The driving style secrets of F1's current stars

These days in Formula 1, it’s generally harder to see driving style characteristics than you once could – certainly in the 1970s or the 1980s, and perhaps into the 1990s and 2000s. With every era of the championship that’s got more aerodynamics-dependent, it’s become a little bit trickier to see big differences.

In the 1970s, you could see huge variations in the way the drivers would unleash the cars. Jackie Stewart’s smooth inputs versus, say, the spectacular Ronnie Peterson. You could see a difference in pretty much every corner. Fast forward to the 1980s, and quite big variations in the way drivers used the turbo engines were detectable. Think Ayrton Senna with the anti-lag and the way he developed his throttle technique.

There’s even a contrast into the 1990s, when aero was really starting to be a big performance differentiator. But the cars were still much smaller, agile and edgy, and you could see the difference between Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen. Then there were the different driving styles within the same team – Jean Alesi, for example, compared to Gerhard Berger at Ferrari.

Over time, two things happened. The first concerns the Pirelli tyres coming in for 2011. Fundamentally, the drivers all had to somewhat converge in their driving style as a result. With the Bridgestones and Michelins, or the Goodyears of previous eras, they were able to brake and lean on the tyres on corner entry. Particularly in the Bridgestone and Michelin tyre war days of the early 2000s, there was a lot of grip and support from the front axle. As soon as the Pirelli era arrived, that went away.

Insight: Why tyre wars have largely become a thing of the past in motorsport

The other change is how the aero has developed. The modern cars are incredibly aero-sensitive – especially since F1 went to the much bigger cars from 2017 onwards. With these, drivers must be very careful not to slide them around too much.

And the weight has gone up too, so as soon as a slight slide starts, or there’s even a little bit of movement, the pendulum effect of this extra weight must be countered. Any sliding also leads to overheating these very temperature-sensitive tyres. This all means that the drivers are somewhat limited in their creativity because, ultimately, race driving is an art form.

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Modern F1 drivers have had to converge in their driving styles due to the weight of their cars and sensitivity of the tyres, meaning the dramatic slides that became a Peterson trademark aren't conducive to laptime

So much of driving in F1 nowadays is about getting the feel of the tyre and just trying to work it into a sweet spot and not overdo things. The drivers all must be so careful, even in qualifying, because the Pirellis don’t let you overdrive the tyre at all. And qualifying performance also comes down to confidence. If a driver is not confident to lean on the car, the top times are just not going to happen.

For this exercise of assessing the varying driving styles of the current F1 field, the tyre management requirements and slower lap times over longer stints mean we’re concentrating specifically on a driver’s actions behind the wheel at full chat in qualifying. To make our assessments, we’ve studied multiple flying laps from each driver of the leading crop across the 2023 season.

We also checked each at different venues – particularly the requirements for fast, flowing tracks such as Suzuka, in contrast to the point-and-squirt, slower overall nature of a street circuit like Singapore. Onboard video footage makes up our primary study, but we’ve also used GPS trace data to confirm elements of what we’re seeing.

The balance of steering input and the way they load up a car under braking is a key part of what we’re looking at

The main element for assessing each driver’s style is their approach to the corners. So much of the difference between why someone is quick, and why someone isn’t, really starts at braking and corner entry. This first phase of the corner sets it all up. The middle phase of the corner is all about settling the car, and the third and final phase is largely dependent on engine driveability, car traction ability and what tyre grip is available.

You might see cock-ups and drivers wheelspinning in the last two parts, but really the differences between one driver and another in a particular corner start when they first get on the brakes and initially turn the wheel. That sets up everything that happens from there on in: what line they’re on, and then the knock-on effect of that element, plus the speed they carry to the apex in the deceleration phase.

You can’t see a driver’s feet with onboard video, but you can judge, based on their hands and trajectory, how much they’re able to steer the car on the brakes. The balance of steering input and the way they load up a car under braking is a key part of what we’re looking at.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Once the first lap scuffles settle down, often drivers have to focus on tyre management to produce their best race pace

Race driving style

In the races, it’s about tyre management. That means, since nowadays the Pirelli problem is thermal, ‘How do you still drive around as quickly as possible without overheating and overwearing the tyres (or not)?’ Onboard with the drivers in the races, they’ve all got four numbers on their dashboard for the four tyres, and they’re keeping an eye on these indicators that go green, orange and red as the tyre temps rise and fall.

