Annotations will appear as you listen
0:00
41:46
Term
tier one
“Tier one” just means the top group in their driver rankings. The host says it’s hard to place drivers there because they didn’t have enough time to judge everyone.
Person
Kimmy Antonelli
Kimmy Antonelli is one of the Mercedes drivers mentioned. The host says he didn’t do well in qualifying and got a penalty because he broke the rules about where you’re allowed to drive on the track.
Term
track limits
Track limits are the rules about staying within the marked edges of the race track. If you go over the line or cut corners too much, officials can penalize you.
Person
George Russell
George Russell is a Mercedes driver. The host says he was fastest in qualifying (pole position) but still didn’t win the race in Barcelona.
Term
pole position
Pole position means you qualified fastest and start the race from the very front. It’s a big advantage because you get clear air and can lead early on.
Term
hard tire
A hard tire is one of the tire types teams choose in F1. It usually lasts longer, but it can be less grippy, and the host says it hurt Russell’s speed later in the race.
Term
stints
A stint is how long you drive on one set of tires. The host says the car was worse later in those tire periods.
Term
VSC
VSC means the race is under a “virtual safety car” speed limit. Drivers have to slow down in a controlled way, and that can change pit stops and race position.
Term
front wing adjust
The front wing is a key part that helps the car stick to the track. An “adjust” means changing its setting, and if it’s wrong it can make the car feel worse and slower.
Concept
finishing
In F1, “finishing” means you actually make it to the end of the race. The hosts are saying that just finishing (or not) doesn’t always tell the full story about how good the driver’s weekend really was.
Term
Grand Prix
A Grand Prix is just an F1 race weekend at a particular track. When they talk about a driver’s performance in a Grand Prix, they mean how they did across that whole event.
Person
Fernando Alonso
Fernando Alonso is a famous Formula 1 driver and multiple-time world champion. In this discussion, he’s referenced to show how something that happens very early in the race can change the whole outcome.
Concept
retire
In F1, a “retirement” is when a driver has to stop and can’t finish the race. The hosts are using it to explain that retirements can make one driver look better or worse than they might have been otherwise.
Place
Monaco
Monaco is the track used for the Monaco Grand Prix, and it’s known for being very tight and unpredictable. The hosts are saying that if the car avoids problems there, the driver can suddenly look like the clear winner.
Concept
overreaching
“Overreaching” here means trying harder than the car can comfortably manage. The idea is that when drivers push too far, it can lead to mistakes or inconsistent performance that shows up in the results.
Term
qualifying
Qualifying is the part of an F1 weekend where drivers try to set the fastest lap to decide where they start the race. It’s a good snapshot of how well the car and driver are working together right then.
Person
Lance Stroll
Lance Stroll is an F1 driver for Aston Martin. The discussion is basically: the car’s behavior makes it difficult to compare his results to other drivers, and they wonder if he might have done something great in qualifying despite that.
Brand
Aston Martin
Aston Martin is the F1 team in this discussion. The hosts are saying the team doesn’t explain its situation much, and that makes it harder to judge how well its drivers are doing compared to others.
Term
Q2
F1 qualifying is split into parts. Q2 is the second part, and if you’re not fast enough there, you don’t get to run in the final part (Q3).
Term
deployment
In qualifying, drivers can use certain race systems in specific moments to help their lap time. If they don’t use (or can’t use) that system when it matters, the lap can be slower.
Term
Q1
F1 qualifying has multiple rounds. Q1 is the first round, and if you’re too slow there, you’re done and don’t continue to the later rounds.
Term
one set of tyres
They planned to use the same tires for their runs instead of switching to fresh ones. Fresh tires usually help grip, so saving a tire set is a strategy choice with trade-offs.
Person
Piastre
They’re talking about how fast a driver was during the race. The host thinks Piastre’s pace wasn’t as good as it should have been, so his ranking should be lower.
Concept
championship standings
The championship standings are the season’s score table. They show who’s leading based on points earned so far.
Term
F1 points to the top 10 finishers
In F1, drivers don’t all get points. Only the top finishers score points, and this ranking is built using that idea.
Person
Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton is the driver they say made the biggest jump in their rankings. They’re noting he’s now much closer to the points lead.
Person
Landau Norris
They’re saying “Landau Norris” moved up to fourth because he had a strong finish on the podium in Barcelona.
Person
Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen is climbing the rankings. They say his recent podium finishes are the reason he jumped up several spots.
Person
Carlos Sainz
Carlos Sainz is being praised for consistency. They say he’s had the most finishes inside the top 10 so far this season.
Term
teammate comparison
In F1, teammates drive the same team’s car. Comparing how they do versus each other is one of the clearest ways to tell whether a driver is performing well, not just whether the car is fast.
Term
seven or eight tenths
In racing, “tenths” means a tenth of a second. If someone is losing by “seven or eight tenths,” they’re being beaten by about 0.7 to 0.8 seconds each lap—very large in F1.
Term
performance on the table
It means the car had more speed available, but the driver (or the situation) didn’t get it out. So they’re losing time they could have captured.
Concept
extenuating circumstances
It means there were some reasons beyond just driving skill that could explain worse results. But the speaker is saying those reasons usually don’t fully explain big gaps.
LIVE
The Athletic
The races on and the Barcelona Catalonia Grand Prix proved a historic one on track as Lewis
Hamilton claimed his first victory for Ferrari.
