Ranking the top 10 Formula 1 drivers of 2022

With the most seismic regulation overhaul in Formula 1 history looming, the 2022 pre-season attention was focused almost entirely on the new cars that were poised to break cover. But thanks chiefly to the titanic early duel between title protagonists Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, plus the toils of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton versus his new Mercedes team-mate George Russell, the drivers soon wrested back the limelight.

Immediately after each of the 22 rounds, Autosport awarded every racer a score out of 10 for their efforts as per our long-standing Driver Ratings. Now, though, with the benefit of hindsight and more information subsequently surfacing, there’s greater justification for why some flourished and others suffered during any given weekend. With that wider context now established, here we present our best drivers of the season.

10. Esteban Ocon

Re-entry

Race-long defence against Hamilton to secure fourth at Suzuka was Ocon's clear season highlight

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

His 2022 can probably be summed up as ‘enigmatic’. There was no victory this time, but Ocon still produced some stunning performances. Yet too many were forgettable – and then there was his part the intra-Alpine war in Brazil. A theme to watch in 2023…

But before getting there, assessing Ocon’s 2022 goes like this: he beat Alonso by 11 points and led their qualifying head-to-head 10-9 (with Alpine’s reliability issues removed), but also had fewer retirements and lacked his team-mate’s Q3 stunners in Canada and (to a lesser extent) Australia and Singapore.

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In Ocon’s qualifying efforts, particularly in the mid-season run, he struggled taming his A522’s loose rear and on many occasions across the whole season he lacked Alonso’s relentless race pace. Plus, there were two botched and penalised attacks (on Mick Schumacher in Bahrain and Yuki Tsunoda in France), and his defence against Lewis Hamilton in Monaco was pretty shocking and also penalised.

But he did do something Alonso seemingly couldn’t, which was more frequently nurse an engine-issue-hobbled Alpine and still score decent results, such as he did in Australia and Mexico. And he could be excellent in battle too, with his rises in Spain and Belgium – the latter from an engine-change grid penalty – featuring fine overtaking moves, while his dive on Valtteri Bottas in Mexico was brilliant.

Fifth in Austria capped an excellent weekend, but Ocon’s 2022 highlight was Japan. He was best of the rest in qualifying (heading both Mercedes) and held off Hamilton, this time with beautiful defending, for lap after lap in the wet, placing his car inch-perfectly under massive pressure. AK

9. Sebastian Vettel

Re-entry

Vettel enjoyed a fine end to his F1 career with a run of points finishes towards the year, including on his Abu Dhabi farewell

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The veteran didn’t go meekly into F1 retirement. But his final campaign still featured too many frustrating moments to be considered top drawer, even if its fine ending will always be remembered.

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Vettel missed the opening two rounds after contracting COVID-19, then his Australian GP return was blighted by two crashes, his lack of experience with the kerb-hating new ground-effect cars showing. But he soon made Q3 at Imola and showed fine tyre preservation to earn his first score, which was followed by a learning period where he adapted quicker than Lance Stroll did to the massively updated Aston Martin.

Aston’s strategies often required Vettel to complete very long stints, which worked well at Silverstone and backfired in his Abu Dhabi farewell, where his qualifying speed was brilliant. He had Stroll covered on pure pace overall, and Vettel often made brave and aggressive starts – such as at Austin against Norris, plus gaining five spots on lap one in a wet Singapore.

Notable negative moments were his 10 Q1 exits in an admittedly performance-fluctuating car, small, silly errors such as his Austria Q1 track limits violation, and holding up Hamilton and Sergio Perez while being lapped at Zandvoort.