To go as fast as possible without overloading the tyre, the first thing to determine is where is most critical on each track in terms of tyre wear and tyre temperature. This is what each team tries to determine in the opening practice sessions and then gets their drivers to work on best tyre management practices, which we’ll come to, in the corners of concern.

A driver must work it out on the first day of each event, because they’ve still got to go around very quickly. So, they spend a lot of time adjusting their aggression at the wheel in terms of both car speed and tyre load. They’re linked, because the faster you go, the more load you put on, and that limits how much a particular tyre can be leaned on. If it’s the rear, that’s harder to do because every time the power goes down, it’s putting energy in the rear tyres.

Drivers therefore must control the wheelspin and sliding. So the smoother drivers will benefit generally on tyre wear.

When inevitably the tyres start to wear and go off in terms of grip and temperature, the car is consequently moving around more. That means less grip and the car isn’t doing what anyone ideally wants it to. Here, the adaptable drivers are the ones who gain more because although the car is not performing perfectly, they can still drag a lap time from the situation.

Max Verstappen

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

Verstappen's mastery is controlling the car on the edge of grip while turning in early

Verstappen, famously, has incredible ability where a car is moving around, but he’s actually got unbelievable car control on corner entry. That’s where he’s doing all his winning, because he can steer the car and carry a huge amount of speed into the apex in the medium/slow-speed corners.

He does this by steering the car with his feet. He comes off the throttle, gets on the brakes and gets the rear of the car rotating – after an early steering input – and balances the car on the edge of grip. He can cope with the rear movement that an extremely responsive front end creates, which means he’s done a whole load of steering before even getting to the apex.

When he’s there, he can actually release the steering lock. You can often see that Verstappen has already got fewer degrees of steering lock compared to Sergio Perez at an apex, all because he’s steered the rear of the car on the way in. The steering lock release also comes with a benefit for tyre wear in the races – there’s less lateral g in the acceleration phase – and it all comes back to the corner approach. Verstappen is usually also inch-perfect in terms of using the full width of the track and judging its edge, especially in places like Suzuka.

Everything is done in a very controlled manner. He’s able to live with this rear movement and not only just live with it – love it. That’s the style he’s developed. It’s actually very reminiscent of Michael Schumacher at the peak of his powers in the 1990s. Michael had shown that strength at Benetton and Ferrari, and it’s why none of his team-mates could live with him. Including, intriguingly, Jos Verstappen.

PLUS: How F1's Verstappen era compares to Schumacher's early 2000s dominance

The difference between Max and Michael is that Verstappen is a bit smoother with his steering inputs. If you watch his hands on the wheel, he’s actually quite soft with his movements. He’s not aggressive with the way he turns the wheel. But on street tracks that comprise short, sharp 90-degree corners, that style doesn’t have as much of an advantage because here a car needs to be provoked – by getting it to rotate sharply and turned more aggressively. This is why we saw Perez outpace Verstappen at places such as Baku in 2023.

Sergio Perez

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

An aggressive steering style helps Perez on street tracks but against Verstappen it somewhat backfires on other circuits

Here we do have to consider the importance of corner exit, as this was Perez’s big strength in his days at Sauber and later with Force India/Racing Point. It was his ability to control wheelspin at corner exit by having good modulation and good throttle control. It all helped him with the tyres because he was one of the few drivers who gained on the way out of a turn.

The trouble is now, while he’s still doing that well, he’s come up against a team-mate in Verstappen who is a, also doing the same thing, and b, even if he isn’t necessarily doing it as well as Perez, what Verstappen gains on corner entry more than negates any small loss on the way out.

Perez is definitely more aggressive with his steering than Verstappen, judging by the way he turns the steering wheel on his first inputs. That pays him back on the street circuits where he has historically gone so well, because extra aggression with the wheel in such short, slow corners gets rewarded, because these big cars generally understeer in these corners.

Interestingly, at the start of his major downturn in performance against Verstappen last year, Perez admitted that he was trying to alter his driving style, presumably to try to replicate what his team-mate had shown was possible. That’s a very difficult thing to do, because Verstappen seems to be able to cope with the sharp turn-in phase better than anyone else, so to suddenly be able to deal with that responsiveness when first turning the wheel is a tall order.