But after returning to the top of the F1 podium for the first time in more than 600 days,
will he also make a return to the top of my rankings for the first time since the 2024
British Grand Prix?
I'm Ed Sheeran and join me once again to discuss how I rank the driver's performances in Barcelona
is Ben Anderson.
Well Ben, this isn't very rotating casting, it's new again, second time in a row.
Yes, the turntable has rotated so far that just as you thought you'd vanquished me and
wouldn't have to see me again for some time, I'm back to oppose you almost immediately.
So yeah, we've kind of broken the format straight away haven't we?
Yeah, well often who is able to join me will depend on schedules and this one was a particularly
narrow and awkward window so we're doing it at quite an odd hour and you were the unfortunate
who was available.
Yeah, that's why I'm looking dishevelled for those of you watching on YouTube and of course
as you know Ed, I'm always available.
Absolutely, that's your main value, so both looking dishevelled probably for this one
because I'm currently in Madrid taking a look around the circuit.
So driver ranking, so let's give it a rundown.
So Ben, what's the first thing that's shaking you by the shoulders and grabbed your attention
in terms of what the hell is going on here?
Well, there's quite a few things to look at I think in these rankings and we had a lot
of questions from the race members club and they're going to be my allies in this interrogation.
They've submitted many questions and obviously if you want to get involved in grilling Ed
on his driver rankings after each race then you can join the race members club on Patreon
and earn question asking privileges.
I think it makes sense to briefly start at the top, the top three.
You had Lewis Hamilton obviously number one in your rankings the first time this season
that he's been number one.
You described him as being somewhere near his best in your rankings.
Lando Norris also on the podium, you said he got close to the maximum amount of the
McLaren and Max Verstappen who was number two in Monaco also in the top three this time.
You said he's slightly overachieved in the fourth best car.
So I just want to know was there anyone else other than those three in contention for the
podium or was this your nailed on top three?
And Thoranin Gunnison wants to know if you look past Lando's lucky podium finish when
determining his ranking.
Well, the podium finish for Norris wasn't really relevant because that was just a consequence
of two cars coming out.
So Norris would have been ranked the same whether he was fifth or third because I try
and think of it in terms of what the ceiling of the car is.
So I don't think I made it.
It was there was no part of my thinking that was like, oh, he's got a podium.
Isn't that brilliant?
Because I always conceive of the results.
I think I try and conceive of them slightly differently.
I tend to have an idea of where the ceiling of the car is, what the performance order is
and where you put it.
And I think with Norris, he wasn't finishing any higher, was he?
And I think it would have been hard to qualify any higher.
OK, maybe he could have got ahead of Antonelli because Antonelli underdelivered in qualifying,
but he still put the McLaren ahead of all the cars it should have been.
And maybe a car, well, certainly one car in the Ferrari.
It shouldn't have been all that.
It was Leclerc's fault and he finished as well as he could have done.
So that that was the thinking on on Norris.
So I guess there's quite a few people you could say were contenders
for for certainly being in the upper reaches.
But I think in terms of Hamilton, that was the fairly clear standout
because of the quality of the race drive first and foremost.
Yeah, I suppose what I'm getting at is sometimes you have obvious tears
of drivers in terms of the rankings, don't you?
You can put them obviously you've got to order them one to 22
You can't get away with having them in equal positions, but you kind of have groupings.
I just wanted if the top three was an obvious grouping or whether it was a larger
spread this time and a bit more difficult for you to break it down.
It's quite hard to answer that because I was so rushed on this one.
It didn't quite have time to to take shape in that way.
Unfortunately, sometimes the reality of time and other things gets in the way.
So I can't entirely answer that.
So in terms of the sort of tearing to
to the extent that there's probably I mean, it was a pretty high standard
throughout the field, actually.
So there would have been quite a few high tears because there's people even a little
bit further down that you can say, actually, they're pretty much close
to the ceiling of what they could do.
So, yeah, you could you could have argued a few others in there.
But yeah, I think that they sort of stood out because the ones at the top were
a they're towards the front, which can often be
certainly in terms of Mercedes drivers pushing each other quite hard as well.
So that that often exposes
strengths and weaknesses and that kind of thing.
But yeah, I think
so, yeah, like I said, it's hard to answer the tier one
just just because of the amount of time I had.
Fair enough. Well, let's move on to the Mercedes drivers just behind them.
Because you you mentioned them briefly.
They're pushing each other quite hard.
They were fourth and fifth in the rankings, despite some obvious flaws
in their respective weekends.
Kimmy Antonelli qualified poorly and abused track limits in the race, got a penalty
actually after retiring, which was pretty needless.
But nevertheless would have cost him had he not broken down.
George Russell, obviously pole position, excellent in qualifying,
but lost the race to Ferrari, which is OK, it was tricky to judge in Barcelona,
but generally speaking, a slower car and had a chronic lack of pace on that hard
tire, and particularly in the second part of those second two stints.
So why were those two so high up?
We had questions from Adpo, Ranch Dingus and Amir Mezzian,
all questioning why Antonelli in particular was ranked so highly.
And Amir wonders if you overrate non finishes.
Well, Antonelli, it was because he produced a very strong race drive
and he turned the tables, he passed Russell and he beat Russell.
It's just the results don't say that.
So I thought that really it's not that you make up for qualifying.
