Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins for the first time in the 2022 season in the traditional grading on the Monday after the Formula 1 race
Charles Leclerc may have defended his lead in the 2022 drivers’ standings despite a zero lap due to his crash in the French Grand Prix at Le Castellet; but his lead has shrunk dramatically. That’s because defending champion Max Verstappen finished third in the assessment of all 20 drivers by the three-pillar model, cutting his deficit to six points.
The day’s winner this time went to Lewis Hamilton with a score of 1.60, a razor-thin margin ahead of Carlos Sainz (1.63). Hamilton received a grade of 1 from the editors, Sainz from Formula 1 expert Marc Surer. In the end, it was the user vote that decided 1st and 2nd place.
For Surer, Sainz was “in super form” – an assessment also shared by the editorial team.
However, he was penalised for starting despite the red Ferrari lights at the pit stop, which earned him a penalty for “unsafe release”. Otherwise Sainz would have scored a full 25 points for the first time this season.
In contrast, Verstappen “did everything right” according to Surer, and the Swiss also rates Hamilton’s performance positively: “Now that the Mercedes is getting better, Lewis is in command again,” he says of the team-internal comparison with George Russell, who incidentally finished sixth.
Leclerc, who delivered an almost perfect race weekend apart from his accident, was graded quite differently in the three pillars: Grade 4.1 from the readers, Grade 5 from the editors, Grade 3 from Surer. At the same time, however, the expert makes it clear: “This must not happen.” Postscript: “If he’s not covering for the team … “
And what else? Yuki Tsunoda gets a good grade 2 from Surer “for the good training performance”, Kevin Magnussen grade 3 because of “bad luck with strategy and collision”, and Guanyu Zhou grade 4 for “the unnecessary collision with Mick”.
Schumacher, by the way, finished 19th this time.
How we give our marks
The idea behind our grading system is to give grades (1 = Very Good, 6 = Unsatisfactory) to the performances on a weekend and especially in the race. The idea is to exclude external influences that the drivers cannot control themselves. And so that not only the editors evaluate subjectively, as is the case with football magazines, we have created a total of three equal pillars with the readers and the expert.
The ultimate Le Castellet 2022 driver ranking:
01. Lewis Hamilton, grade 1.6 (readers 1.8 – Surer 2 – editors 1).
02 Carlos Sainz, grade 1.6 (readers 1.9 – Surer 1 – editors 2)
03 Max Verstappen, grade 1.9 (readers 1.6 – Surer 2 – editors 2)
04 Fernando Alonso, grade 2,0 (readers 2,0 – Surer 2 – editors 2)
05. Lando Norris, grade 2,2 (readers 2,5 – Surer 2 – editors 2)
06. George Russell, grade 2,4 (Readers 2,3 – Surer 3 – Editors 2)
07 Sebastian Vettel, grade 2.7 (readers 3.1 – Surer 2 – editors 3)
08 Lance Stroll, grade 2.7 (readers 3.1 – Surer 2 – editors 3)
09 Yuki Tsunoda, grade 2.9 (readers 3.8 – Surer 2 – editors 3)
10th Daniel Ricciardo, grade 3.1 (readers 3.2 – Surer 3 – editors 3)
11th Alexander Albon, grade 3,1 (readers 3,3 – Surer 3 – editors 3)
12th Kevin Magnussen, grade 3.2 (Readers 3.5 – Surer 3 – Editors 3)
13th Esteban Ocon, grade 3.4 (readers 3.2 – Surer 3 – editors 4)
14: Pierre Gasly, grade 3.6 (readers 3.8 – Surer 3 – editors 4)
15 Sergio Perez, grade 3.9 (readers 3.6 – Surer 4 – editors 4)
16th Valtteri Bottas, grade 3.9 (readers 3.7 – Surer 4 – editors 4)
17th Charles Leclerc, grade 4.0 (readers 4.0 – Surer 3 – editors 5)
18th Nicholas Latifi, grade 4,0 (Readers 4,1 – Surer 4 – Editors 4)
19. mick schumacher, grade 4.3 (readers 3.9 – Surer 4 – editors 5)
20. Guanyu Zhou, grade 4,4 (Readers 4,3 – Surer 4 – Editors 5)
And this is how we calculate:
From the rating by expert Marc Surer and the rating by our editorial staff, we calculate the average. 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 drivers in the event of a supposed tie in grades.
The driver grade World Cup standings 2022:
01st Charles Leclerc (192)
02nd Max Verstappen (186)
03rd Sergio Perez (113)
04th Lewis Hamilton (108)
05th George Russell (104)
06 Carlos Sainz (84)
07 Lando Norris (72)
08 Valtteri Bottas (60)
09 Fernando Alonso (56)
10th Kevin Magnussen (39)
11th Alexander Albon (38)
12th Sebastian Vettel (34)
13th Mick Schumacher (32)
14th Pierre Gasly (28)
15th Esteban Ocon (25)
16th Yuki Tsunoda (14)
17th Guanyu Zhou (14)
18th Lance Stroll (8)
19th Daniel Ricciardo (4)
20th Nicholas Latifi (1)
21st Nico Hülkenberg (0)
The driver with the most points will receive an award for the 2022 Driver of the Year at the end of the season.
