Max Verstappen is the Formula 1 drivers champion after a season so good he could have won the constructors championship all on his own.
But there are many more ways to decide the quality of a performance than just on points and wins. Most of them were claimed by Verstappen anyway, leaving precious little for anyone else.
These rankings consider more than just finishing position in the drivers championship over the 22-race season to decide who the year’s best drivers were in 2023.
A note on the statistics: qualifying results are based on times set before penalties, but only officially credited pole positions count — that is, Verstappen lost what would have been a 13th pole position in Belgium after having to serve a gearbox penalty.
Sprint qualifying and race results are not included in any statistics except for points tallies.
1. MAX VERSTAPPEN
Championship: 1st, 575 points
Wins: 19
Poles: 12
Teammate head-to-head, races: 18-2 (points ratio: 67 per cent to 33 per cent)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 20-2
There were 620 points on offer for a driver in the 2023 season. Max Verstappen scored 92.74 per cent of them.
It wasn’t a perfect season, but it was as close as a driver can get.
We weren’t to know when Sergio Pérez won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the end of April that Verstappen would win every race bar one for the next seven months.
On the way Verstappen broke and extended record after record for single-season domination: for most wins (19), most wins by percentage (86.36 per cent), most consecutive wins (10), most podiums (21), most points (57), most points by percentage (92.74 per cent), most wins from pole (11), biggest winning margin (290 points), most laps led (1003) and most laps led by percentage (75.7 per cent).
Verstappen had the benefit of the fastest car, but when he’s more than doubled the score of his teammate, it’s impossible not to recognise that the Dutchman was making all the difference.
He’s now a very, very worthy three-time world champion.
2. FERNANDO ALONSO
Championship: 4th, 206 points
Best finish: 2nd (3)
Best qualifying: 2nd (2)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 14-2 (points: 74:26)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 19-3
Fernando Alonso has had some standout seasons in his 20-year Formula 1 career, but according to him, none has been better than 2023.
“I’m really pleased with the way I’ve driven all season,” Alonso said after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. “I think this has been my best, most consistent season of driving since 2012. I think I got the maximum from the car all season.”
Alonso has never been afraid of a bit of self-promotion. He’s also been very forward in pumping up the Aston Martin project, on which he’s gambled the final chapter of his career.
But it’s hard to disagree with at least the base assessment that he’s got everything out of the unexpected opportunity to be competitive this season, starting with his run of six podiums in the first eight races that set him up for fourth in the championship standings.
He’s also a highlights-making machine both on the track, where his driving has an edge exhibited by few others, and off the track, where he’s unafraid to be the villain the sport so sorely needs.
If Aston Martin can deliver him the race-winning car he’s craved for the last decade, there’s no doubt he’ll be competing for a third title.
3. CHARLES LECLERC
Championship: 5th, 206 points
Best finish: 2nd (3)
Poles: 5
Teammate head-to-head, races: 10-5 (points: 51:49)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 15-7
It’s difficult to rank Charles Leclerc’s season in the context of Ferrari’s struggles.
He fell back into the pack for much of 2023 after last year’s forlorn title chase, and for long stretches he was comfortably covered by teammate Carlos Sainz.
But that’s partly because the wayward SF-23 needed to be made less lively and more predictable to be tamed. Similar to Verstappen, Leclerc is able of taking a snappy car further than most, and this dulled his edge.
As the car was upgraded late in the season and let a little further off the leash, the old Leclerc returned. He hasn’t qualified off the front row since Qatar and has nabbed three pole positions.
When the car’s been good, Leclerc has been very good. The only gap in his game was to miss his chances when the machinery wasn’t at its peak.
4. LEWIS HAMILTON
Championship: 3rd, 234 points
Best finish: 2nd (3)
Poles: 1
Teammate head-to-head, races: 11-5 (points: 57:43)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 10-12
It’s perhaps unfair to rank Hamilton outside the top three after he came so close to pinching second in the championship from Pérez, particularly given so much of his struggles are down to his machinery. After all, we know how good he can be when he has a car that clicks.
He’s also easily covered teammate George Russell, making a fool of those who jumped the gun at the end of last season in declaring the seven-time champion over the hill after he was outscored by the Mercedes protege.
The only points he loses are for appearing to let his shoulders sink, even if only a little bit, as it became clear Mercedes is no closer to understanding its troubled car. When Hamilton had the sniff of progress, he lacked nothing, but particularly in the last few weeks, with the W13 still so troubled, he’s lacked his usual explosiveness, his mind presumably focused on willing a better 2024 into existence.