PLUS: Why Perez’s F1 2023 struggles against Verstappen won't be easy to resolve

In Qatar for example, Perez seemed like he was overdriving on the way into corners by going in a bit too hot. It meant his mid-corner speed was then way lower and he lost out on the exits. It seemed like a driver who was desperate to make up the time to his team-mate but couldn’t quite find the right rhythm to do it. It’s a quest against Verstappen that many before have gone on but failed.

Lewis Hamilton

Photo by: Erik Junius

Hamilton's adaptability and confidence under braking have been key to his longevity

Hamilton is a driver who – whatever the car, tyre, conditions, track, grip level – is adaptable. It’s arguably been his greatest strength throughout his entire career.

His style has evolved. Back when he first arrived in Formula 1 in 2007, he was tremendously aggressive at the wheel – in a controlled way. He also had superb confidence on the brakes, and that’s still one of his massive gifts. Hamilton takes a lot of his driving cues from what the car is like under braking. If it’s good and stable, he relies quite heavily on that for the next phase of the corner – more so than some others. From high speed to a big stop, his car is just on the edge of under-rotation. It’s not quite locked up, it’s not quite snatched, but he’s got great feel to hold it perfectly.

Hamilton has also gone through different phases in terms of his driving style. He’s gone from that early aggression and adapted his style to the weaknesses of the Pirellis. And he did it very effectively.

During the midway stage of his Mercedes title run in 2017-18, he also recognised that getting his style right and peaking on a Sunday was what was going to win him world championships, because driving style considerations can also be applied through a weekend. And, while of course he remained devastatingly fast in qualifying, he clearly toned back some of that aggression to make sure that he focused on tyre management in races. Subsequently, for Hamilton this really took a step forward in 2018 and onwards.

PLUS: How Hamilton and Mercedes are plotting their course back to the top in F1

He’s a competitor who drives with his heart as well. When it comes to the big occasions, Hamilton’s got this innate ability to take it up a notch and raise his game. Take the 2021 Brazilian Grand Prix, for instance, and how he bounced back from so much adversity amid all the pressure of a tight title battle.

George Russell

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

A direct and smooth style means Russell has shades of Raikkonen about him

Russell could be described as the Mika Hakkinen of this era, thanks to his straight line trajectories through corners. Like Mika, and actually how Kimi Raikkonen did too at his peak, Russell will go a little bit deeper on the straight, then do a slight turn, which then blends into a hard turn. It makes for very straight lines and stems from very decisive inputs at the wheel.

It’s a very smooth and fast method, especially in this Pirelli era of being unable to load up the front axle too much. Just watching his hands, you see that strong input made on entry, and then he too can open up the wheel to take the lateral load off when accelerating.

Russell has a rather a minimalist driving style, but in a different way to some others in his class. It’s much more determined and seems to come from a clear idea in his mind of what he wants to do when he gets to a corner. That’s, ‘I’m going to brake here, I’m going to turn the wheel, the car is going to respond, and that’s just what I’m going to do’.

Compared to Hamilton, it’s overall a bit smoother in terms of steering inputs – because there’s really just one clean movement. He doesn’t creep towards an apex like, say, his team-mate does more. Hamilton has always been happy with more rear instability than most, but the trajectory that Russell takes naturally has the rear of the car more planted anyway.

PLUS: What 100 races have taught F1 about Russell, Norris and Leclerc

Russell does a lot of the corner rotation and a lot of the steering in that decisive first input. And because of this, from the apex onwards, if the car is sliding when on the power, it doesn’t hurt him so much. He’s got less lateral g, so he’s still accelerating out of a corner, but not overheating the tyres. It all comes from very strong self-confidence in that first steering input. But that requires a car where the front end responds and has a rear that’s calm.

If Russell was racing in the tyre war era – perhaps with Michelins – you suspect he’d be devastating, as Raikkonen was in his McLaren years.

Charles Leclerc

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

Leclerc's style is notable for his 'little turn, big turn'

Leclerc’s style contains something fascinating. He has a two-stage process – ‘little turn, big turn’. It’s almost like he’s warning the car about what’s coming because he prefers much more rear movement.

