lead if not for Red Bull favoring the overambitious Verstappen at the last lap of the race by misleading Pérez with both of their instructed lap times.
Previous Ranking: 4
Next Up: Australian Grand Prix
In a fortnight’s time, the drivers will be competing at the Australian Grand Prix. While my predictions after the first race regarding Verstappen winning comfortably, Alonso getting on the podium once more, and McLaren continuing to be an engineering debacle somewhat came to be true during the Saudi GP, I expect the third race of the season to feature a more competitive midfield race with Leclerc being back in the mix after having served a grid penalty last time out. Ferrari will look to take advantage of their top speed performance in the fast straights of Australia, which should create more buzz around the race with Ferrari, Mercedes, and Aston Martin all being at full power to challenge Red Bull.
