F1 Driver Ratings: Belgium 2018

August 27, 2018

As Formula 1 returned from their summer break, it would be the picturesque Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium that welcomed the circus.

Sebastian Vettel eased his way to victory to surpass Alain Prost on the all-time career winners list. Lewis Hamilton did everything he could to stop his championship rival from winning but he didn’t have the car pace to do so. Max Verstappen started 7th but clawed his way onto the third step of the podium.

As per usual, the order you see is the finishing order of the race.

2018 Belgian Grand Prix – Spa-Francorchamps

Sebastian Vettel: 9/10

Lewis Hamilton: 9/10

Max Verstappen: 8.5/10

Valtteri Bottas: 8/10

Sergio Perez: 9/10

Esteban Ocon: 8/10

Romain Grosjean: 8/10

Kevin Magnussen: 7/10

Pierre Gasly: 8/10

Marcus Ericsson: 7.5/10

Carlos Sainz: 4.5/10

Sergey Sirotkin: 7/10

Lance Stroll: 6.5/10

Brendon Hartley: 6/10

Stoffel Vandoorne: 4/10

RETIRED

Daniel Ricciardo: 7.5/10

Kimi Raikkonen: 8/10

Charles Leclerc: 6/10

Fernando Alonso: 7.5/10

Nico Hulkenberg: 3/10

This was a tough race to rate the drivers because the pecking order has changed since the last race in Hungary, qualifying was pretty chaotic (at the end at least) and lots of drivers retired very early on in the race, making it hard to rate them. But I’ve had a go but I can understand if you don’t agree.

Maybe from next season, I’ll give some drivers a N/A ratings, but even that would be down to judgement as to who deserves a N/A and who doesn’t. For now, everybody will get a rating.

Three drivers get the highest score (9) this week: Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez. Vettel and Hamilton were almost flawless all weekend but they both could have done better – Vettel in qualifying and Hamilton on the safety car restart in the race, but I am nit picking here. Meanwhile, Perez had excellent race pace and was very good in qualifying as well.

No surprise to see Nico Hulkenberg receive the lowest rating (3). He basically ruined five drivers’ races: Hulkenberg himself, Alonso, Leclerc, Ricciardo and Raikkonen with one silly mistake. It tends to happen at La Source and Hulkenberg just completely misjudged his braking compared to everyone else.

The rest of this season’s driver ratings can be found here…

Australia Ratings

Bahrain Ratings

China Ratings

Azerbaijan Ratings

Great Britain Ratings

Germany Ratings