He does one turn and almost takes a pause, especially in the medium/low speed, but not so much in the high speed where a driver is just leaning on the downforce. He hates understeer and, whenever it’s an understeering car balance for the weekend for Ferrari, Carlos Sainz typically ends up being quicker. If the rear is as he wants, the way Leclerc turns the wheel is complementary. Because when the rear of the car is moving, he does that first steering input to know that the rear is with him. If it is, he can put more lock on. If not, he will have to adjust and slow down in that middle part of the corner.

He’s also balancing with his feet. That first movement tells him how much to modulate the brakes – does he need to hang onto the brakes a bit more, or can he start coming off as he does that more pronounced steering input? When he’s got an understeering balance, he’s got to hold onto the brakes more to get the front to turn.

Leclerc’s steering action is actually very smooth – he’s not throwing it around like a rally car, but the big rear movement does mean some micro-corrections to balance it out. This will come as a surprise to some, but when Leclerc himself speaks about an aggressive style, it’s again controlled aggression. Yet he will also bully a bit of rotation in and then, when he does, he’s got the confidence and car control to live with the rear.

PLUS: Why Leclerc remains committed to his Ferrari F1 title dream

That all makes him a superb qualifier – maybe even F1’s best. He can extract the maximum amount of performance from the tyre in qualifying, but it does mean he’s closer to the limit of grip. This may explain some of his famous shunts because the car is quite often more on the edge of falling off the cliff of grip than others.

Carlos Sainz

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

Unlike his rallying father, Sainz prefers a stable rear end for his driving style

Sainz also seems to do this subtle two-stage process but, before we declare this a Ferrari-determined trait, he also did it in his previous home at McLaren, and Pierre Gasly also deploys this for Alpine. Sainz’s version is more progressive – he winds the lock on more in quite a smooth way. Compared to Leclerc, Sainz loads up the front axle by turning in slightly earlier.

He wants a stable rear end, and that’s where his strength is. He’s also always chasing the front of the car – in a Jenson Button-esque way – and Sainz enters the corners always with a bit of understeer. Ultimately, over one lap, an understeering car is never normally quicker. But if you can find the sweet spot of the balance – like Button used to, and Sainz did in Singapore to get pole last year – you can really extract performance because it keeps the car balanced better. At tracks where the rear tyres start to overheat by the end of a lap, if you’re chasing the front end it’s really beneficial.

PLUS: The multiple facets behind Sainz's growing stature at Ferrari

At places such as Monza, where Sainz was also brilliant in 2023, you must slightly underdrive. If drivers go charging in with low downforce, they just start sliding. And if Sainz gets a car with a stable rear end, as Ferrari had at Monza and Singapore last year to give him that controlled responsiveness of the front, he’s able to get the rotation he wants and the lap times tumble.

A lot of this comes down to car aero platform and set-up, and Ferrari has a bit of a problem because, of its two drivers, one likes a car that’s edgy on entry, and the other one wants a car where he turns in and just wants the rear to be calm.

Lando Norris

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Norris is aggressive with his car is happy with it moving around

Norris’s style is rather reminiscent of Lewis Hamilton’s, which would actually make them handy team-mates. There’s an energy about the way they drive – in the way they load up the tyres. There’s a reasonable amount of movement going on, but they’re happy and confident in their ability to have the car moving around overall.

For Norris, everywhere he goes there’s an aggression with the way he turns the wheel. It’s just edgy. The car is alive, it looks like it’s working, but Norris has this inner confidence that when the car is doing that, he doesn’t back out of it and can hang on and go.

On the downside, it does mean that he’s on this knife-edge where, with the Pirellis, there’s not much give. And that’s why we sometimes see mistakes – like in Qatar or Abu Dhabi last year. Perhaps if Norris was driving in F1’s Bridgestone tyre era, he’d be even more brilliant in qualifying than he is now. Back then the tyres had more give, and such elasticity of grip doesn’t exist with the Pirellis. There’s a definite edge and you’ll fall off it if you overload and overheat the rear tyres.