For example, if Antonelli had produced that drive and he'd been
stronger in qualifying, but at the maximum of the car, then he's a contender
for number one, isn't he? Yeah.
So that that was the thinking there.
And Antonelli, I thought he played it very, very well across the board.
So that that really, really helped him.
And I think his underlying qualifying pace gap, it was there.
It was slightly exaggerated.
I think it was point three point 319 from memory.
And I don't think he was quite that far off in terms of his underlying pace,
which is always something I looked at, although Russell was clearly a step ahead
and Russell, ultimately, there was some misfortune for Russell.
That's one thing.
So the race that the VSC did did go against him.
He was struggling a bit, but I did the second.
The final stint pace was slightly confusing.
And I sort of got a bit of a hint that something wasn't quite right.
And it was interesting to see that they said in the Mercedes podcast,
they put out that there was a front wing adjust that got that went wrong,
that failed, that many didn't actually have the balance he should have had.
So it's not a kind of excuse for it, but these are two championship contenders
going at it. I thought they went at it very, very well.
And I think you'll know, Ben, from from covering this,
when you've got title contenders fighting with each other,
it really does push you very, very, very hard.
So often you will will factor that in in terms of what level
were you having to access to do that?
I don't think Russell's race was terrible.
I think it was a little bit disappointing.
I'm certainly given qualifying and practice suggested
he should have been pretty dominant.
So that wasn't great, but still still pretty good, I think.
Yeah, I think it's fair enough that they're kind of so close together,
wherever you decided to put them in the rankings,
just because they're so closely matched.
And I think, as you mentioned, basically one's performance
was almost the inverse of the other.
So it's kind of quite difficult to separate them, I think,
when when they have almost like mirror image weekends like that.
I think it's good you mentioned the the Mercedes explanation for Russell's pace.
I think it was someone in the race members club that alerted us
to the existence of that comment, although I don't know who it is.
I can't give them a shout out here.
It certainly explains his pace in the final stint,
but obviously it was present there across the two stints.
So it might be a slight cover for Russell.
And sometimes it's it's difficult, isn't it?
When you expect a driver to kind of almost disappear in the race,
you know, we thought the circuit would suit Russell.
Obviously, he was imperious in qualifying.
And then for the race to just suddenly go so awry after a strong start,
makes it very difficult for you to just compute that almost.
And yeah, maybe you could argue both of them should be lowers.
I think some of our members members will.
But with them having such messy weekends,
they were never going to be in contention for the top spots, were they?
Yeah, certainly not.
I mean, I think probably looking at it, they could easily have dropped down a little bit
kind of to the lower part of the top 10.
Maybe maybe they would have done had I
had a little bit more time to to work through it.
But I think they were still pretty good.
We should address the non finishes thing as well.
Because the non finishes thing, ultimately,
if you're not finishing the race through nothing you've done,
that doesn't fundamentally impact your performance.
You know, Bayerman, for example, didn't finish the race,
but he got lots out of the house.
He'd been 11th and the car failed with a few laps from the end.
Hülkenberg would have scored points, but he had a ridiculously unfortunate
retirement.
So ultimately, that's what that's what you're looking at.
I don't think just finishing has to carry a huge amount of weight
unless you're playing a part in the in the finishing.
And again, it comes in the non finish rather.
So I tend to look at it as well.
What have they done up to the point that they're retiring?
Now, if you have two drivers who I think are overall,
you've both been really good and one of them's retired on lap six
and the others retired, the others got to the end,
then probably getting to the end will help because they've had more opportunity
for things to go wrong to get things right.
So there's a good chance that if they're close, then that that will make a difference.
But I normally I always have an idea of where were people on course to finish
and where were they in the running order when what happened to them happened,
just the same as if safety car interventions happened, etc. etc.
I think you're getting probably beaten up a little bit here
because of the Max Verstappen second in Monaco, despite not doing the first lap.
So people have got it in mind that, you know, a guy can finish really high
in the rankings even if they don't do anything in the race.
Well, let's say hypothetically to take to take an extreme case,
let's say a driver produced what you could say objectively was the greatest
qualifying lap that has ever been delivered.
They get everything that was scientifically possible out of the cars.
No way you can measure it.
But let's just say for the sake of argument, let's say they do that,
the greatest qualifying lap in well over a thousand World Championship Grand Prix.
And then their car fails through no fault of their own before the start.
Is that greatest qualifying lap of all time, not a not an incredible
achievement that would merit a number one potentially, I would say it is.
Now, that just that's an extreme example that would not happen
because you cannot objectively prove the greatest qualifying lap.
But it kind of that to me sort of proves the concept.
What have they delivered with what they've got?
If let's say Fernando Alonso put it on, let's go with the most absurd possible
thing in Spain, and then the car failed on on on the formation lap.
And I put Alonso number one, then you'd say, well, this is the most
incredible qualifying achievement there's ever been.
Now, I'm not saying that was safe for Stappen and Monaco or whatever,
but that that's the way I'm thinking of it.
What have they done?
What have they delivered?
Because also there's a reason why the finishing position
in pure terms isn't so important because there is a metric for that,
which is the race results as well, which obviously factors in all sorts of things.
So the purpose of this is what what have they delivered?
So I'm not too interested in in in whether they finish or not fundamentally,
but I am interested in terms of what it allows them to do or not do
what they've shown before, the reasons for it, etc.
That will feed into it, but not the the fundamentally finishing,
the fundamentally just being there at the end.