5. LANDO NORRIS
Championship: 6th, 205 points
Best finish: 2nd (6)
Best qualifying: 2nd (4)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 14-4 (points: 67:33)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 16-6
Lando Norris has wasted few opportunities with McLaren since the car’s big Austria upgrade, amassing seven podiums in the 14 rounds since. Most of the misses came when the car didn’t yet have the range of bodywork to tackle the extremes of Zandvoort, Spa-Francorchamps and Monza.
But there have been some other misses worth mentioning that lower Norris’s ranking a little.
“I just make so many mistakes on a Saturday at the minute,” he said in Abu Dhabi, where he blew a chance to qualify on the front row through a needless error at the death in Q3. “I’m just doing a shit job on Saturday.”
It followed mistakes in qualifying in Qatar, where a front-row start was missed after three times exceeding track limits. He then lost a shot at sprint pole to teammate Oscar Piastri for the same reason.
He bombed out of Mexico in Q1 after needlessly overdriving through the final sector and making a mistake. On Sunday he had the car pace to contend for second at minimum, but his recovery from 19th on the grid meant he finished fifth.
It’s not a large enough body of work to say Norris is choking under pressure, especially given the quality of his drives. But he wouldn’t want this to become a trend either.
6. ALEX ALBON
Championship: 27, 13th points
Best finish: 7th (2)
Best qualifying: 4th (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 15-0 (points: 97:3)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 22-0
The Williams car was on average the third-slowest car in 2023, with an average qualifying pace 1.3 seconds off pole position.
In Alex Albon’s hands it was seven times a Q3 car with an average qualifying result of 12.43.
On race day he finished on average in 11.04, scoring points in seven grands prix and in the Qatar sprint.
On the way he obliterated teammate Logan Sargeant in a complete season whitewash.
He wasn’t perfect, but his mistakes were rare. Its impossible not to put Williams’s unlikely seventh-place finish in the constructors standings down to Albon’s superb performances and the regularity with which he would extract the most from his machine.
Time will tell whether the team improves enough to keep Albon as its talismanic leader or whether a team higher in the order will finally poach him.
7. CARLOS SAINZ
Championship: 7th, 200 points
Wins: 1
Poles: 2
Teammate head-to-head, races: 5-10 (points: 49:51)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 7-15
It’s a sign of just how close this top 10 is that Carlos Sainz, one of only three drivers to win a race this season, is ranked only seventh.
Sainz had an excellent, consistent season, the peak being his extraordinary and perfectly judged victory in Singapore, the only weekend on which a car other than the RB19 could win a race.
The SF-23 suited Sainz a little better than last year’s car, with the team having to dial out some of its wilder traits as it troubleshooted its way through the campaign. It began to get away from him again later in the season as the team installed some final upgrades targeting 2024. That in turn allowed Leclerc to finish the year ahead.
It’s only because Sainz was bested by Leclerc on all key metrics — not significantly, as the points suggest, but comfortably enough — that he finds himself further down the order.
8. OSCAR PIASTRI
Championship: 9th, 97 points
Best finish: 2nd (1)
Best qualifying: 3rd (3)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 4-14 (points: 33:67)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 6-16
The most hyped Formula 1 debutant didn’t disappoint.
Oscar Piastri’s junior accolades translated almost seamlessly into his long-awaited arrival in the sport. He cracked Q3 in just his second race in Saudi Arabia, one of the sport’s most challenging circuits, and he survived the carnage of Melbourne to score his first points in just his third race — this still being the time of McLaren’s dog of a launch car.
Progress came thick and fast in Europe and once the MCL60 was updated. He was tremendous in difficult conditions in Belgium, qualifying and finishing second in the sprint and then going one better in Qatar, where he collected his maiden sprint pole and victory.
His strength in those short races speaks to his only real weakness, which is managing the tyres over a full grand prix distance. That was the only thing separating him from teammate Norris in Japan, while his second place in Qatar was aided by mandatory maximum stint lengths.
But mastering the Pirelli tyres is the defining challenge of this F1 era. That Piastri wasn’t excellent straight out of the box is neither surprising nor concerning — particularly given his rate of improvement through the year.
It was an excellent debut season made more exciting for the fact that he clearly has so much room to become even better still.
