Formula 1 2015 driver ratings

Rating Formula 1 drivers out of 10 for their performance in each grand prix is one of the most enjoyable aspects of being Autosport's Grand Prix Editor.

The task is laborious and the results always subjective, but it's fascinating to track each driver's progress through a grand prix weekend, and try to measure that against expectation.

The ratings reflect how each driver performed in qualifying and the race, with a bias towards the race (that's when points are awarded after all), and various sources of information are used to inform the rankings.

These include laptimes, feedback from teams (and the drivers themselves), performance in battle, mistakes, pace relative to team-mate - but there is inevitably some margin for error.

That's because the ratings are put together on Sunday night after each race, and occasionally new information comes to light later - for example technical problems that were unknown at the time of writing.

Nevertheless, a glance at the average ratings at the end of the season is always an instructive exercise as part of a review of each driver's performance.

Below, the 20 regular drivers who raced in 2015 are reviewed and ranked in order of average rating.

The average order does not precisely match the order used in Autosport's top 10 driver rankings, because it only reflects performance in 19 individual races, and lacks the context of being able to measure the season overall against expectations.

The average ranking is also not designed to decide who the best and worst drivers on the grid are, just the job they, on average, did over the course of the campaign.

Lewis Hamilton
Average rating: 8.4
Hamilton was almost faultless for three quarters of the season, and by the time chief rival Nico Rosberg began to turn the tables in qualifying (post-Singapore), Hamilton had done enough to cruise to his third world championship.

Some of his qualifying laps - for example in Bahrain, Monaco and Hungary - were sublime, and Sunday performances such as Hungary, Japan and the US showed he remains one of the toughest racers out there.

The fact that he wrapped up the title with three races to spare is a reflection of how untouchable he was for much of the campaign, and his position at the top of this ranking reflects how good he remained, even when Rosberg was cleaning up over the final few rounds.

Sebastian Vettel
Average rating: 8.1
Joining Ferrari transformed Vettel, who rebounded from a difficult 2014 season with consistently excellent drives for his new team.

What was most impressive was how often he seized on opportunities to put his Ferrari where it didn't merit, twice splitting the Mercedes in qualifying early on, and winning three races.

His pole position lap in Singapore, which he converted into the third of those wins, was probably the best qualifying performance by any driver all year.

He also kept himself in unlikely title contention by racking up podium after podium. Vettel was relentless this year, and seriously impressed Ferrari with his attitude and lack of errors.

Nico Rosberg
Average rating: 7.8
Rosberg was made to look ordinary by his Mercedes team-mate for most of this season. He raced better than he did in 2014, but Hamilton was usually one step ahead, particularly in qualifying.

Things turned around after Singapore, where Mercedes couldn't get the tyres working properly. Following that race Rosberg took pole for each of the last six grands prix, winning the last three in succession.

His impressive ability to re-focus and raise his game again, despite a much earlier and more comprehensive defeat in the championship, reminded everyone (including Hamilton) that Rosberg simply will not accept being second best.

Daniel Ricciardo
Average rating: 7.4
This season was a test of Ricciardo's mental resolve. By winning three races last year he showed he could deliver under pressure, but this season was about producing in an underperforming car.

For the most part he did just that, driving very well even as he struggled to accept Red Bull's competitive backward step. Canada was the exception, where he let frustration get the better of him.

The car improved thereafter, and some of his driving in the second half of the year (Hungary, Singapore and Italy stand out) was truly outstanding.

Fernando Alonso
Average rating: 7.3
Alonso started his season one race late, after crashing in testing and skipping the Australian Grand Prix with concussion, but once he did get going he performed consistently well.

Some of his qualifying laps were outstanding (it's just that they counted for Q2 respectability rather than pole), and he remained utterly relentless in most races, even if frustration at McLaren-Honda's limitations sometimes got the better of him.

He was a bit off the pace in Russia, and produced a rare piece of poor judgement at the first corner in Abu Dhabi, but otherwise Alonso was predictably excellent this year. It's just a shame the car wasn't.

Valtteri Bottas
Average rating: 7.3
Bottas consolidated his standing as one of F1's best prospects with another strong season overall.

When the FW37 was quick enough to challenge Ferrari, it was usually Bottas doing the challenging, and his consistent race performances were almost enough to pip fellow Finn Kimi Raikkonen to fourth in the championship.

His early-season qualifying record relative to team-mate Felipe Massa was a serious question mark, but Bottas turned that around emphatically after the summer break.