And if Lance Stroll delivers the most ridiculous race performance
in that same Grand Prix and wins it, well, Fernando Alonso breaks down
on the first lap to stroll over take Alonso to be number one.
Yeah, well, that becomes a question.
I mean, obviously, these are that these are kind of these are the most extreme
edge cases you could possibly imagine.
But it's just to illustrate that there's kind of a there is a spectrum
there isn't there of things.
And it's it's it's not a simply getting to the end doesn't matter.
Because, you know, if you beat your teammate and then your teammate
retires 20 laps into the race and you win and you were 20 seconds behind
and you were going to be nowhere near, then have you had a better weekend
just because you're lucky enough that the car held together?
No, your teammate wasn't. I don't think so.
So I try. I actually I'm very much sort of actually thinking right.
What were they doing at the point of exit?
That's that's really, really, really important.
But it does deny them a certain degree of opportunity.
That much is certainly true.
And who knows in Monaco, for example, for Stapham in the parallel universe
where the engine's fine, you might take the lead and when everyone goes,
wow, this was an absolutely incredible.
That that's the thing that's the trajectory is on.
He didn't have the chance to show he wasn't incredible
because he might have just stacked it to back on the first lap.
And you said, idiot, but that's that's just illustrating.
There's all sorts of there's alternative potential features.
But for me, it's like, right, what have you done from the start of the weekend
to the point of exit or the point of finishing?
Well, let's take a quick look at our champions tier members
from the race members club ranking.
We get our top tier members to rank the drivers one to 22,
mainly to show them how hard it is so I can I can be smug.
And what we also do is for members of the race members club,
I'll also later on talk through their rankings as well.
So I get to give my opinion on it.
And then who knows, maybe in future,
they will then be able to give their verdict on my rankings
and my response to their champions thing.
And and so it just goes on and infinitely.
Exactly. Ben, would you like to do the honors
and run down the champions tier top 10?
Yes, with pleasure.
So our champions at number one placed Lewis Hamilton,
so equal with your rankings.
Number two, the same as well, Lando Norris for our members.
Kimmy Antonelli was placed third
in the champions members rankings, only fourth in yours.
George Russell got P4, fifth in your rankings.
Max Verstappen, number five.
So the members rated him a bit lower than you did.
Liam Lawson made the top six of our members rankings.
He was only 11th in yours.
We'll get on to him later.
Pierre Gasly, number seven.
He was 10th in your rankings.
Ed Arvid Linblad, eighth for our members,
only ninth in your rankings.
Isak Hajar, ninth place for our members, only 13th.
So outside the points in your rankings.
Ed and Franco Colopinto completed the top 10
of our members rankings.
He was only 14th in your rankings.
Yeah, always interesting to see what the offsets were
and those are one of the many areas I will talk about
when we do our special, The Race Members Club podcast.
So if you're interested in The Race Members Club,
hit the link in the episode description,
head to Patreon and search for the race.
Loads of benefits there, thriving community,
bonus audio and video content, ad free environment,
all that stuff if you like the sound of it.
Right, we've taken a look at the upper reaches
of the rankings.
Ben, what else have we got?
Right, so let's go a little bit lower now.
I want to talk about Nico Holkenberg,
Oli Berman, Carlos Sainz and Arvid Linblad
who all occupied that space just outside the top six,
but in the lower reaches of the top 10 in your rankings.
Sixth, dream ninth, but pretty much faultless
in your analysis.
So why were these guys not higher up?
Are they paying what I would call a midfield tax?
We had lots of questions about this group
being behind the Mercedes drivers in particular
from Joe, Ben Affresh, Verrill, Rod and Jack
who wants to know, is it just generally harder
to impress from the midfield
or is the quality of drivers just higher up at the front?
Well, there's a degree of the quality of drivers
is higher at the front and they're pushing each other,
but it's not absolute because obviously
the machinery depends, but put it this way,
on average, you will have a greater density
of the absolute brilliant drivers up the front,
but equally the difference between the mega drivers
and the very, very good and the good
is not actually that big as I always say now.
Certainly some of those midfield ones
could have moved ahead again.
There was a bit of a time question mark there
as well and an issue.
So maybe there wasn't quite the time
to sort of think through it to the depth
that I would have liked to have done.
I mean, the midfield offers you certain opportunities
to impress because you have limited machinery,
so sometimes it can stand out more
if you've dramatically overachieved.
But again, I try and have a feel
for what cars could have done where they would have been.
Obviously, the further down you are,
the fewer cars there are to fall behind
through not delivering, but at the same time,
particularly in Barcelona,
where there was quite a big pace difference
between the top four group
and then you almost get sort of separate split races.
So yeah, perhaps I don't think it's necessarily
harder to impress in the midfield
and I do try and watch as much midfield on board
as I possibly can.
So yeah, that's the kind of way I look at it.
But yeah, there's certainly a group of drivers
who could have thrust up a little bit higher,
maybe with a bit more time,
some of them would have done.
Yeah, not to give you too much of an easy ride here,
but I think you did have that added complication
more extreme in Barcelona than I can remember for a while
where basically you had a two-class race, didn't you?
The top four teams were way clear of the rest.
So it was easier if you were in a top car
to come back from being out of position
and it was much harder if you were in a midfield car
to do any giant killing.
Yeah, so that's very, very true.