9. GEORGE RUSSELL
Championship: 8th, 175 points
Best finish: 3rd (2)
Best qualifying: 2nd (3)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 5-11 (points: 43:57)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 12-10
Some assumed George Russell was in unstoppable ascendancy after beating Hamilton in the points last year, but the British young gun has been put back in his place after a more difficult 2023.
To be fair, the large points disparity to Hamilton comprises a big dose of bad luck. He would’ve been on the podium in Australia without his engine failure, and he was looking good for a similarly high result in Canada before he ran out of brakes, those being just two examples.
But there have been high-profile errors too — his big crash in Singapore springs to mind, as does his tangle with Verstappen in Las Vegas.
And while Hamilton has collected eight podiums, Russell clocked just two for the year.
Some have linked Russell’s small downturn to Hamilton’s decision to stay on for several more seasons. Or perhaps it’s just second-season syndrome at Mercedes. Whatever the case, he more than anyone will be expecting a lift in 2024.
10. PIERRE GASLY
Championship: 11th, 62 points
Best finish: 3rd (1)
Best qualifying: 5th (2)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 6-10 (points: 52:48)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 14-8
Having become top dog at AlphaTauri but only after being turfed from his plum Red Bull Racing drive, Pierre Gasly had a lot to prove arriving at Alpine.
That he beat Esteban Ocon in the points and was generally no worse off than an equal match for his new teammate is a great success — particularly in the context of the dysfunction and instability behind the scenes at Alpine, which would have made it difficult for any driver to perform at a high level.
He’ll be even more satisfied to have pipped Ocon in such a close battle, outscoring him by only four points. Having two known-quantity teammates scoring at a similar level suggests the most is being extracted from the car, which is another tick for Gasly’s transition.
He had too many anonymous days to be considered among the sport’s very best performers — though the state of the team may well have had a role here — but the context of it all make him a top-10 worthy driver for the year.
11. SERGIO PEREZ
Championship: 2nd, 285 points
Wins: 2
Poles: 2
Teammate head-to-head, races: 2-18 (points: 33:67)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 2-20
Some will say putting one of the year’s three races winners outside the top 10 is harsh. Others will suggest it’s not harsh enough.
The first person any driver must beat is their teammate. Pérez wasn’t simply beaten; he was destroyed, totally and utterly.
Verstappen more than doubled his points haul in equal machinery.
In fact if you were to add up Pérez’s points from 2022 and 2023, he would end up only 15 points ahead of Verstappen — enough for the championship to have been in doubt right up to the last race.
Sure, the RB19 has become increasingly tailor made for Verstappen’s preternatural abilities — it’s only natural that engineering and design gravitate around the driver able to extract the most from the machinery.
But winning a couple of grands prix — literally just a couple — and collecting nine podiums, just one more than Fernando Alonso, doesn’t cut it in a car this good, even in extenuating circumstances.
It will take a wild and almost unbelievable turnaround in form next year to justify his occupation of Formula 1’s most desirable car in 2025.
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12. ESTEBAN OCON
Championship: 12th, 58 points
Best finish: 3rd (1)
Best qualifying: 4th (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 10-6 (points: 48:52)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 8-14
Esteban Ocon improved through the year as the car likewise ticked up in potential in the later stages of the season. Defeat to Gasly wasn’t significant, but it was meaningful, and with no-one willing to guess what Alpine will do at any given moment, you don’t want to be the second driver at Enstone at the time of the next managerial flight of fancy.
13. YUKI TSUNODA
Championship: 14th, 17 points
Best finish: 8th (2)
Best qualifying: 6th (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 12-7 (points: 68:32)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 16-6
As opposed to some of the above drivers, you could genuinely argue Yuki Tsunoda deserves a higher spot, having compared well to all three teammates in a crunch season for his career. But as much as the Japanese driver’s great highs delivered some big points, his still lacks crucial consistency. Throwing away seventh in a silly crash with Piastri lost him more points than AlphaTauri needed to beat Williams to seventh in the constructors standings, for example.
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14. LIAM LAWSON
Championship: 20th, 2 points
Best finish: 9th (1)
Best qualifying: 10th (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 2-1 (points: 100:0)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 1-4
You couldn’t ask much more of Liam Lawson in his five-race cameo, having scored points at his first opportunity in Singapore, where he’d never raced before. Some bad luck for Tsunoda during their partnership flattered him a little bit, and the sample size isn’t large enough to draw any major conclusions beyond the need for someone to give him a full-time drive to find out just how good the talented Kiwi can be.