But, after starting the year again leading the paddock so nobly, this time in condemning Russia’s Ukraine invasion and continuing to speak out on society’s important issues, he ended it in style. He reversed his Suzuka Turn 1 misjudgement with a fine drive to sixth and held off Alonso, and was also mighty in Brazil. But his Austin drive, which included briefly leading, to recover eighth from a botched pitstop and defeat Kevin Magnussen in a thrilling last-lap duel was the top highlight. AK

8. Sergio Perez

Up 2

Perez ended his long wait for a pole position in Jeddah, but his form tailed off as the Red Bull grew more potent in Verstappen's hands

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

It might seem harsh that his third in the championship only returns the lower reaches of our top 10. But the Ferrari collapse and potency of the Red Bull made that an entirely achievable feat. Perez does, however, notably climb a couple of spots compared to last season. Then serving his first term in Milton Keynes, he only really squared up to his effective Mercedes counterpart Bottas and came off second best. For the revival of ground-effects, he went that bit further and marginally had the better of his dominant stablemate, even though it was only for a very brief period.

When the RB18 was at first overweight and understeering as a result, Perez could drive around the issues. He ran to pole in Saudi Arabia only to be wounded by a poorly timed safety car. He was there to pounce on the Ferrari strategy blunders in Monaco to triumph and earned a contract extension for his efforts. The Mexican then had the measure of Max Verstappen in qualifying at Baku.

Aside from the victory in Singapore and playing a decisive role in his team-mate’s coronation yet again, by forcing Charles Leclerc to cut the Suzuka chicane and earn the all-important penalty, the second half of his campaign was underwhelming.

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After the car went on a crash diet to allow Verstappen to have a front axle he could trust, Perez struggled to get close. Of the de facto deputies, despite those initial struggles with the twitchy Ferrari, Carlos Sainz was doing the superior job. MK

7. Carlos Sainz

Down 2

Sainz became a grand prix winner at Silverstone, and got closer to Ferrari benchmark Leclerc than Perez did to Verstappen

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The spiky rear end of the Ferrari F1-75 certainly didn’t suit his driving style out of the box. Sainz was an average of 0.2 seconds down on team-mate Charles Leclerc, and the undoubted low point came with a daft spin into the gravel in Australia. The time taken to adjust significantly hobbled the first third of his year, so his second term at Maranello doesn’t impress quite as much as an excellent 2021 spent in a less competitive car.

He was equally a victim of Ferrari’s shortcomings, too often having to override immediately questionable strategy from the cockpit only then to come in for a fumbled pitstop, plus breaking down in Azerbaijan and Austria. And, in response to that unreliability, the engines were restricted. That meant both drivers were subjected to a decline in performance.

The personal improvements began to show from the Canadian GP in June. Then came his two poles and a maiden win at Silverstone. They earn plenty of merit and, after the victory, Sainz truly was firing on all cylinders. From Austria until the end of the season, he in fact reversed the qualifying trend to instead trump Leclerc by an average of a tenth.

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While the Spaniard might not want to admit it, as the effective number two at his team he must be measured against his Red Bull opposite number. Although the points picture favours Perez, it was Sainz who ran his similarly high-flying team-mate far closer and could step into the void when Leclerc was stymied in the latter half of the season. MK

6. Fernando Alonso

Up 3

Alonso thrilled to qualify second at a soggy Montreal, and showed all of the tenacity for which he is renowned in a combative campaign

Photo by: Francois Tremblay

A typical Alonso campaign: drama everywhere. His final Renault/Alpine season will be most remembered for his 2023 Aston Martin decision, plus his frustrations with the blue team’s poor reliability. He dropped out of six races, on five occasions with car problems while running in the points, while an electrical issue stopped him starting the Austria sprint and an engine air leak dropped him back in Canada.

That event was still on balance Alonso’s highlight, since he qualified second in the wet – his best against-the-clock F1 performance for a decade. At 41, speed just isn’t an issue, as fifths in qualifying at Imola and in Singapore show – both sessions also in changeable conditions. He might have threatened the front row in Australia too, but for the crash put down to a hydraulic issue that left him driving with a bandaged right wrist for three months. His canniness is as good as ever – on display when holding up the pack in Monaco, then dropping Hamilton charging into the gap he created.