But the other way, but equally that also gives you
like this sort of self-contained race almost,
so you can look at who's winning it, et cetera,
and then how it happens.
So yeah, I mean, all of that great Hockenburg,
Bergman Science, Limit,
all have very strong weekends that ultimately
to a greater or lesser extent.
And in fact, this was a pretty good depth
in terms of the quality of the drivers delivering.
There weren't many having very poor weekends.
I suspect probably the driver ranked 18th, 19th,
probably had better weekends than the drivers
ranked 18th, 19th, and on the average weekend.
Let's give you the chance now, Ben, to ask your questions.
We like to call this your spotlight.
So what grabbed you?
What are you excited about
and want to either challenge me about
or praise me about for better or worse?
Well, I'm going to enjoy my time in the sun.
I'm certainly not going to praise you.
Why would I want to do that?
Sounds like a terrible idea.
I want to talk about the drivers at the bottom
of your rankings.
Wooden Spoon, Charlotte Clerk, 22nd and last.
By my reckoning, this is the first time
he's ever placed last in the race's driver rankings.
He had strong underlying pace,
was on course to salvage a top six finish
when his car broke down.
So why was this his worst performance
that you've ever seen from him?
Yeah, well, obviously, I mean, the crash was unnecessary.
And it was one of those crashes
where he had the opportunity not to have it,
by which I mean he did that classic thing.
It's like the Norris Saudi Arabia qualifying thing
and finding the bit where his teammates a bit quicker
and just pushing it beyond what he could do
because it all started with just attacking the corner,
trying to carry a little bit too much speed.
And then he got wide and he tried to kind of hang on
to it around the outside.
So this to me felt like kind of a liqueur
of five years ago mistake.
Right.
And yes, he still does have it in him.
But there was time for that not to happen.
And I feel that that was,
even though it was the end of Q3,
obviously you've got to lay it all on the line, etc.
But it was frustrating because he was quick as well.
He was genuinely fast.
So he just undid everything.
And yeah, he came through to a degree in the race.
But he just kind of did what somebody sitting in a Ferrari
would do in the race
because he'd fundamentally limited himself
with that previous mistake.
And the clerk himself was very harsh on himself
after qualifying and pretty miserable about it all
after the race as well.
So that's why it came about.
I mean, again, on a weekend
where the overall standard wasn't so good,
that pace would have dragged the clerk a little bit higher up.
But I found it very, very difficult in terms of asking,
well, if any of these drivers been worse than the clerk,
you sort of think, well,
you didn't do something quite so unnecessary
that really, really, really held you back.
The clerk had a winning car and the retirement doesn't matter.
But yeah, he salvaged the result.
But salvaging the result was pretty easy with the overall,
with the pace of the car really.
So yeah, it is unusual for him to be so low down.
But yeah, don't make the mistake.
And it was because that mistake was so...
I always think it's telling when a driver,
rather than focusing on,
always look at what your teammate's doing and learn from it.
But he needed to look at it and say,
well, I can't quite do that and do what he can do there.
That's really, really, really important for a driver.
And so when you're overreaching like that,
that's normally quite revealing in my mind.
So all of those things contributed to the clerk being down the bottom.
Yeah, it sounds to me very similar to the Gabby Bortoletto argument for Monaco,
just a stupid era that's completely the drivers
and doesn't need to happen,
even though obviously it happened much later in qualifying when he was pushing.
What about Fernando Alonso,
who was one place ahead of Leclerc in the rankings?
Also a career worst for a two-time champion.
So what more could he have done?
Yeah, I don't know what he could have about qualified Lance Stroll, obviously.
It's very, very difficult because that car's all over the shop.
I would say Aston Martin are probably the least forthcoming team because I think it,
and again, I always think how forthcoming a team is about what they're doing
is always revealing about what's going on inside the team.
And I don't think this team is culturally well-equipped to be in that position.
It doesn't mean there aren't good people who are working hard there because there are,
but that also makes it harder from the outside.
But it's basically almost impossible to judge the Aston Martin drivers
because they're running in a completely different class.
And there's not a great deal to measure them against.
It could be that Lance Stroll produced the greatest qualifying lap of all time
given the circumstances of the car.
And Alonso was just behind.
But it's so hard to benchmark that.
And ultimately, with the team overall level of insight that they're offering
and just the general approach there,
it's quite hard for that signal to come through.
So it probably is unfair.
And Alonso is still a very, very good driver.
Even if he's not quite at his peak, he's still very, very, very good,
which is why he gets good ranking sometime as well.
But that Aston Martin, they've got nobody to race against, apart from each other.
And when you've got a car that's also so erratic,
you know, it's got these random downshifts, et cetera,
it's really, really difficult because you can work out roughly what their pace should be.
But you can't access that pace consistently.
So what's driver, what's car, what's circumstances,
it's just a sign of how horrendously bad the whole Aston Martin Honda thing
is this season because it makes them almost impossible to fairly rank.
All right, part three of the podcast.
Lots of drivers we haven't touched on yet.
So who's next?
Right, let's move on to Liam Lawson,
top three last time out in Monaco in your rankings,
but not in the top 10 this time,
despite producing in your own words, Ed, a good, well-executed weekend performance.
We had lots of questions about Liam Jackrod, Andrea Hanna and Andrew Goddard
thought you were harsh on Lawson and he should at least have been ahead of his teammate,
Arvid Limblad, who was in the top 10, maybe even up with Sainz and Bearman.
