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You probably won’t need much guesswork about the 2022 title, but which drivers can look back on their seasons with the greatest pride?
The latest F1 campaign has not been widely successful across the circuit, with just five individual race winners but nine drivers averaging over 7/10 for their performances in 22 grands prix.
Here’s our top 10 countdown.
10 Sebastian Vettel
Points: 37. Championship position: No. 12.
Vettel wasn’t in our top 10 when we looked at the drivers for the first half of the season, but Vettel’s improvement after the summer break coincides with news of his imminent retirement.
Maybe “coincidence” is the wrong word. Only the four-time former world champion knows whether Autumn’s resurgence was subconscious during the winter of his career or a palpable relief after struggling with the decision of whether to continue the fight.
Of course, the 35-year-old has been helped by a significant improvement in Aston Martin cars, and while it’s by no means a huge improvement, it’s good to see him out as he’s still perfectly capable of attracting attention.
high season: Suzuka was the saddest farewell for Vettel, but he achieved his best result of the campaign in some of the trickiest conditions – overcoming a hairy moment with Fernando Alonso at the very start.
low season: Barring a comeback, it will be a farewell season for the German, having missed his first two games in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia after signing with Covid and looking visibly rusty when he returns in Australia.
9 Esteban Ocon
Points: 92. Championship position: No. 8.
What do Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Tasso Marquez and now Ocon have in common? They are the only team-mates to beat Fernando Alonso in the World Championships in his 19 seasons in the sport.
Ocon has the biggest point gap to Alonso at 11 points, but the Spaniard has found himself out of luck in terms of reliability, so we think the Frenchman must be ranked below him.
Still, Ocon was brilliant and was instrumental in helping Alpine finish fourth in the team, and seeing how he handles the different team dynamics after the arrival of Pierre Gasly will it will be fun.
high season: Like Vettel, we need to look at Japan, where Ocon finished fourth in a rain-shortened race and will get huge satisfaction from stopping Lewis Hamilton’s sterling defensive effort.
low season: The record of only two retirements contrasts with Alonso’s plight, but one of them had to take the public subway back to the paddock after an engine failure in Singapore caused Ocon to break down on a relatively remote part of the street circuit.
8 Carlos Sainz
Points: 246. Championship position: 5th.
Controversially low? Possibly, especially in a season in which Sainz has his first grand prix win and his first two pole positions.
But overall, he lacked the consistency of the other drivers in the “Big Three” team, and only two of his six retirements were not due to crashes or collisions, whether or not the Spaniard was to blame.
As far as pace is concerned, his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc has his yardstick by and large, and this level of performance will need to be seen as the minimum expectation if Sainz is to be confident of retaining his place in the team.
peak season: Undoubtedly Silverstone, where Sainz did what was necessary after the safety car restart to capitalize on Ferrari’s puzzling decision to keep Leclerc on the old hard tyres, and convert pole to lead victory.
low season: To be fair, there were a few contenders, but after starting from pole at the US Grand Prix, Sainz blamed May when he was hit by George Russell on the exit of the first corner. Racers, this is the end of the race.
7 Lando Norris
Points: 122. Championship position: No. 7.
He won’t say it’s his lucky number, but Norris has been strongly associated with seven over the past few years – he’s been P7 in nine of his last 30 grands prix, for example.
Seventh in the standings equates to “best of the rest” in 2022, a term the Brits don’t like, and it’s another race where he almost single-handedly leads the McLaren attack at times thanks to Daniel Ricciardo’s struggles.
Constrained by a long-term contract, the onus is now on McLaren to prove they are worthy of an ever-improving Norris, not the other way around, as he is more than ready to do the job in a race-winning car.
high season: No doubt Leclerc’s crash helped him, but a third-place finish at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix has at least someone other than Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes on the podium this year.
low season: It was a weekend he would also want to forget about the off-track reason he was suffering from a stomach bug, but Norris’ retirement from the Sao Paulo Grand Prix was only his second of the season and since early May First retirement since Miami.
6 Fernando Alonso
Points: 81. Championship position: No. 8.
Alonso has had such terrible misfortune with reliability that he has retired from four of his last seven races with Alpine and bluntly said “only 14 races”.
Calculating how many points those DNFs cost him is never an exact science, but it’s no exaggeration to say he could have passed Norris in the standings with far better car health.
The 41-year-old former world champion shows no signs of waning in talent or hunger — in fact, the latter should be at the peak of his game as he prepares to compete against a team expected to be even more competitive in 2023. Aston Martin team for a new adventure.
high season: It was a wet qualifying session, so not exactly representative, but Alonso put his car on the front row at the Canadian GP. Unfortunately, another engine gremlin went out in the race and he ended up finishing ninth.
low season: Finishing the half of his swan song for the Alps in Abu Dhabi was a sad way for the Spaniard as a leak cost him the chance to add a few more points at the top of the table.
