Welcome to the sixteenth edition of my F1 driver POWER rankings list. I hope you enjoyed my previous edition after the Russian Grand Prix but if you didn’t get around to reading it and don’t want any spoilers, you can find it here. A quick admin note as well, I have just realised that I have been putting the wrong total of races on all my posts – it’s not 23, but actually 22. My bad. Call myself an F1 fan.
For the second year in a row the weather played a major part in the outcome of the weekend at Istanbul Park. The changeable and windy conditions caused the drivers problems all weekend with the rain only threatening qualifying but came for the race. We knew before the weekend that Lewis Hamilton had a 10-place grid penalty for taking his fourth internal combustion engine for the year, so would start highest eleventh and do his best to limit the damage done by Verstappen in the championship fight. Hamilton duly took pole but was demoted to eleventh but his teammate Bottas was able to at least keep Verstappen behind. The race didn’t quite live up to expectations but there was some good action and brave driving. It felt like a constant wait for the conditions to improve enough for dry tyres but never really came, which Vettel found out and Hamilton and Leclerc really hoped for. The main talking point post race was Mercedes and Hamilton’s back and forth about whether they could go to the end without pitting. Hamilton questioned the team’s call to pit but was eventually overruled, losing two positions in the process with only eight laps to go. He lost five points to Verstappen in the championship and in such a close run-in, all the points changes are going to be heavily scrutinized as the finale draws close. Well done to Valtteri Bottas who drove a commanding and calm race to win for the first time in over a year and to exorcise the demons of Turkey 2020.
After Turkish Grand Prix (16 of 22)
1. Max Verstappen (-+)
The Red Bull didn’t have the speed of the Mercedes all weekend so Max perfectly played the long game and picked up seventeen points and probably the max he was expecting from the Grand Prix. Of course, he wants to win every race but Bottas drove well enough to win. He extended his lead in the championship to six points after getting all his spins out of the way when it didn’t matter. A double podium finish for the team as well helped close the gap to Mercedes in the other championship. Max will now try and defend his lead in Austin.
2. Lewis Hamilton (-+)
Annoyingly for Hamilton, without the engine penalty, it looks like he would have won the Turkish Grand Prix from pole and extended his lead in the championship. However, Mercedes found irregular noises coming from the engine so decided it best to be safe rather than risk a DNF. He made decent progress from his eleventh place grid slot to find himself fifth after fifteen laps but was a fair way off the leaders. He caught Perez but couldn’t get past so when the others started pitted for their second set of inters, Hamilton decided to stay out. It really was a knife edge decision and a year after Lewis won the race because he stayed out, I think it was the wrong decision this year and may have cost him a chance at getting past Perez and Leclerc in front for a podium. If he had stayed out, I think he would have been powerless to defend if they caught him while risking a tyre blowout and no points at all. He came home fifth and lives to fight another day because this title fight is far from over.
3. Lando Norris (-+)
A quieter weekend in Turkey for Norris after the rollercoaster that was the Russian Grand Prix. The McLaren is very track sensitive and the long, medium speed corners of Istanbul Park don’t really suit the papaya-mobile. However, he qualified and finished seventh which isn’t bad for a so-called quiet weekend for the young Brit. It shows the ways this team has come since Norris first drove for them in 2019.
4. Charles Leclerc (-+)
A classically gutsy and fast drive from Charles Leclerc that started at third on the grid, shadowed the leaders for the majority of the race, tried to brave it out on inters but was forced to pit and came home in fourth, four seconds off a podium. At one point I thought he genuinely had a chance of winning the race while staying out but his rear tyres failed him. While Carlos is getting the plaudits for getting up to speed quickly in his new car, Leclerc is consistently performing to a high standard and isn’t wilting under the pressure of leading the Scuderia.
5. Carlos Sainz (+1)
Carlos won his first driver of the day award in Turkey and it was a great drive from the back of the grid. He was the main form of entertainment as he came through the field and seemingly overtook a car a lap into the final sector and only his overtake on Vettel had a small love tap which didn’t cause any issues. He did get stuck behind Stroll and Gasly which slightly dented his progress but eighth is a good result from the back.
6. George Russell (-1)
A quieter weekend on paper for George Russell but I am sure he will look back at a missed opportunity. He hit the loud pedal a bit too early at the exit of the last corner on his final run in Q2, had to correct the slide and lost all of his good work. His good work looked good enough to be in Q3 but instead he started thirteenth, lost two positions early and never recovered his losses. He apparently had a good scrap with Alonso and Ricciardo but the TV cameras did not pick that up.
7. Pierre Gasly (-+)
A much needed weekend for Pierre Gasly and Alpha Tauri as he was quick in both dry and wet conditions to start fourth on the grid. He only lost positions to the quickest cars on the grid and I thought he was hard done by with his five second time penalty at the first corner. Perez came late onto his inside and he did not have much room to maneuver with Alonso on his outside which resulted in him making contact with the Spaniard. From there, he was quick enough that the penalty didn’t effect his race and he came home relatively unchallenged in sixth ahead of Lando Norris.