So what more could he have done?
Why was he not ranked higher?
Because I thought Limblad was just a bit quicker, but just circumstances are against him.
Wasn't Limblad's fault the other problem in Q2?
I think he not had that problem because basically he started the lap.
There was no deployment.
He was two seconds down by the time he even was thinking about breaking for turn one.
So he bought at the lap.
That was key, wasn't it?
Because after qualifying, it wasn't clear whether it was a driver-induced deployment
problem or not, but it seemed quite clear that the team took responsibility this time.
Yeah, they were extremely apologetic and obviously that's something you look for,
was it driver fault?
Because sometimes it's driver's fault, was it not driver's fault?
Now, Q1, Limblad had been really, really, really strong as well.
If you look at what happened there, the Racing Bulls mission was to get through
using only one set of tyres.
They both did it, but Lawson was a few tenths off and...
Skin of his teeth, wasn't it?
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, he still had a reasonable amount of time in hand,
but I thought Limblad executed there.
So what I would say in terms of the Limblad-Lawson comparison
is how would it have worked out had Limblad got through to Q3?
He had the pace, had he executed to about qualified Limblad, Lawson rather,
and then he could well have finished ahead of him.
So that's the kind of thing I'm looking at in terms of the performance.
Obviously, Limblad was initially just behind Lawson.
He was ordered to let Hülkenberg past because they'd both been off the track, ultimately.
Yeah, first lap mess, yeah.
I think Limblad had to go off the track, to be quite honest,
because Hülkenberg was off the track as well.
There were three of them, I think it was Colopinto that was to the right.
Sort of nobody's fault.
So avoiding action, wasn't it?
It was one of those where you kind of have to do it to avoid a crash.
Exactly, yeah.
So I don't think that was a negative.
And the strategy wasn't ideal for him.
So that made life harder for him.
So there was just a lot that just wasn't there and he was quick,
but he couldn't use that pace.
And I just thought Limblad was strong.
I mean, Lawson was good.
If you're going to be 11th in the rankings, that generally does mean you had a sort of
decent weekend for the most part, except on one where there's loads of disastrous weekends,
because that's what you'd expect.
That's bang in the middle.
And only given weekend, a Grand Prix driver who's bang in the middle in terms of performance.
He's had a pretty good weekend.
So I don't consider it a criticism of Lawson.
I thought he was good.
But just when you're looking at it throughout the weekend,
it's just this signal that Limblad, who is very good around Barcelona historically as well,
actually, just had a little bit of the edge on him.
But so it's no slight on Lawson particularly.
I just saw it as Limblad was the stronger racing bulls driver.
And I think there's a version of the weekend without that qualifying problem
where he finishes ahead of him.
Yeah, I think sometimes people might struggle to grasp this idea of
the underlying performance can overrule everything else so a driver can be ahead.
And ultimately, they don't have time to dig into it because I'm complaining.
This is my job and I'm complaining.
I didn't have a huge amount of time.
That's true.
And but you don't have time to sift through and try and understand what happened.
You don't have time to look at the data.
And so I understand it from people and it's a perfectly logical question to ask.
So that's why I think this is an interesting podcast
because it's a chance to ask those questions to see if my answer is robust enough
and see if some of them are just like, well, maybe that would have been different.
But I think this one is one where I think the Limblad pace signal was pretty strong
and it was purely externals that made a difference.
It's also not a consecutive ranking system either.
So one race doesn't really influence the other.
Sometimes you can say, oh, we're seeing a pattern of performance from a driver
that might elevate them generally in your thinking.
But the fact that Lawson was top three in the last race
doesn't mean that he buys credit for the next race.
So he can have a similar level of performance in both.
But actually other drivers just dip into the gap
because they've been more impressive in your mind.
Yeah, and also ultimately, you can have a very good season
sort of going up and down in the rankings and Lawson has had a good season.
However, if you are to look globally, which wasn't a relevant thing,
I think good as Lawson's been, I'm still a little bit concerned
about the fact that Limblad is more drastic.
But he is on his case.
So let's see how this one evolves.
Limblad's got to stream it together.
But I would say I had slightly, I wasn't sure how Limblad would do.
He probably has slightly exceeded my expectations as well.
But yeah, Lawson ultimately, his level tends to be sort of,
he'll produce a sort of good, decent Grand Prix weekend performance.
But there's space kind of north of where he is to slot in.
That's kind of the average.
But he's obviously delivering, I mean, his basement is much higher
than it was at this time last year in terms of performance.
So he's a good dependable midfield performer for the most part.
But again, decent weekend in Barcelona,
but the racing balls was certainly in terms of qualifying pace,
a very good car, not quite so good in terms of race pace.
Let's move on to Oscar Piastri, Ed.
He was 12th in your rankings.
So kind of right in the middle, just behind Lawson, in fact.
But he got absolutely buried by Lando Norris in this race.
He finished further behind and he even did in 2024,
which I think we highlighted back then when he was on a bit of a tear
as one of his worst races for McLaren.
It was probably his worst race of that season.
Chris Wayne said his pace was downright awful and ludicrously slow.
So is Piastri overrated here because he's in one of the top four cars?
I think probably I did get Piastri wrong,
because again, it's just a time thing.
I didn't have time to run the depth of race pace analysis as I normally would do.
