Why Autosport is changing how it ranks F1 drivers from 2023 onwards

“Just because I'm not on the podium or I don't have an outstanding drive in terms of overtaking, you don't ever rate it very highly…”

McLaren driver Lando Norris there, taking Autosport to task for not rating him highly enough for his performances in the 2022 Formula 1 season.

Specifically, he was referencing the Driver Ratings rankings piece we produce after each grand prix weekend. Despite ending last year with average score of 7.3/10 – the fifth highest of last year’s grid – Norris still wasn’t happy.

Well, we’ve given the topic a fair bit of thought during the off-season and decided to make a change to how we rank the F1 field from the start of the upcoming 2023 campaign.

But we’re willing to bet Norris and his peers will still take an issue or two – and whether it’s being called out in the paddock, a phone call from a public relations staffer or manager, or even reposting a positive ranking on their social media, we know they’re reading. No matter how much they say they “don’t pay attention” to outside assessment.

Sports stars taking criticism and using it as fuel for even better performances is actually another column topic, but today we’re talking to you the reader (F1 driver or team member or not, we value you all the same!) about what is going to be different for our rankings in 2023.

At the bottom of this page, you’ll be able to read our new definitions in full. And no, we’re not taking the cowardly option of splitting ratings by decimal point. Ours will still be out of 10, not (effectively) 100.

But perhaps the most important change we’ve made that is worth your consideration, is that from now our ratings will only concern the race action each GP weekend.

This will mean that, without a potent qualifying result boosting an otherwise unremarkable race, drivers will likely receive more lower and fewer higher scores. For example, under our old system, a Williams driver making Q3 and then finishing outside the top 10 in the race was nailed on for a ‘8’ or similar. Now, they’re much more likely to come down a few marks simply for executing a ‘par’ race performance.

Under the new scoring, Verstappen would still have got a perfect 10 for his Belgian GP win last year

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Driver excellence is obviously rewarded, with big errors or just generally underwhelming driving punished accordingly in our new scores. For the sake of clarity, we will still be awarding a ‘10’ mark, it’s just we expect these to be harder to achieve given the ranking definition now calls for a “remarkable” race performance.

The ‘maximum’ mark we award isn’t reserved for generational performances along the lines of Juan Manuel Fangio at the Nurburgring in 1957, but we expect a drive of highly impressive consideration – a season standout – to hit that rank. So, for 2022 – Max Verstappen at Spa is an obvious ‘10’, his Mexico win now a ‘9’, despite easily meeting our criteria for the maximum last year.

One of the biggest considerations we made when embarking on this course was how such a change might impact the recording of another on-track element of a driver’s weekend beyond the race, which will naturally impact the story of their seasons.

To compensate for this, although it won’t currently be publicly available, we’re creating a database to record particular incidents (such as a driver penalised for ignoring yellow flags in practice or qualifying) and driver/team explanations that previously would have fed into their weekend ranking.

The entire exercise is subjective however hard we try to be objective

Come our season review articles at the year’s end, this information will enable us tell the complete story, as you’d expect of a publication with a near-73-year history.

We’re making these changes for several reasons. While Autosport launched as a weekly magazine in 1950, the way our readers consume our stories has changed – it’s why we make YouTube videos, invest in our social media platforms and produce the Autosport Podcast. Too often in recent years, readers from across our channels have been confusing our weekend rankings as ‘race-only’, so this should help clear that up.

Simplicity in a complex and very popular motorsport division is also a key aim. Plus, we hope it’ll reduce the tiresome accusations of ‘bias’ towards or against drivers of certain nationalities.

But we recognise issues remain. In my three years as Autosport’s grand prix editor, I’ve come to realise what an imperfect exercise rating an F1 driver performance actually is. For a start, although we have the same marks definitions to work from, new F1 writer Jake Boxall-Legge and I will naturally have differing views on exactly when a performance meets a certain mark when it comes to producing the ratings pieces across the upcoming season. The entire exercise is subjective however hard we try to be objective.

Norris is one of many drivers who keeps a close eye on their driver ratings - even if they don't like to admit it

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

But, much more importantly, rating an F1 driver in such a scoring system is to go against the championship’s very nature. That racing a Williams in 2023 is very different to a McLaren, let alone a Red Bull – and yet the same definitions apply.

This is in essence what Norris was genially chafing at to newly promoted Autosport F1 newshound Matt Kew (who gleefully threw me under the bus and told Norris I was to blame for every lower rating he received in 2022!) in the Abu Dhabi paddock last November. That in F1, sometimes the best performances are very hard to spot and so often go unrewarded in outside perception.

Under our new system, that issue still remains. But as a counter, it should be acknowledged that every F1 team and driver regularly lies to the media and fans when speaking about their cars and own performances.

That’s absolutely fine, they want to maintain their specific competitive advantages and avoid giving anything away to rivals and has long been a part of motorsport. But it’s a two-way street.

Ultimately, and certain very online readers would do well to remember this, a task such as driver ratings is supposed to be enjoyed and respectfully challenged.

It’s done as properly and seriously as should be demanded of Autosport, reporting on the world’s top motorsport championship and being read by its competitors. But it should have a fun element too. This is ‘just motor racing’, after all…

Last year the Autosport average and reader average top eight orders were identical

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

In full: New Autosport Driver Ratings scoring system

10 – A remarkable race. One where a driver has hit a true performance high, for example Max Verstappen at the 2022 Belgian GP. This doesn’t mean ‘perfection’ – a small error such as Lewis Hamilton going off at Abbey during his 2008 British GP masterclass would not mean a cost when we consider all scores as getting close to a ‘maximum’.

9 – A very good race. One where a driver has left their rivals trailing, beaten a series of faster cars or produced excellent defensive or attacking moves.

8 – A good race. One where a driver has made impressive gains against their typical rivals or perhaps beaten faster rivals. A driver overcoming a team mistake (botched pitstop or poor strategy) would score this mark even if their result is compromised.

7 – A decent race. One where a driver has executed a difficult strategy or taken on and defeated a car-level rival. A driver unable to overcome a team mistake would likely score this mark. A performance with no major errors.

6 – A solid race. One where a driver has made progress up the grid or taken advantage of situations to beat a faster car. In the event of a driver making a good start and then slipping back behind faster rivals, they should still earn a mark above ‘par’.

5 – Consider this ‘par’. A driver finishes where they started with an unremarkable race. They have achieved the minimum of expectations. In the case of faster cars being out of position on the grid, the slower rivals they pass will still have been considered to have scored ‘par’.

4 – A performance with some merit, but one that ended underwhelmingly or with a minor mistake that cost positions or impacted race time.

3 – A poor performance either through struggling to get the most out of the car or, through some massive error later in the race, falling short of a team’s targeted result or the achievement of a team-mate.

2 – A driver crashes early in proceedings without a car problem. An example would be Sebastian Vettel at the 2022 Australian GP.

1 – A driver has caused a lap one crash that eliminates many rivals – think Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll at the 2021 Hungarian GP. Or just bins it solo at a similar part of the race, such as Nikita Mazepin in the 2021 Bahrain GP.

0 – A rare case, but if a driver crashes on the way to the grid without car failure at play (think Romain Grosjean at the 2016 Brazilian GP) and cannot take part in the race, they must get this score. The same for stalling at the lights and not getting going, although this in effect a non-factor in modern F1.

N/A – DNS due to car failure in the garage, on formation laps or on the grid. We reserve the right to use this in circumstances where a driver has been injured in a crash.

Who will come out on top in the Autosport driver rankings and reader rankings in 2023?

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images