15. DANIEL RICCIARDO
Championship: 17th, 6 points
Best finish: 7th (1)
Best qualifying: 4th (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 3-4 (points: 43:57)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 3-4
Daniel Ricciardo’s season is perhaps the hardest to assess of any driver on the grid owing to his transience. His sudden 12-race lifeline with AlphaTauri was practically halved, losing five of the 10 races after the mid-season break to a broken hand. In the context of the Aussie needing to build up to race fitness six months later than the rest of the grid, it wasn’t ideal.
It was heartening to see some genuinely head-turning performances from the eight-time race winner. He was very strong in his first race back, in Hungary, to finish just outside the points, while his qualifying and race-day performances in Mexico City were exemplary — enough to think the old Daniel must really be in there.
But on the whole he was probably overshadowed by Tsunoda in the final set of races. There was bad luck in there — damage to the car in Austin and a blocked brake duct in Abu Dhabi probably cost him points — but expectations are higher than for him to just match his teammate.
Next year will be a crunch season for the man once considered Australia’s best chance at its next world championship.
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16. VALTTERI BOTTAS
Championship: 15th, 10 points
Best finish: 8th (2)
Best qualifying: 7th (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 10-7 (points: 63:37)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 16-6
It’s been painful to watch Alfa Romeo slide backwards this season, undermining what had appeared to be an inspired move for Valtteri Bottas at the end of his Mercedes career. He did at least get a firm handle on Zhou Guanyu by the end of the year to stabilise himself, which must be the minimum for the experienced race winner.
17. LANCE STROLL
Championship: 10th, 74 points
Best finish: 4th (1)
Best qualifying: 3rd (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 2-14 (points: 26:74)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 3-19
Lance Stroll has found his ceiling. His pointscore ratio of 26 per cent is among the worst in the sport, and his absence from the podium in a season teammate Fernando Alonso stepped onto the rostrum eight times is deeply underwhelming. The fact only a late mini resurgence prevented him from finishing behind one or perhaps both Alpine drivers suggests his continuing presence at the team is incompatible with its lofty aims.
18. NICO HÜLKENBERG
Championship: 16th, 9 points
Best finish: 7th (1)
Best qualifying: 2nd (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 10-8 (points: 75:25)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 15-7
Nico Hülkenberg has impressively covered Kevin Magnussen in his F1 comeback after the better part of three seasons on the couch. He’s been spectacular in some qualifying sessions, but this year’s deeply underwhelming Haas car makes his campaign difficult to judge.
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19. ZHOU GUANYU
Championship: 18th, 6 points
Best finish: 9th (3)
Best qualifying: 2nd (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 7-10 (points: 37:63)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 6-16
Zhou Guanyu faded relative to Bottas as the year went on, albeit his team’s declining competitiveness as it waits for Audi to complete its purchase in the coming years means it’s hard to prescribe all of that downturn to the Chinese driver in his second season in the sport.
20. KEVIN MAGNUSSEN
Championship: 19th, 3 points
Best finish: 10th (3)
Best qualifying: 4th (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 8-10 (points: 25:75)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 7-15
Kevin Magnussen’s popular 2022 comeback has been thoroughly overshadowed by teammate Hülkenberg, who had his measure all year. That said, the gap between them isn’t as big as it perhaps seemed based on Nico’s stellar qualifying — on average they’ve been separated by three places on Saturday but only 0.65 places on Sundays. The car is the root of the problem for both.
Back-to-back crashes at Abu Dhabi P2 | 01:15
21. LOGAN SARGEANT
Championship: 21st, 1 point
Best finish: 10th (1)
Best qualifying: 7th (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 0-15 (points: 3:93)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 0-22
Hopes were high for Logan Sargeant in the first half of the year, when he was regularly showing flashes of great pace with the expectation that complete performance would eventually come. They haven’t, however, and his double time deletion in Q1 in Abu Dhabi was a worrying sign that not enough progress is being made. His whitewash to Albon in qualifying is tough to spin. He remains uncontracted for 2024.
22. NYCK DE VRIES
Championship: 22nd, 0 points
Best finish: 12th (1)
Best qualifying: 12th (1)
Teammate head-to-head, races: 2-8 (points: 0:100)
Teammate head-to-head, qualifying: 2-8
Nyck de Vries never lived up to his billing as an experienced set of hands who could lead AlphaTauri up the order, though one does wonder what the Formula E champion would have made of the upgraded and far more competitive car that arrived long after he was turfed.