But Norris’s risky, edgy approach is actually why he’s really good at street tracks. Again, the Hamilton comparison is pertinent – they’ve got that aggression required for the short corner types. In Monaco or Singapore, and even the last sector of Abu Dhabi as well, they have the car just constantly on an edge and moving around. They’ve just got the supreme confidence in their ability that they can live with that.

PLUS: Can McLaren make the next step to challenge for F1 titles again?

But overall, a running element across the season for Norris is that there’s just a bit more edge to the way he drives. That energy translates, crudely, as: ‘Come on you bastard, get in, get some grip’. He dominates the car into doing what he wants it to do.

Oscar Piastri

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Unlike his team-mate, Piastri has a smoothness throughout his style

Watch Piastri’s hands at the wheel in contrast to Norris’s style and there’s just a calmness. It almost looks as if Piastri’s hands are moving slower. It’s rather like watching Jenson Button or Alain Prost in terms of smoothness and precision. There’s no snappiness, no edginess. He just drives in a very smooth way, especially in the very fast corners.

It’s a fascinating insight because in some ways, McLaren has got a line-up like it did just over a decade ago. It’s got a Hamilton-Button situation again, or even going further back to Ayrton Senna-Prost, when it comes to the contrast of edgy and smooth. And again in these days, the team has got two drivers who are pushing each other hard.

Typically, other than when required by rule or kit changes, there’s an inherent style that carries through a driver’s entire career, irrespective of what car they’re driving. Last year was Piastri’s first season at the top level but, in Formula 2 and Formula 3 before, his smoothness stood out in those categories too. There would be races with really high tyre degradation in the junior categories where he really shone, and it’s just carried over into F1.

The calmness in the way he drives is a reflection of his personality too. He’s a very calm kid – unflappable. You don’t hear him complaining, he’s just so mellow.

PLUS: How F1’s new cool customer vindicated his McLaren gamble

Piastri is amazing in the high-speed corners, like his manager Mark Webber used to be. That smoothness helps in the high-speed turns. And Piastri is also impressive in terms of terms of peaking at the right times of an F1 weekend. Sometimes last year he was a bit anonymous in the opening practice sessions, then he just chipped away and was right there come qualifying.

Clearly race pace was a weakness when compared to Norris in 2023, but having a year of experience under his belt will be invaluable this season.

Fernando Alonso

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Alonso's key strengths after his adaptability and controlled aggression

Alonso’s adaptability screams out. He’s had to change his driving style four times across his storied F1 career (for getting the best out of Michelins, then Bridgestones, the grooves to slicks change, then into the Pirelli era) and he’s won across motorsport disciplines too.

That’s why it’s tough being his team-mate. This is especially so in a non-leading F1 team, where the car is never going to be perfect. At Aston Martin last year, when it slipped behind its rivals adrift of Red Bull, Alonso and Lance Stroll were having to wring the AMR23’s neck a bit more to get performance out compared to their rivals, and the gap between them just got bigger. That also centres on another Alonso strength: he’s always supremely confident.

PLUS: How Alonso took the challenge to Red Bull and enlivened F1 2023

There’s an energy and an aggression to how he drives a car. It’s a manner that says, ‘I’m just going to dominate you, car, you are my slave’ – in a way that Nigel Mansell, Senna or Schumacher used to do too. Alonso just bullies the car into doing things that you don’t expect it to. There’s a hustle to his hands, it looks fast, and it is fast, because he’s got that controlled aggression going on constantly.

In terms of driving lines, Alonso doesn’t actually use all of the width of the track in some places. He just finds his own way of pivoting and rotating a car around. He also rather drifts into a corner. He often comes to the middle of the road down a straight, then he goes back to the racing line. He’s not doing a Scandinavian flick, but it seems to be just his way of setting himself up psychologically for a corner.

Alonso is also just incredibly intelligent. He plays with the steering wheel toys much more than his rivals. He’s always flicking settings – brake balance and migration, engine braking, differential. Often a lot of drivers just adjust the brake balance, but he’ll make changes elsewhere too.

Lance Stroll

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Stroll's style sees his hands always on the move

Stroll always puts many inputs into the steering wheel – there’s a lot of energy going on compared to Alonso. This was much more apparent in his early days at Williams, and he has calmed it down over time, but he’s still generally got a lot of movement on the wheel.