So kind of on reflection, I think probably he should have been a little bit lower.
So that's not one I'll entirely adjust to.
I mean, his qualifying pace wasn't too bad.
He's quite close to, very close to Norris, certainly within a tenth.
So that was a bit exaggerated by the number of cars that parked between.
It wasn't brilliant.
But yeah, the race pace was a chunk behind.
So I think probably he's risen a little bit higher than he should have done,
just through a combination of my failings and his flying pressure.
We've won.
I finally succeeded in the second of my episodes.
I've managed to get you to admit that your ranking is wrong.
Well, the whole point is to scrutinize it and think about it, isn't it?
And there will be.
This will happen.
And in fact, there's a whole question of just to digress,
because we had Monaco, obviously.
Things changed in Monaco, had the review details of Gasly.
It didn't occur to me that they got the pit lane length so badly wrong.
So you wouldn't, would you?
You just wouldn't.
You automatically assume.
I know we're taught never to assume.
You have to assume certain things.
You assume they know how long the pit lane is.
Yeah, you have to take it as a given.
And it appeared that it was the trajectory through the pit lane.
It was the key, but it wasn't.
So there's a number of people who are speeding.
Well, 100% Gasly, because it was so thoroughly investigated.
And so that's a case where I feel like in retrospect, with knowing that,
I think say people like Gasly would have been boosted a little bit.
And some of the other ones who got the penalties that they shouldn't have done
certainly, but I couldn't, with what was known at the time, that wasn't doable.
So those weren't, those weren't wrong at the time.
Whereas I think Piastre, I just think should have been a bit lower,
because yeah, his race pace was just poor.
Let's look at the championship standings.
Now we track the overall drivers ranking championship positions,
which is based on offering F1 points to the top 10 finishers.
So let's run through the standings.
Do you want to do the honors, Ben?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I'm still, you know, in shock at you admitting your ranking of Piastre was wrong.
So I'm just going to enjoy that moment for a little bit longer.
Okay, right.
Yeah, let's move on to your, the proper, let's call this the proper F1 world championship,
which is based on performance, not based purely on results and
points achieved by lucky finishing positions down to people retiring and whatnot.
And Lewis Hamilton is probably the big, the big mover this weekend,
having obviously been first in your rankings.
He's now just 13 points behind Kimmy Antonelli at the top of the standing.
So again, mirroring the actual world championship,
Hamilton, the title tilt is on in driver rankings.
Landau Norris has jumped up to fourth, obviously on the back of a strong podium finish in your
rankings in Barcelona and Max Verstappen's rise continues to, he's jumped from seventh to fifth
on account of his second consecutive podium finish.
Carlos Sainz, Mr. Consistency, he's had the most top 10 positions in your rankings of any driver
this season.
He's dropped from fourth to sixth, I guess on account of being a little bit lower in that
top 10 than he would have liked.
And Ollie Bearman has now moved into the top 10 up from 12th in the rankings championship,
again on account of having a very strong top 10 worthy rankings drive,
despite the Haas basically being quite rubbish in Barcelona.
Yeah, it's interesting ranking overall.
I must admit, I try not to look at these things.
I'm kind of forced to now, but obviously I keep various different forms of averages,
et cetera, but I normally only look at those in the August break and at the end of it.
It's interesting to see the shape that that's taking and it makes a fairly brutal cutoff
between P10 and P11.
You get nothing for 11th and 10th and 11th could be very, very, very, very similar.
But obviously the more races you get, the more things start to start to take shape in Hamilton.
It just shows how just impressive his season has been, doesn't it?
That he's just banging in consistently good performances.
I think like many people, I did wonder if those days for Hamilton in terms of rankings and
ratings might be behind him, but it's just another reminder of the fact that it's not
just a one-off in Spain, is it?
It's been a sustained, strong level of performance over the season,
kind of probably magnified a bit by Leclerc also struggling to go with him.
So that's why I'm interested in that Hamilton-Leclerc dynamic as well.
So you would expect Leclerc to climb up that rankings championship as the season goes on.
But yeah, there's enough races now that it's quite a concerning ranking for him, I would say.
Yeah, Leclerc's only ninth in the table.
I think it shows how erratic the season has been for him.
And probably also that's benefiting Hamilton because the teammate comparison is kind of at the core of
rankings, isn't it?
It's like it's your most direct, clear cut comparison that you can make in any Grand Prix.
And you've got Hamilton definitely stepping up his game.
And as you say, being more consistent in a car that seems to suit him better.
But Leclerc is someone you expect so much from and yet he's been so up and down.
Yeah, he's not getting the most out of the car, is he?
I mean, that's the reason why the teammate comparison is important.
And you know that what one driver can get out of the car,
unless there's circumstances you're aware of that are holding them back in terms of
things not working, they can get it out of it as well.
And that's the same case when it's actually in terms of if there's something in the car,
you're not liking or you can't deal with, you can deliver that performance.
But sometimes you do, you do kind of luck out and you're up against someone like Verstappen
who can deal with a very, very fast but tricky to drive car and you'll end up looking terrible
because there are times when you'll just be being pummeled by seven or eight tenths every
weekend.
And you have to be disastrously bad in the rankings because you are leaving nigh on a
second of performance on the table, which is nowhere near enough,
even though there are a degree of extenuating circumstances.
So yeah, it's why beating your teammate is the most important thing in Formula One.
It's the it's best measure.