5 Sergio Perez
Points: 305. Championship position: No. 3.
Perez is almost second in the standings, but his position in this ranking is due to the fact that he drives a dominant car and is compared to his – admittedly outstanding – team-mate.
Considering the two-match win doubled his previous total, it was an acceptable return, but there were times when it was hard to shake off the feeling that the Mexican could have produced more.
In particular, on the eve of the summer break when he was awarded a new contract, his form took a sharp turn for the worse, and Helmut Marko even pointedly suggested that Perez might already be psychologically “on the beach”.
high season: Perez’s two victories on the dry street circuit were spectacular as he held on under strong pressure. Monaco was memorable but we agree with Christian Horner that Singapore was his best drive ever.
low season: It was a sloppy Friday and Sunday in Austria, mixed with a strong sprint performance. Perez was penalized for going over the track limit in qualifying, dropping his sprint start to 13th, while in the race he struggled to retire first after an early collision with Russell.
4 Lewis Hamilton
Points: 240. Championship position: No. 6.
Winless in first F1 season, lowest ranking of his career, but we all know why. That’s thanks to the Mercedes W13 rather than Hamilton himself.
The seven-time former world champion was essentially the team’s “guinea pig” when it came to experimenting with different setup tweaks in an attempt to find improvement, but his results have become more consistent since early summer.
It hasn’t been a flawless campaign by any means, but when the rare chance to win presents itself, Hamilton’s talent shines through and he’ll get a better car next year and he can look forward to more glory days .
high season: The 37-year-old Briton is a five-time runner-up, and if we had to pick one, we’d pick Austin. Despite a slow pit stop by Max Verstappen and an eventual victory, Mercedes took a real step forward, the first of three weekends at the American Swing.
low season: Hamilton found himself trailing Gasly’s AlphaTauri lap after lap in DRS training at Imola to finish 13th, with the prospect of eight subsequent podiums looking very remote.
3 George Russell
Points: 275. Championship position: 4th.
If Russell had been told in February that he would lead Hamilton by 35 points in his maiden Mercedes season, the offer would have been snapped up immediately.
The only problem is that it only includes one victory, no title challenge, but it has to be a superb and very encouraging start to his Mercedes career, just as they produce a very troubled car.
Consistency is a huge plus in these circumstances, with the 24-year-old Briton finishing top-five in 19 of his 22 grands prix – a bright spot for him, especially considering To Silver Arrows vs W13.
peak season: A no-brainer…Russell won the São Paulo sprint from third on the grid and then translated that into a Grand Prix win as well. Fully deserved, and it’s unlikely to be too long before a second win arrives.
low season: This is the worst place for this to happen, but Russell’s 100 per cent top-five record ended round 10 at the British GP when the collision resulted in a horrific crash for Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu.
2 Charles Leclerc
Points: 308. Championship position: 2nd.
With a 34-point lead from three races into the World Championship, missing out on the title by 146 points only reflects the immense disappointment with Leclerc.
But while no one at Ferrari can be blamed for their season’s failure, Leclerc has less to blame than most – although his three race victories could at least be doubled.
“Character building” is probably the best way to describe Monaco’s campaign, and he deserves credit for the way he handled himself in the face of adversity, with a superb performance to stop Perez and claim second place in the Abu Dhabi final.
peak season: Leclerc returned home from Australia with two wins from three, followed closely in another race, with Verstappen thinking the title may be behind him. How things can change quickly…
low season: From a driver’s point of view, it must have been the French Grand Prix, with Leclerc in control at the front but crashing his car into the wall and letting out a cry of pain as he sensed the turning point in the title race.
1 Max Verstappen
Points: 454. Championship position: 1st.
Nicholas Latifi sure will bottom of our listputting Verstappen first was also a straightforward decision.
The 15 race victories – a new season record – with nine of the 11 races coming from France, tell the story of how the Dutchman’s second driver’s crown ended in a very different way to his first story.
An absolute master class from a rival at the height of his powers, his Sao Paulo team insubordinate and with the relentless winning streak enjoyed by the predecessors of many of the F1 greats.
peak season: Obviously it’s hard to pick just one, but red bull maestro won from pole in Japan – and then in a parc ferme interview, Johnny Herbert confirmed his second world title.
low season: Again, we’re flashing back to Australia, where Verstappen rallied after a second retirement in three games due to early problems with the RB18 – a game that turned quickly after a big comeback. Very one-sided.
read more: Lewis Hamilton knows F1 career won’t be ‘forever’ but retirement time ‘not now’
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