Welcome to The Gurgler’s 2021 F1 Season G-Power Rankings – our way of using various F1 based stats to answer the question of really who is the best driver in F1 so far in 2021 and who was the driver of the day with our 2021 Brazilian Grand Prix Ratings.
Our 2021 F1 Season Power Rankings goes a little bit deeper than just points scored on the Sunday. We take on board Free Practice, Qualifying, performance in relation to team mate, fastest lap, and a few more stats that are attempting to highlight a driver outperforming the car. Even the occasional Sprint Race.
A full explanation on what is included and the points awarded is below the visuals.
Our 2021 Qatar Grand Prix Driver Ratings is more than just a score, we have the race results, season progress, and so many F1 based points of interest in easy to consume visuals.
Enjoy.
READ MORE – Qatar Grand Prix Race Summary
2021 F1 Season Power Rankings – Race 20 2021 Qatar Grand Prix Driver Ratings
Here is the breakdown of the best and blurst driver from the most recent race.
- Lewis Hamilton pips Max Verstappen for our driver of the weekend, but given the Briton’s actual on track dominance it’s fair enough.
- Fernando matches his on track efforts with our ratings. In fact in our GP summary he was our driver of the race.
- Pierre Gasly continues to overachieve, but throws it away a bit with poor starts and strategy.
- Daniel Ricciardo only scored more of our ratings points than Latifi and Mazepin. Ouch.
2021 F1 Season Power Rankings Progress – Martini Medal Driver of the Year
Here are the current overall standings for our Driver of the Year winner – the Martini Medal. Named in honour of one of F1’s most unsung heroes – Pierluigi Martini of Minardi fame.
We have the overall scores as they stand, plus a visual which shows the flow of each driver’s position throughout the season.
- Max Verstappen is our 2021 Driver of the Year leading Lewis Hamilton by over 200 of our ratings points with two races to go. You can’t say he hasn’t deserved it either. Not that Lewis Hamilton hasn’t either, but it has come down to Max’s dominance over his team mate as the difference. Plus consistency of being fast in every session.
- The battle for the final spot on our Driver of the Year podium is so tight. Pierre Gasly, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris are just two points apart.
- The battle to finish in the top ten is tight too, and hard to believe two of our midfield runners have won a race this season.
- The last visual has the driver of the year points from the US Grand Prix onwards. There’s not a great deal of difference except you can notice the rise of Ferrari over McLaren.
POINTS FROM THE US GRAND PRIX ONWARDS
2021 F1 Season Power Rankings – Other Interesting Stats
In case everything we have offered up isn’t enough, here is the best of the visuals from the F1 season so far.
TEAM MATE H2H
Here are the H2H results for the season so far.
Note that for the race we only count it when both drivers finish, unless the retired driver’s retirement was self inflicted as judged by us.
- Only Pierre Gasly maintains his 100% qualifying record over their team mates.
- Max Verstappen is the best at beating their team mate on raceday. Mr Saturday is still outracing Nicholas Latifi thoroughly on Sunday too.
- The visual on the right shows the overall dominance for each driver this season.
QUALIFYING ANALYSIS
So who is the most consistent qualifier? The closest to pole position overall time-wise? What’s gap between the team mates?
Do certain cars or drivers excel on certain tracks.
All of that and more is answered below.
- Valtteri Bottas is the only driver to feature in Q3 every race.
- Lewis Hamilton has the best average qualifying position for modern tracks, but is third behind Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas on classic track.
- Worth noting the average qualifying position for Charles Leclerc on street tracks this season as the F1 circus heads to the new street circuit in Saudi Arabia.
RACE – FIRST LAP NET PROGRESS
Who’s gaining or losing on the first lap?
Kimi Raikkonen continues to be the first lap king, with twice as many positions gained on lap one that the nearest competitor. He was back on form this weekend gaining another bag of places on lap one Brazilian Grand Prix saw his first net loss for the season.
Valtteri Bottas maintains his lead as the worst on lap one with another drop this race. Bottas has only made places on lap one twice.
FREE PRACTICE RESULTS
For no good reason in the Free Practice results. This week we added total laps covered in Free Practice.
2021 F1 Season Power Rankings – Points Explanation
Here’s how the points work this season. Essentially the perfect race (Win from Pole, Fastest Lap, thrash team mate, best in race etc) should amount to the perfect 100 points.
FIRST LAP GAINS +0.5pts per position gained -0.5pts per position lost.
CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS – 25pts to 1pt as per World Championship – Sprint Race Points added.
BEAT TEAM MATE (RACE) – 10pts (if both finish or other driver got self inflicted DNF)
FASTEST LAP – 5pts – 1pt for top five drivers.
GRID POSITION TO RACE POSITION – formula +/- relative finish to grid
BEST OF THE REST (RACE) – 5pts to 1pt – top five non Mercedes-Red Bull drivers
QUALIFYING – 20pts to 1pt – Grid Position 1 to 20.
BEAT TEAM MATE (QUALIFYING) – 5pts
BEST OF THE REST (QUALIFYING) – 5pts to 1pt – top five non Mercedes-Red Bull drivers
GREAT/GRAPE – 5pts Great 2pts Honourable Mention -2Pts Dishonourable Mention -5Pts Grape
BEAT TEAM MATE (QUALIFYING) Time Gap – Formula for % beaten team mate by
BEAT TEAM MATE (QUALIFYING) Position – 0.5 Pts for every position team mate is beaten by. 0 points for second car.
FREE PRACTICE HERO – 10Pts to 1Pt – Average Position across all three practice sessions.
WIN FROM POLE – Bonus 5 Points
WIN FROM POLE WITH FASTEST LAP – Bonus 10 Points
SPRINT RACE – Points awarded for top five – 5-4-3-2-1