Alonso’s best race was undoubtedly his fifth place at Spa following first-lap contact with Hamilton, albeit after starting third due to all the engine-change penalties. But his best stint came at Austin, where he went from the wall to rescue seventh after his crash with Stroll. In Spain and Austria his tenacity salvaged scores from the back row.

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Negative points were his early-season struggles with tyre wear, and moving late when attacking in that clash with Stroll, which he did again against Ocon in the Brazil sprint and was penalised. Then there were his many Miami errors that led to two penalties, of which his chicane-cutting he raged against without justification. AK

5. Lando Norris

Down 2

Norris was the only driver from a team other than Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes to log a podium this year at Imola

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

One of the key criteria for assessing a driver is how they fared against their team-mate, hence Autosport’s 2014 and 2016 number one Daniel Ricciardo is towards the very bottom of the class this year. His annus horribilis, in turn, boosts Norris. The Brit outqualified his McLaren partner 20-2, outran him in most of the races, and scored more than three times as many points as the eight-time GP winner. But, even in isolation, Norris enjoyed a fine campaign to top the midfield protagonists.

After losing third to Ferrari in the constructors’ table last season, McLaren took a backwards step for the return of ground-effects. The bulky MCL36, stripped of much of its livery to shed weight, struggled with its brakes and through high-speed corners early on. Despite this, Norris masterfully exploited the damp at Imola to return his sole podium.

Following the summer break, he was one of the most consistent contenders, and delivered another first-rate showing in Singapore when he made life very difficult for pursuers Verstappen and Hamilton with a superb defensive display. Maintaining that high bar to comfortably be the ‘Class B’ champion (plus the Alpine unreliability) is a major factor in why McLaren could stay in the fight for fourth in the points for so long. His seven top-six finishes also proved that, when the leading teams hit trouble, Norris was there to pounce. MK

4. George Russell

Up 3

Russell won both the sprint and main grand prix in Brazil to cap an impressive maiden season at Mercedes

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Before 2022, Lewis Hamilton had only twice been beaten by a team-mate over an F1 season. So for Russell to make that three is a fine accolade. But it also wasn’t the title-contending year expected.

Mercedes feels that Russell adapted faster to the W13’s severe handling challenges with porpoising and bouncing in the early races, which the man himself says is why he didn’t need to try the extreme set-up adjustments his team-mate resorted to in his chase for a better balance. It’s clear that Russell’s Williams apprenticeship with a tricky package paid off and, like that team, Mercedes was impressed by his detailed and precise feedback, trusting him to evaluate upgrades and performance-chasing alterations from the off.

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The result was a very strong start to life in silver – Russell finished outside the top five in only one of the opening 16 GPs, which was his Silverstone first-corner crash where he gained plaudits for swiftly going to check on Zhou Guanyu.

The highlight was of course his Brazil win, which in the sprint featured a reverse of the aggressive-but-fair defending he’d shown against Verstappen in Spain, and in the GP a pressure-filled defiance of Hamilton after the late second safety car. But his pounce to deprive Perez of a Paul Ricard podium and his Hungary pole were sublime too.

The negatives were his Austria and Brazil qualifying offs grappling with a bouncing car, and Singapore crashes with Bottas and Schumacher. Plus biffing Sainz at the Austin start and going off chasing Mexico pole – errors he put down to pushing too hard in his faster, updated car. AK

3. Lewis Hamilton

Down 2

Hamilton ended the season winless for the first time in his F1 season, but was often the more likely of the Mercedes driver to capitalise on the tricky W13's better days

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“Not as many as in the past,” says Hamilton when asked how many races he might have won this term should he have had a more competitive car. The seven-time champion openly admits that he wasn’t quite at the level that earned him the number one spot on this list the previous five years as he drops to third.