Even before he commits to a corner, while getting on the brakes, his hands are already moving. They seem like slight oscillations on the steering wheel and it can’t be very stabilising for the car. They’re very small movements, so it’s fine details, but through corners Stroll is always making multiple steering inputs from entry to the apex – he’s not just making clear movements. In the high-speed turns, his hands seem to do a lot more work than others’. Where Alonso is just very clearly one strong movement that is dominating the car, Stroll’s energetic movements seem like questions, not commands.

But Stroll has got a turn of speed. There’s no doubt about it, even though he’s a driver who needs to feel confident to extract that speed. Confidence clearly contributed to his ballooning gap to his team-mate in 2023. In qualifying their average gap was over 0.3 seconds and, in the races, Alonso can extract performance on a more consistent basis too. Stroll has days such as at Austin where his race pace was superb but, across the season on the whole, the gap between the two in terms of race pace wasn’t close.

PLUS: How McLaren and Aston Martin enjoyed opposing fortunes in F1 2023

Stroll’s driving style energises the front tyres very well, which is why he is often so good in the wet. But for tyre management races, it just doesn’t make things predictable. On a long run, he’s not always necessarily on the same bit of asphalt each time. You see some variation in terms of line and entry points – it’s not always the same turn-in point into a corner, for example. And some of that comes from the corner pre-movement he displays.

Pierre Gasly

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Gasly appears to be adaptable between qualifying and race driving styles

Gasly produces a similar double movement on turn-in to Leclerc and it seems like he also wants to warn the car with a little steering movement before committing. But he’s overall more aggressive with the wheel than Leclerc and there’s definitely a bit more energy in the way he drives. His hands are more jittery on the wheel, which makes for a feisty driving style, as he likes to put energy into the way he hustles a car.

Compared to other drivers that do this, such as Hamilton, he does so with noticeably more aggression. This might be why things didn’t work out for him at Red Bull alongside Verstappen, where the car would have been too sharp for his steering inputs.

But Gasly is also a driver who can distinctively change style from qualifying to the race quite a lot. He can be very calm behind the wheel too, such as he was last year in Melbourne and at Zandvoort or even back on that amazing day at Monza when he won for AlphaTauri. This shows a good degree of adaptability – that he’s able to switch his mindset from the aggressive style needed in qualifying to a more methodical one in the races.

But Gasly does have a calmer approach to his inputs when compared to his Alpine team-mate. This rewards him on the quicker tracks such as Silverstone, while Esteban Ocon excels more on the street courses.

Esteban Ocon

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

Ocon is another with an aggressive style - which is targeted to provide a clean and straight corner exit

Ocon seems more aggressive with the steering than Gasly – particularly with his first inputs to the wheel when entering a corner. He also generally tends to turn in slightly later by just a fraction. Ocon seems to think a lot about getting corner exits straight, so appears to be much more conscious about trying to get the wheel straightened up from mid-corner to exit than most.

This explains why he tries to be aggressive in the early part of the corner – the entry-to-apex phase. Ocon does so in a Verstappen-esque way, but by being more aggressive with the wheel compared to the Dutchman’s smoothness.

Ocon also tries to provoke the rotation early on. But he doesn’t seem to do the two-step approach like Gasly and Leclerc. For Ocon, it’s a more conventional one-movement style. But, overall, Ocon has quite an aggressive method and a lot of that comes from him thinking of the corner exit and trying to open up the steering wheel and therefore get to the exit faster.

Ocon was quicker than Gasly in Jeddah, Monaco and Singapore last year – which suggests that street circuits are his thing where the more aggressive style helps to provoke the rotation.

Alex Albon

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Albon is another to fall into the super smooth driving style category

Albon appears to be super smooth in the way he applies the steering lock into the corners – in a very Button/Prost approach. However, he seems very conscious about opening the steering lock and unloading the car from the apex to corner exit. Albon also makes a more deliberate movement to unwind the steering quickly when compared to most drivers. This is really helpful for him to get good traction on the way out by focusing on the corner exits.

PLUS: How Albon’s career stability is aiding Williams in its F1 recovery

It also helps with managing rear tyre wear, which in 2023 explains why he was so good at races such as Canada. There, it was all about extending that final stint, looking after the tyres and staying calm, which reflects his character out of the cockpit too.

