Max Verstappen makes a big leap towards title defence at Suzuka, while at the very back the red lantern surprisingly changes
After taking the real drivers’ championship, will Max Verstappen soon take the title in our traditional grading? The Dutchman can close the bag at the next race in Austin. With his victory in Suzuka, he has distanced himself from his rival Charles Leclerc and is now 61 points ahead – he needs a 75-point lead after Austin.
Verstappen got the top score from all three pillars and thus, of course, the 25 points. Expert Marc Surer found the Red Bull driver’s performance “sovereign” and, like the editorial team, awarded him a 1. And the 641 readers who voted also saw him in the lead with 1.4.
At this point we would like to apologise first: Due to a technical problem, some readers were shown that they had already cast their votes, so this time there were fewer ratings than usual.
Second place went to Sebastian Vettel, who was also seen as the second best driver by the readers with 1.5. Marc Surer saw “a super weekend” apart from the contact at the start and also gave him a 1.
The editors gave it to another driver: Esteban Ocon. Thanks to the third-best reader rating (2.0), the Frenchman came third behind the two Red Bull world champions.
The surprise of the Suzuka standings, however, was Williams driver Nicholas Latifi, who scored his first points for the World Championship standings in the race. With us, the Canadian already had at least one point, but he increased his points tally ninefold with sixth place and, among other things, a reader rating of 2.6. He thus also overtook Daniel Ricciardo, who is now last among all regular drivers.
Overall runner-up Charles Leclerc, on the other hand, lost out: he only came eighth with an overall rating of 2.9 and scored just four points. “He was strong until his mistake,” Surer judged, giving the Ferrari driver a 3, which he also got from the editorial team.
And Mick Schumacher also got two points in ninth place, even though the Haas team’s poker didn’t work out in the race.
The last place this time went to AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman was second to last in the readers’ poll ahead of Carlos Sainz, but atoned for Marc Surer’s hard-hitting 6, who blasted his behaviour in the tractor incident. “Even if his rant is justified, why is he driving so fast?” he commented.
The ultimate driver ranking Japan 2022:
01 Max Verstappen, grade 1.1 (readers 1.4 – Surer 1 – editors 1)
02 Sebastian Vettel, grade 1.5 (readers 1.6 – Surer 1 – editors 2)
03 Esteban Ocon, grade 1.7 (readers 2.0 – Surer 2 – editors 1)
04. Sergio Perez, grade 2,0 (readers 2,0 – Surer 2 – editors 2)
05 Fernando Alonso, grade 2.5 (readers 2.4 – Surer 3 – editors 2)
06 Nicholas Latifi, grade 2,5 (readers 2,6 – Surer 2 – editors 3)
07. lewis hamilton, grade 2,7 (readers 3,0 – Surer 2 – editors 3)
08 Charles Leclerc, grade 2.9 (readers 2.6 – Surer 3 – editors 3)
09. mick schumacher, grade 3,0 (readers 2,9 – Surer 3 – editors 3)
10th George Russell, grade 3.0 (readers 3.1 – Surer 3 – editors 3)
11th Yuki Tsunoda, grade 3,2 (Readers 3,6 – Surer 3 – Editors 3)
12th Lando Norris, grade 3,4 (Readers 3,1 – Surer 4 – Editors 3)
13th Alexander Albon, grade 3,4 (readers 3,7 – Surer n/a – editors 3)
14th Lance Stroll, grade 3,4 (reader 3,2 – Surer 4 – editor 3)
15. Daniel Ricciardo, grade 3,4 (readers 3,3 – Surer 4 – editors 3)
16 Kevin Magnussen, grade 3.9 (readers 3.6 – Surer 4 – editors 4)
17 Valtteri Bottas, grade 3.9 (readers 3.7 – Surer 5 – editors 3)
18. Carlos Sainz, grade 4.1 (readers 4.3 – Surer n/a – editors 4)
19th Guanyu Zhou, grade 4,2 (readers 3,6 – Surer 5 – editors 4)
20. Pierre Gasly, grade 4.7 (readers 4.0 – Surer 6 – editors 4)
And this is how we calculate:
We calculate the average of the rating by expert Marc Surer and the rating by our editorial team. This average results in our driver ranking. We only show one decimal place, but for the calculation we use all decimal places. These decimal places, some of which are not visible, are used to determine the ranking order of two riders in the event of a supposed tie in grades.
The 2022 World Championship drivers’ standings:
01 – Max Verstappen (304)
02 Charles Leclerc (243)
03 Lewis Hamilton (155)
04th Sergio Perez (152)
05th George Russell (150)
06th Carlos Sainz (116)
07 Fernando Alonso (111)
08 Lando Norris (110)
09th Sebastian Vettel (76)
10th Esteban Ocon (62)
11th Valtteri Bottas (60)
12th Alexander Albon (54)
13th Mick Schumacher (47)
14th Pierre Gasly (44)
15th Kevin Magnussen (39)
16th Nyck de Vries (25)
17th Lance Stroll (25)
18th Yuki Tsunoda (14)
19th Guanyu Zhou (14)
21st Nicholas Latifi (9)
20th Daniel Ricciardo (8)
22nd Nico Hülkenberg (0)
The driver with the most points will receive an award for the driver of the year 2022 at the end of the season.