8. Sergio Perez (+2)
This was a big result for Perez to re-introduce himself to the title fight. He isn’t going to win the fight but Turkey felt like the first instance in a while where he actively helped Red Bull in said fight. He started sixth but his aggression at the start, to the detriment of Gasly and Alonso, got him into the leading bunch. He also held his own when called upon to keep Hamilton behind as he quickly caught on Lap thirty-seven, with some great car positioning and bravery on the brakes. He completed the hat-trick as his pace on new inters forced Mercedes to pit Hamilton from third and cost him six valuable points in the championship.
9. Daniel Ricciardo (-+)
Unfortunately for Ricciardo, this weekend was more in line with how his season has gone. He was knocked out in Q1 so the team decided to take a new engine and he dropped to the back of the grid. He made some progress up to thirteenth at the flag but never got anywhere near to the points that his team need him to consistently score in their battle with Ferrari in the Constructors.
10. Fernando Alonso (-+)
Alonso was the innocent victim of the Turn 1 clash after qualifying a quality sixth place. He would have been a good bet for some great points and maybe even that podium in those tricky conditions but instead was stuck in traffic after dropping to the back. He also got a five second penalty, but rightly so, for clumsily spinning Mick Schumacher at Turn 4 trying to recover his race. He finished in sixteenth place which was definitely not what he hoped for from his Sunday.
11. Lance Stroll (+1)
Lance was once again the fastest Aston Martin in Turkey. A year after he lead for most of the race in the last edition of the Turkish Grand Prix, he showed consistant pace to bring home some points for his team – two in fact. This Aston Martin seems to be the fifth or sixth fastest car so back end of the points are probably the best you can expect at the moment.
12. Valtteri Bottas (+2)
It was a commanding performance from Bottas once he inherited pole position due to his teammate’s engine penalty. He was able to create a gap to Verstappen in the first stint and never felt opposed until he had to overtake Leclerc trying to go to the end without pitting, but even that was straightforward and calmly done by the Finn. Once Leclerc was dispatched, he coasted to victory. This could be due to the security and ease a multi-year contract gives you, and it seems to be suiting him. He has scored the most amount of points since he signed that contract, helping to prove my point.
13. Esteban Ocon (-1)
Ocon didn’t have the pace of his teammate in Turkey but was able to finish ahead of him and collect the final championship point. He was able to do that because he did not make a pit stop, becoming the first driver since Olivier Panis in 1997 to do so. In wet conditions the drivers aren’t obliged to use two compounds of tyre, like in the dry, so it was worth someone trying it and luckily for Ocon it paid off this time.
14. Sebastian Vettel (-1)
Sebastian was in contention for some points in Turkey before he made the wrong decision to put medium slick tyres on Lap 38 when the track was not ready for it. This cost him dearly as his lap took about three minutes and dropped him to nineteenth. He was only able to recover past Mick Schumacher to finish eighteenth. He gambled and this time he lost.
15. Nicolas Latifi (-+)
A quiet weekend for the second Williams as well. He was able to get through into Q2, like his teammate but that was the highlight of his weekend as he went backwards in the race to finish seventeenth.
16. Mick Schumacher (+1)
Mick made it out of Q1 for the first time in his career and showed that he possesses some of that Schumacher wet weather magic. He outqualified his teammate by a whopping 2.9 seconds, which is unheard of in modern F1, even in wet conditions. Its the first time proper that we have seen the gulf in the two Haas drivers and I’m not going to use this to bash Mazipin, well not in this paragraph anyway, but if you ever needed proof which driver deserves to be in F1, you now have it. This is the difference the driver can make. Mick was unlucky to be spun by Alonso early on, who was penalized, but may have struggled to keep up. His best lap was a second off the midfield pace.
17. Yuki Tsunoda (-1)
The weekend was looking up for Yuki, as he got into Q3 and qualified ninth but he just didn’t have any pace in the race to trouble the points. He held up Hamilton for about six laps at the start but that was the notable action for him. Everyone was expecting more from the Japanese driver in his rookie season so lets hope for his sake that his second season is better.
18. Kimi Raikkonen (-+)
The two Alfa Romeo’s started next to each other on the grid and they finished the race together. This time it was Kimi behind Giovinazzi in eleventh and twelfth after starting in sixteenth and seventeenth. I don’t think we saw the Alfa’s on screen at all on Sunday so there isn’t much else to analyse. Unfortunately for the Ice Man, his career is just fizzling out in a slow vehicle.
19. Antonio Giovinazzi (-+)
More rumours swirl of potential replacements for Giovinazzi’s drive and it is looking increasingly likely that he wont be in F1 next year but he isn’t really doing enough to prove otherwise. A decent result in Turkey but nothing to prove he deserves to stay in the sport.
20. Nikita Mazipin (-+)
Here we go: getting outqualified by your teammate by 2.9 seconds is a disgrace, and at the very least highly embarrassing for the Russian pay driver. At least Stroll can drive a car fast even if his Dad did buy the team. His teammate was spun around, lost a whole load of time, but still finished ahead in Turkey. To be honest, Mazipin could win the next race in Austin and that wouldn’t change my mind about him. That is probably bad of me but his presence is an indication of a major flaw in the sport’s infrastructure. Much better drivers aren’t getting opportunities because people like Mazipin can buy their way in. The car better be good next year or what was the point of all this!?
The Perfect Formula 