Logan Sargeant

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Sargeant's chastening rookie F1 season meant he hasn't settled on a driving style

Sargeant still seems like he's not really settled in and found his feet in F1. Clearly, his confidence was shaken by some tough weekends through the middle part of last year. There were plenty of unforced errors and it just seems like he's a bit more edgy in the cockpit with his steering inputs compared to Albon in the other Williams.

It's very hard when a driver gets beaten every weekend by their team-mate – as Sargeant did 28-0 down in all 2023 qualifying sessions (sprints included). A sense of urgency can creep in where they feel they desperately need to turn the tide, which is something seen with Perez and how it can lead to overdriving.

PLUS: Why F1 2023's one-point wonder deserves a second chance

For Sargeant, you could almost sense that while watching him at the wheel. It always looked like he was on the limit for the majority of last year. Whereas Albon seemed to always have a bit in reserve – especially when it came to making it through long race stints.

Daniel Ricciardo

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Ricciardo relies on feel from the car to extract performance

Ricciardo has a rather conventional way in terms of driving lines through corners, but he’s noticeably very smooth with the wheel in the fastest ones. There’s also that famous feel for braking and overtaking lunges – he finds a way to modulate the brake pedal, control the brakes and get the car stopped, even while pulling off an audacious pass.

Back in the AlphaTauri in 2023, he seemed confident compared to his disappointing period at McLaren. There, he never looked on top of a car, able to really dominate it and tell it where it was going to go like he could previously. Some of his qualifying laps for Renault in 2019-2020 before he went to McLaren were stunning, but that confidence just seemed to evaporate.

Interview: Why McLaren F1 exit was a "blessing in disguise" for Ricciardo

Ricciardo is not a driver who thinks, ‘ok, this is where I’m going to brake, this is where I’m going to turn the wheel, this is my reference points for going through the corner or apex’. He drives on natural feel and instinct rather than thinking through the process. Perhaps at McLaren, because his natural style on corner entry wasn’t working and he was being forced to spend a lot of time thinking about how to drive the car, he just wasn’t able to extract performance.

Ricciardo is also quite good at trying some different lines across a stint. He doesn’t always use the same ones; you see him experimenting. That’s typical of a driver who is relying on feel rather than visual clues. It’s a more natural way.

Yuki Tsunoda

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Tsunoda is another high-energy driver but often seems to be at the limit too quickly

Yuki Tsunoda is a bit like Stroll – there’s a lot of energy going on in the cockpit. But he’s calmed it down as he’s gone on in F1 since 2021. This is something he’s worked on quite a lot with his AlphaTauri team.

Compared to Ricciardo, Tsunoda is a bit more aggressive at the wheel. You hear the energy in his personality on the radio – he’s edgy – and the car then looks on the edge in his hands too. But he’s obviously quick. The mistakes he’s still making come because he’s on the edge.

PLUS: How Tsunoda has eliminated a crucial F1 limitation

Similarly to Stroll, it feels like they’re putting a lot of energy into driving. It always feels like they’re having to push themselves and the car to achieve the performance. They haven’t got that little bit in reserve that the top drivers possess. Although, overall, Tsunoda is not as edgy as Stroll, mistakes are an indication of a driver at capacity. You don’t see those errors from someone driving around at 99%, but there’s no doubt that he’s improved a huge amount since arriving at the top level.

It’s actually hard to say much about his driving style overall because it’s one that’s been evolving more than others in recent years. And it’s continuing to evolve too. Tsunoda could well be feeling some pressure with Liam Lawson waiting in the wings and Honda leaving the Red Bull camp soon, but he needs avoid letting that affect his driving in 2024.

Valtteri Bottas

Photo by: Alfa Romeo

Bottas stands out as he underdrives to go quick and therefore thrives in low-grip conditions

It’s hard to compare Bottas to the others – he’s got his own thing going on in terms of driving style. Bottas’s approach is to hold back a little bit on corner entry and “under-drive” the front axle – by that we mean he doesn’t charge into the apex of a corner. It means that sometimes on the high-grip tracks or when a circuit surface evolves through a weekend, he’s not able to go with it.

