Who were the fastest drivers in F1 2022?

We’re aware that any attempt to rank Formula 1’s drivers in order of speed will provoke an emotional response in some quarters, especially the deafeningly partisan echo chamber that is social media. So we set out clear rules for this exercise based on arithmetic
 and rigour rather than subjectivity and sentiment.

Formula 1 is a complex business and there are many parameters
 to consider when assessing outright race pace in the current era.
 To be clear, we only considered races where the top times were set on dry tyres, so unfortunately Japan had to be excluded.

Love ’em or hate ’em, sprint races are here to stay, but we haven’t included the best lap times from each driver in the Imola, Austria or Interlagos events. This is partly to aid ranking simplicity but also because, generally, the drivers don’t push as they would in a full GP and DRS trains regularly form.

Tyre management also brings an element of the mathematically intangible. Since the tyres are fragile and all drivers now start with the same fuel load – unless teams under-fuel them on purpose – the field’s best race times generally come at around three-quarters distance, after the final stop, with fuel burn-off a factor and the final-stint tyres still healthy. But some races require more tyre management than others – such as Austin and Abu Dhabi in 2022 – and this must be remembered when looking at these averages, since the strategy variance it creates can’t be adjusted for.

We did remove times set by drivers who retired before the typical fastest-lap sweetspot and left in occasions where racers retired afterwards – such as for the Red Bull pair
 late-on in Bahrain.

The recently introduced fastest-lap bonus point creates an incentive for those who can afford an extra stop to come in for fresh boots very late. So we decided to dismiss this in obvious cases, such as when George Russell stopped late in Singapore, Austin and Mexico City – the latter occasions because he had such a big gap to the midfield. By this point in the race, those gaps have built up because of the deficits in the car packages to the frontrunners rather than individual driver performance. Don’t forget this factor since it’s 
the most important one when reading these times.

Instances of late pitstops to gain the bonus point for fastest lap, as with Russell in Singapore, are discounted from our analysis

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

As well as dropping times set following late crashes or incidents, we also discounted occasions when drivers couldn’t show their best through no fault of their own – for example Max Verstappen hitting debris at Silverstone and getting floor damage when he was clearly the day’s fastest driver. Mechanical maladies were reasons for adjusting the total number of valid races used to count towards each driver’s average deficit calculation. But lap-one contact generally wasn’t, unless it was obviously not one driver’s fault – such as for Kevin Magnussen at Turn 1 at Monza.

The impact of late-race Safety Cars and ensuing added stops was kept in since gains/losses tend to average out over a campaign and are a big factor in succeeding in modern F1, where teams and drivers can be less than generous with the truth about certain developments (yes, really!). So, we’ve taken them at their word on various problems and left in examples that aren’t sufficiently explained as absolving a driver or team tactic – such as where lots of lift-and-coast is required to save fuel. And in the midfield, teams more often split strategies, which means team-mates can’t always equally replicate pace.

Interestingly, the Mexico City GP is an outlier we’ve left in completely because of its unique challenge. Thanks to the engine performance impact, cooling and different downforce demands of the thin-air, high-altitude event, it’s even more of a race-management affair with very little tyre degradation. This means the drivers must be on top of so many additional variables even if things looks relatively mundane from the outside.

As our ‘quick list’ topper and 2022 world champion Max Verstappen recently told this author, “People always say, ‘Yeah, but you’re managing.’ I say: “You do it, then! See if you can do it!”

PLUS: Are these the 50 quickest drivers in F1 history?

How we worked it out

We extracted each driver’s fastest lap for each race and worked out how far that was behind the race’s best time.
For example Leclerc’s 1m34.570s from the Bahrain GP is 0.0s. Verstappen was next and his deficit was 0.870s. We added each deficit and divided that by the number of valid races to create an average.

We excluded outliers such as: Verstappen (Silverstone), Latifi (Austria) and Norris and Schumacher (Austin) – damage from track debris; Schumacher (Bahrain) – early car damage; Perez (Miami) – engine issue; Albon (Spain) – floor breaking without driver error; Alonso (Canada) – engine air leak; Magnussen (Italy) – damage from Turn 1 clash which was not a 50-50.