It's not the only measure though, which is why I'm almost a little bit wary when you get what
who's he beating as his teammate.
But again, if you put, you know, Senna in alongside a weak teammate, that doesn't mean
Senna is performing poorly.
You can't just keep saying, oh, this is teammates not very good.
So he's not very good.
It doesn't mean anything because it does.
So there's other means to do it as well.
But what one car can do, the other should be able to do if the driver can adapt.
And that adaptability is key, which is why Max Verstappen, who I think everyone sees as the
best driver in Formula One, you never see him dropping back and performing terribly in a car
because it's not to his liking.
You see him not being able to maybe stand head and shoulders above his teammate because
it's easier for both to get close to the maximum of what the car can achieve.
But that's not him under delivering.
That's just him being sort of pulled back a little bit.
I think we'll see more as the season evolves, this statistical spread even out and make a
bit more sense to you because on the teammate comparison, you've got Isak Hajar.
He's 20th in this championship.
But the gap between him and Verstappen is probably closer than there's been for years
in terms of teammates.
So I think Hajar's position in the rankings championship doesn't reflect how well he's
performed this season.
He's probably just been unlucky and ended up too often in that kind of upper reaches
of the bottom 12 positions, which just means he then doesn't qualify for points in this
particular format.
And often you have elements that kind of overwhelm in a ranking of a weekend.
Hajar's going to have a very big weekend.
I'd be staggered if Hajar doesn't come out with a number one performance at some point
because it's always a little bit where he ends up.
You think, yeah, I've sort of reasoned him to that position, but it feels a little bit
low for him.
But you can't just lob someone up because you think, well, they're doing well globally.
And that's the thing, this is a weekend by weekend performance ranking.
And the aggregate of performance over weekend, it's why it's very, very different in terms
of when you're coming to rates, kind of a whole season performance from the drivers
relative to each other.
You'll still see a degree of correlation between the, say, the average rankings and
the collated rankings.
You're not going to be 20th overall over the season and ranked first when it comes to our
sort of top 10s.
But you will, you'll see sort of people gravitating towards their positions.
And I'd be amazed if Hajar doesn't, doesn't start charging up.
But what I've got to avoid doing is thinking, oh, Hajar needs some points.
Let's make sure he gets a good position.
And that's actually really hard to do, which is the reason why I try to avoid looking at
it and considering it because.
Don't blame us, Ed.
Don't blame us.
No, I'm going to blame you for this one.
That's why you have to try and be careful and you try and as far as possible, sort of
fall off every weekend.
But there are all sorts of different factors.
And even when it comes down to you have kind of a baseline of the level you think drivers
are operating at, and that can have an impact on what you think the potential of a car is
and how accurate it is.
I'm always aware of that, but it's really hard to, to correct for.
Because for example, you see science performing well.
You know, science and gazi at the front of the midfield, I did look at that and think,
well, there's other people I often think are the best of that sort of group.
And I think, well, which way round is it?
Do I sort of generally think they're there because that's what they do?
Or is that at risk of influencing?
I can do it.
But often you look at what science does in the Williams and you think, yeah,
I don't think you do much better there.
I don't think you do much.
But it just keeps happening even when the Williams is pretty poor.
Well, I think we've gone on quite enough for this week.
Thanks very much, Ben.
I'm sure we'll have you back on later in the season.
Hopefully for the next next time round in Austria, there'll be somebody different
because I'm really keen to have as many different voices, attack styles.
But you're the first one who has landed a decisive victory,
let's say, with the with the Piastri thing.
So, yeah, I look forward to our next meeting.
And I particularly look forward to the fact that there's going to be one later in the
season where you're standing in and I'm going to be lobbying very aggressively
to be the interrogator when it comes to that one, of course, with my allies in the race
members club.
If you're not in the race members club, of course,
and it sounds like something that would interest you,
then head to patreon.com search for the race.
We're going to be back with more rankings after Austria.
But until then, stay with us for everything you need to know from the world.
A Formula One.
About this episode
Lewis Hamilton’s first Ferrari win in 600+ days tops Ed Sheeran and Ben Anderson’s Barcelona driver rankings, with Lando Norris and Max Verstappen completing the top three. The debate centers on how results vs. underlying pace should be weighted—especially Norris’s “lucky” podium and Antonelli’s high placement despite poor qualifying, track limits, and a late penalty. Mercedes’ Russell and Antonelli are discussed as mirror-image weekends, with Russell’s fading race pace partly attributed to a front-wing issue. The hosts also clarify how non-finishes factor into rankings.
Original notes
The Barcelona Grand Prix proved a historic one on-track for Lewis Hamilton as he captured his first Ferrari victory - but can he do the double with his first visit to the top of Edd Straw's driver rankings since the 2024 British GP? And where did Edd place Hamilton's team-mate Charles Leclerc after another tricky weekend?
In the latest episode of our driver rankings podcast, Ben Anderson returns, armed with questions from The Race Members' Club, to grill Edd on where he placed each driver in Barcelona - and this time he even gets Edd to concede he got one driver's position wrong! Listen in to find out who it was...
Help shape the future of The Race. Take our short survey today: https://theracemedia.typeform.com/to/a6U6EGps
Get bonus F1 podcasts, extra content and ad-free listening, sign-up to The Race Members' Club on Patreon today.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Race F1 Podcast
The Race Media Ltd
0:00
41:46