Bottas is famously good on low-grip tracks because he has to under-drive the front of a car. He’s good in understeering, low-grip conditions. Where most drivers struggle with front-end grip and they feel like there’s just not enough bite on the front axle, he clearly quite likes it. But as the grip comes through a weekend, others are able to lean on the front more whereas Bottas’s style naturally seems to be to underdrive.

PLUS: The lessons "peak" Bottas learned at Mercedes that will elongate his F1 career

But he’s actually quite a smooth driver and devastatingly fast over one lap when the car and conditions suit him. Just look at his excellent qualifying record against Hamilton at Mercedes during their run as team-mates.

Zhou Guanyu

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Another high-energy driver but still developing to get the most out of these cars and tyres

Like Tsunoda and Sargeant, when watching Zhou’s style in F1 so far, there’s clearly a lot of steering inputs through a corner and it all seems quite high energy behind the wheel. He also still feels like a driver who is finding their feet – not entirely 100% confident even after two full F1 seasons.

But really that means he’s another driver whose style is still evolving. Zhou seems to be trying to find out what’s the top way to get the best out of these cars and tyres.

While there’s a lot of steering inputs being made through a corner, he’s probably smoother overall than Stroll. In a way, he’s very similar to Tsunoda when it comes to energy behind the wheel. The three of them are the ones where you can really see the multiple inputs in the onboard videos.

Nico Hulkenberg

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

Hulkenberg has controlled aggression with a favour for braking and cornering in straight lines

Hulkenberg is a tad Alonso-esque. He tends to really dominate the car, but at Haas unfortunately the car doesn’t always respond. He’s very confident with his steering inputs. It’s a sign he’s got a clear vision of, ‘this is how I’m going to turn the wheel, this is how I want the car to respond’. And he drives with a certain aggression.

It proved to be very effective in qualifying in 2023. Because Hulkenberg also has very good feel when it comes to extracting performance from new tyres and he’s able to just load up the car in a very confident way. He seems to have this inherent ability to know where the grip is and when he turns the wheel, he’s very decisive.

PLUS: The Verstappen inspiration behind one of F1 2023’s other success stories

Hulkenberg very rarely misses an apex. He’s got what we might call a ‘midfield acceptance’ – in qualifying specifically. That is: ‘I’m going to drive to the maximum limit of the car, I’ll work out what that is and I’m going to at least make sure I hit every apex and get every line absolutely spot on and then the lap time will be the lap time’.

He too has very straight lines through a turn – he’s not creeping up to the apex. Hulkenberg brakes in a straight line, turns in and goes. It’s also rather Russell/Hakkinen-esque as well.

Kevin Magnussen

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Magnussen arguably has the most aggressive driving style in the current F1 grid

Like Bottas, Magnussen is isolated in terms of driving style. It’s a more aggressive style than even the strongest examples we’ve discussed so far when it comes to turning the wheel. Hulkenberg is controlled aggression, whereas Magnussen is just a bit more feisty in general. Watching his hands at work, there is plenty more energy with his inputs. This means he doesn’t always hit those apexes when the car isn’t working, as he just tries to be super aggressive with it every time where Hulkenberg is precise and methodical.

Magnussen can be utterly rapid over a lap and very brave in overtaking and start launches. But in 2023, he didn’t look as confident with the Haas compared to his team-mate. His style of driving means if you’ve got a car that’s not working or responding, it’s moving around more. So, it’s harder to be a driver who is on the edge and if the car is not as good, that’s going to get exaggerated by all those movements. It seemed like Magnussen was almost trying to overcompensate for car deficiencies last season.

In his years against Romain Grosjean at Haas, Magnussen was also always so aggressive. But when you have a car that’s lively and you have a style that’s lively, you need a car that’s calm to balance it. If you’ve got a car that’s not got the downforce, then you just go in a circle where the car is moving around too much and you’re overheating the tyres. You’re not actually getting performance; you’re losing time sliding. That aggressive style is rewarded in cool conditions.

Magnussen’s famous 2022 Brazil pole came because his approach naturally got enough temperature into the slicks as rain started drizzling down. Conversely, it makes tyre management much harder, which was already a big issue for Haas last year.

Photo by: Mark Sutton

Will any F1 drivers adapt their style for 2024?