F1 Driver Ratings: Germany 2018

Lewis Hamilton somehow took his 44th win in car #44 as he charged through the field from 14th place to become the winner of the 2018 German Grand Prix. It was only the 12th time in 976 world championship races (excluding the anomalous Indy 500s of 1950-1960) a driver has won from 14th or lower.

Valtteri Bottas led momentarily amongst all of the chaos but was told not to attack Hamilton in the last 10 laps so had to settle for second place. Fellow Finn, Kimi Raikkonen, finished third after he also led the race at one point. It was a hectic and controversial race with so much to talk about.

But first, here’s the Driver Ratings. As per usual, the order you see is the finishing order of the race.

2018 German Grand Prix – Hockenheimring

Lewis Hamilton: 9/10

Valtteri Bottas: 8.5/10

Kimi Raikkonen: 8/10

Max Verstappen: 7.5/10

Nico Hulkenberg: 9.5/10

Romain Grosjean: 8/10

Sergio Perez: 7/10

Esteban Ocon: 7/10

Marcus Ericsson: 8/10

Brendon Hartley: 7/10

Kevin Magnussen: 7.5/10

Carlos Sainz: 6.5/10

Stoffel Vandoorne: 4.5/10

Pierre Gasly: 5/10

Charles Leclerc: 6.5/10

RETIRED

Fernando Alonso: 6/10

Lance Stroll: 4.5/10

Sebastian Vettel: 4/10

Sergey Sirotkin: 7.5/10

Daniel Ricciardo: 7/10

This week the highest rating (9.5) goes to Nico Hulkenberg. He has been highly underrated this season because he has beat his teammate Carlos Sainz consistently and most people rate Sainz quite highly. The Renault is not the best car in the midfield yet in qualifying and the race, he maximises its potential and can even exceed expectations. I would love to see him in a Mercedes or Ferrari one day or hope that Renault can get back towards the top very soon.

The lowest rating (4) goes to another German and it was something nobody expected. Sebastian Vettel crashed out from the lead of his home race as the track got very slippery. It was a moment of madness and nobody else in the field went into the wall like he did. Yes, some people used the run off area and went wide but you would have expected a four-time world champion to keep it out of the wall. He made pole position look easy on Saturday but he did something which we haven’t seen in a long time, and something we see very rarely, he made an error and it had massive consequences.

More on Vettel’s crash and everything else that happened during the weekend and even after the race had finished, later in the week.