Instances were drivers' pace was hobbled by factors outside their control, such as engine woes for Perez in Miami, are also discounted

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

1. Max Verstappen +0.444s
Unsurprising to see the champion at the head of this ‘grid’, while he also claimed the most fastest laps of all
 in 2022: five.

2. Charles Leclerc +0.493s
2022’s top qualifier, with nine poles, nearly shades Verstappen largely thanks to Ferrari’s early season speed advantage.

3. Sergio Perez +0.536s
His qualifying deficit to Verstappen was usually more substantial, so this suggests Perez regularly hit Red Bull’s race
pace target.

4. Carlos Sainz +0.972s
Took two fastest laps last year. The big gap to Leclerc essentially comes down to his struggles getting up to speed early on.

5. Lewis Hamilton +1.044s
Set the best race laptime at Silverstone and Hungary – races where Mercedes wasn’t struggling with porpoising.

6. George Russell +1.070s
Loses three of his four 2022 fastest laps in our ranking, because they were set chasing the fastest-lap bonus with extra stops.

7. Lando Norris +1.607s
His Monaco fastest lap is discounted from our ranking because he got 
an extra stop 
for slicks in that wet-dry thriller.

Freed from the Mercedes W13's porpoising struggles, Hamilton impressed in Hungary

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

8. Fernando Alonso +1.616s
Differing intra-team strategies explains some of Alonso’s advantage over Ocon. But he was often more rapid over a race stint.

9. Esteban Ocon +2.019s
Ends up ahead of Bottas by default, because he had fewer best race laps which had to be removed to find his valid races total.

10. Valtteri Bottas +2.019s
An early season star thanks to the C42 being at the weight limit from the off, which boosted Valtteri’s in-race times.

11. Zhou Guanyu +2.072s
Hard done by since his Japan fastest lap can’t count in our ranking because the race was wet throughout.

12. Mick Schumacher +2.102s
Despite the big gap to his team-mate Schumacher couldn’t save his Haas drive. This show that irregular bursts of pace aren’t sufficient.

13. Lance Stroll +2.173s
Something to show the Stroll haters, although there was a 13-7 qualifying head-to-head defeat to Sebastian Vettel in 2022.

14 Sebastian Vettel +2.218s
Like his team-mate, Vettel was a regular lap-one star. 
But surely better qualifying should also improve
 race pace?

Zhou impressed in the wet at Suzuka, but this isn't included due to the parameters of the debate

Photo by: Alfa Romeo

15. Pierre Gasly +2.290s
Gasly hasn’t forgotten how to be fast or execute races well. This just shows how much harder AlphaTauri had it in 2022.

16. Alex Albon +2.370s
A fine deficit given Albon was driving the slowest car on pure pace. Plus he regularly had to make maverick strategies work.

17. Yuki Tsunoda +2.403s
Adjusted to make up for an extra stop for slicks in Monaco. Tsunoda also gained from new rubber in Baku as his DRS was fixed.

18. Daniel Ricciardo +2.429s
A huge gap to Norris, boosted only by Ricciardo’s fine third-quickest Mexico 
lap – as he pushed to overcome his earlier penalty.

19. Kevin Magnussen +2.532s
Strange this, given it was Magnussen who made the most of Haas’s early season speed. Too many race incidents stifled his pace.

20. Nicholas Latifi +2.723s
The ‘grid’ ends with another non-surprise. Latifi’s race pace was poor, as he regularly struggled badly with tyre preservation.

The substitutes

Nico Hulkenberg replaced the Covid-afflicted Sebastian Vettel at Aston Martin for two races. Although Hulkenberg was just 19th and 3.631s slower than Leclerc’s quickest Bahrain lap, he improved to 11th and 2.017s adrift in Jeddah – going from being behind temporary team-mate Lance Stroll by 1.055s to edging him by 0.795s in race two.

Nyck de Vries made a one-off Williams appearance in place of Alex Albon at Monza. There his best race lap was 13th fastest and 2.594s off Perez’s best, but he did beat Latifi by 0.174s.

Race pace in Mexico was a rare high point for Ricciardo in 2022, a point reflected by his lowly ranking in our assessment

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images