He was occasionally a bit tentative in battle, particularly on the first lap, but late-season fights with Raikkonen showed he's also no pushover.

Max Verstappen
Average rating: 7.3
The way this Toro Rosso rookie established himself on the F1 scene, with only one previous year of single-seater racing behind him, was seriously impressive.

There were a few of the inevitable mistakes that you expect with rookies (crashing into Romain Grosjean in Monaco perhaps the most notorious), but Verstappen's rate of improvement through the season, particularly in qualifying, stood out.

Most people will probably remember his year for the feisty racecraft, and he deserves plaudits for that, but he was also consistently fast over race distances, and adapted quickly to managing the tricky Pirelli tyres.

Romain Grosjean
Average rating: 7.2
Grosjean has been consistently excellent in F1 since the second half of 2013, but last year's Lotus largely hid that ability from the world. This year's was better, and consequently Grosjean got substantially better results.

The undoubted highlight was his drive to the podium in Belgium, and charges from lowly grid slots in Brazil and Abu Dhabi were similarly impressive.

But the most outstanding aspect of Grosjean's season was his qualifying form. Pastor Maldonado has his critics, but he is undoubtedly quick. Grosjean hammered him in the intra-team battle, despite often having to sit out opening practice so Lotus reserve Jolyon Palmer could drive.

Sergio Perez
Average rating: 7.2
In similar fashion to his Force India team, Perez just got better and better as the campaign wore on.

There were too many errors last year, but Perez was excellent this season, particularly over the second half of the campaign, when his qualifying form and scoring rate outshone that of highly rated team-mate Nico Hulkenberg.

That's when he added more consistency to his performances, but the peaks were already impressive.

Perez was superb with the old car in Bahrain and Monaco, well before that brilliant podium in Russia and his outstanding, Ferrari-bothering display in Abu Dhabi.

Jenson Button
Average rating: 7.2
Button will come out of this season feeling as though he measured up well against new team-mate Alonso.

This was a difficult year for McLaren-Honda, but Button still drove consistently well, despite suffering a catalogue of technical problems throughout the campaign.

He had Alonso covered in Russia, and was exceptional in the US Grand Prix, where he raced to sixth despite using an older specification of engine compared with his team-mate.

There were a few uncharacteristically poor moments, such as letting bad handling get the better of him in Spain, and colliding with Maldonado in China, but overall this was another strong season for the 2009 champion.

Nico Hulkenberg
Average rating: 7
Hulkenberg's outstanding achievements came away from F1 this year. He generally drove well, but his campaign lacked some of the peaks we've come to expect.

His best drive was probably Austria (which incidentally came straight after his Le Mans 24 Hours success), where he fought with the Williams of Bottas.

He put in some really solid points-paying drives later in the season too, but there were also some uncharacteristic errors (Singapore and Russia spring to mind), and he was generally overshadowed by team-mate Perez once the full B-spec VJM08 came on stream.

Carlos Sainz Jr
Average rating: 6.8
Sainz can count himself very unlucky this year. Unlucky not to score more points, unlucky to have suffered so much unreliability, unlucky to have become an F1 rookie at the same time as Verstappen.

The Spaniard's performances for Toro Rosso were of an extremely high standard, but his season lacked the peaks of Verstappen's, and he should arguably have outperformed the teenager given his greater single-seater experience.

Nevertheless, Sainz massively impressed the team with his maturity and high level of technical understanding, and justified Red Bull's decision to keep faith with him at the end of last year.

Felipe Massa
Average rating: 6.8
Massa continues to defy those who wrote him off after a miserable final season with Ferrari in 2013.

For the first two thirds of this campaign he was arguably Williams's strongest driver. He was better in qualifying (outshining Bottas over the first half of the season), and more consistent in the races.

He even led the fight to be fourth in the points after finishing on the podium at Monza.

Things took a dip after that, as Bottas stepped up, Massa got wiped out of a few races, and Williams switched off car development, but this was still a very strong season overall for the Brazilian.

Daniil Kvyat
Average rating: 6.8
There's no doubt Red Bull's early season difficulties hurt Kvyat, who struggled to accept early defeats at the hands of rookie drivers from his old team, Toro Rosso.

His season sprang to life with a strong result in Monaco, where he overtook team-mate Ricciardo at the start and finished fourth.

Unsurprisingly, Kvyat's performances improved with the car, and he was Red Bull's top-scoring driver over the second half of the season, though there was an element of luck involved in that.

Kvyat was superb at times (Spa and Mexico City particularly), but the young Russian will be the first to admit that he can do better.