Nevertheless, it’s a far cry from the narrative that emerged early in the campaign, when some suggested that the winner of 103 races should retire. The benefit of hindsight helps us recognise that being eliminated in Q1 in Saudi Arabia and classifying behind Mercedes partner Russell in 15 out of 25 races (sprints included) wasn’t always an accurate read. Instead, with an eighth crown wholly unrealistic, Hamilton was the ultimate team player by sacrificing speed to run with extreme set-ups to fully diagnose the W13’s flaws.

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When the car was enjoying one of its better days, Hamilton was usually the more likely of the Silver Arrows to cause an upset – with an obvious exception. He ran Verstappen close in Austin after the Dutchman’s slow pitstop. In Mexico, he made it his mission to pass Russell immediately to gain preferential treatment at the pitstops, albeit both were let down by a conservative tyre choice.

Had Russell not spun in Q3 in Brazil to inadvertently land third on the grid, it could well have been Hamilton who returned Mercedes to winning ways. Boil it down to just the driving, Hamilton was still a force to be reckoned with. MK

2. Charles Leclerc

Up 2

Leclerc was supreme in qualifying this year, scoring nine pole positions, but as in Baku was often unrewarded in races

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Virtually all the heavy lifting for his once-promising title challenge was done in the first half of the season, so the reasoning for Leclerc being ranked second here hasn’t changed drastically since the half-term grades Autosport awarded during the summer.

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Ferrari’s pace and tyre management fell away after the break, it was lost at sea in Mexico and settled for a subdued end to the campaign. This plateau came as Verstappen and Red Bull completed the championship double. But it was still a sensational first part of the year for the runner-up.

Leclerc outwitted Verstappen to gain DRS and win in Bahrain, dominated Australia, and lost possible victories in Spain and Azerbaijan to catastrophic unreliability. Further success at Silverstone and the Hungaroring were quite conceivable too, had the Ferrari pitwall not screwed up its strategy. Ditto for Q3 in Brazil.

Leclerc is by no means immune from criticism. His spin that cost third while chasing Perez at Imola was sloppy, his shunt while leading at Paul Ricard the most high-profile error of any driver. He also inadvertently decided the crown by running wide at Suzuka to cop a penalty. Then, as much as Sainz made gains of his own, Leclerc was sometimes run a little too close by his team-mate.

Remarkably, the nine-time polesitter didn’t add to his three wins after Austria in July. But that final peak was his very best work. He overtook Verstappen no fewer than three times, and then drove around a sticking throttle to seal the spoils. MK

1. Max Verstappen

Up 1

Verstappen's victory in Abu Dhabi was his 15th of a record-breaking season to seal a second world title

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

He finally gets the top spot after five consecutive years as our number two-ranking F1 driver.

From an overall supreme campaign, it’s worth remembering that Verstappen scored four wins (from a new single-season record of 15) in the opening six races while he struggled with the initially overweight Red Bull RB18’s added understeer. That meant that he often started weekends looking slightly on the back foot compared to Perez, but he could still generally unleash another level when it mattered. Had he been able to finish the Monaco Q3 lap that was spoiled by Perez’s crash, the narrative of his season might have been even better and negated some of the team-orders tension at the end.

There were errors – he was caught out in the wind early in a Spanish GP he still won with a malfunctioning DRS, he spun in Hungary (an event he nevertheless brilliantly won), and he was too impatient passing Norris at a wet Singapore – but they were smaller and less costly than Leclerc’s.

Through the summer, he led Perez by an average qualifying gap of 0.681s, which underscored his dominance in the fettled and lightened Red Bull, and he took seven poles overall. Verstappen’s tyre management prowess was rightly praised this year and was the key to his metronomic domination against the threatening Hamilton in Mexico.

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Verstappen, Leclerc and Russell produced thrilling, brilliant passing in the season’s early stages, with the Red Bull man also sensible in defence while being soundly beaten by Leclerc in Austria. But his Silverstone defending against Schumacher and the Brazil crash with Hamilton prove that his overaggressive tendencies have not gone away. AK

There were times in 2022, such as at Spa when recovering from a grid penalty, where Verstappen was simply stunning

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images