Kimi Raikkonen
Average rating: 6.5
Raikkonen has continued to frustrate since returning to Ferrari, and for the second year in succession he was blown away by a fellow world champion team-mate.

Last year, he had the valid excuses of coming into Maranello alongside an established Alonso and driving a very difficult car.

But Scuderia newcomer Vettel was just as dominant against Raikkonen this season as Alonso was last year.

The SF15-T was much better than its predecessor, and Raikkonen scored many more points as a result, but a return of three podiums in the second-best car on the grid was poor.

Raikkonen is nothing if not honest, and admits his own performance was "average" this season.

Will Stevens
Average rating: 6.4
Stevens made a decent impression when he made his F1 debut for Caterham at the end of last season, and he continued that work this year at Manor Marussia.

The car wasn't anywhere near competitive, but Stevens made a good job of driving within its limitations, and compared favourably with team-mate Roberto Merhi, even allowing for the fact that Stevens had a weight advantage over the Spaniard.

He didn't look quite so strong when GP2 interloper Alexander Rossi stepped into the sister car for a five-race cameo, but Stevens can feel rightly pleased with the overall job he did in tricky circumstances.

Felipe Nasr
Average rating: 6.3
Nasr can look back on this as a decent rookie season overall, in which he scored 75 per cent of Sauber's total points.

Finishing fifth on his debut in Australia was as good as it got results-wise, though his drives to sixth in Russia, and ninth in Monaco (where the C34 was terrible) were also impressive.

But there were also some disappointing outings, particularly Malaysia (where his team-mate was strong) and Canada, where he crashed on the back straight in final practice.

He needs to get on top of the persistent brake problems that ruined some of his other races. Then he can hopefully add some real consistency to the peaks.

Marcus Ericsson
Average rating: 6.2
This was a solid second year in F1 for Ericsson, who revelled in the chance to compete in the midfield, instead of droning around at the back of the grid as he did for Caterham in 2014.

He got stronger from mid-season, once he adopted a more robust mindset, focusing less on the other side of the garage (Nasr) and not allowing setbacks to upset him too much.

Unfortunately for Ericsson, his best drives came in races where the Sauber was not strong enough to score points. There were a few errors, but he was fairly evenly matched with rookie team-mate Nasr over the balance of the campaign.

Roberto Merhi
Average rating: 5.8
This was a tough season for the 2011 European Formula 3 champion. Having impressed in his free practice appearances for Caterham last year, he found his 12 races for Manor in 2015 a real struggle for the most part.

He carried a weight and height disadvantage to team-mate Stevens, which definitely held him back early on, but Merhi also found it difficult to adapt his aggressive driving style to the limitations of the MR03B.

On tracks where this didn't penalise him, such as the Hungaroring and Sochi, he was mighty, but these performances were sadly few and far between.

Pastor Maldonado
Average rating: 5.7
Overall this was a disappointing season for Maldonado, who was completely destroyed by Lotus team-mate Grosjean in qualifying, only managing to beat the Frenchman once (in Monaco) in a fair fight, and scoring nearly half his number of points.

In fairness, his race pace was usually much better relatively, and Maldonado was wiped out of many races through no fault of his own, despite his reputation for being a crasher.

But too often he let himself down with poor laps in qualifying, and he is still all too capable of making one mistake after another in races, which lets him down badly.

THE PART TIMERS

Drivers who completed a handful of races are not included in the main rankings, because the sample set is small.

Alexander Rossi
Average rating: 7 (5 races)
Rossi can be pretty pleased with the job he did, coming into the Manor team so late in the season for a limited programme.

It took the first couple of races to get the car attuned to his liking, but when he returned to the cockpit he outqualified team-mate Stevens for the last three of those five grands prix.

He compared favourably with Stevens in the races themselves from the off, and though he struggled a bit on his final outing with the team in Brazil, he certainly did his future F1 aspirations no harm at all.

Kevin Magnussen
Average rating: 5 (1 race)
I feel sorry for Magnussen, who deserved better than to be out of F1 after just one season racing for McLaren and another as its reserve.

He was on the verge of racing in IndyCar in 2015, until Alonso crashed in testing and skipped the first grand prix of the year, meaning Magnussen had to step in.

He actually performed very well, shading team-mate Button until qualifying, when he suffered an engine problem. He didn't get the chance to race, because the engine packed up altogether en route to the grid.

I wasn't aware of the qualifying issue at the time; otherwise Magnussen would have received a higher rating. As I said, he deserved better.