Season Grades for F1 Drivers: Part I

All the F1 drivers with 14+ wins I haven't done yet.

In keeping with my two previous articles assigning season grades for the ten winningest NASCAR and IndyCar drivers I haven’t done yet, here is my first similar F1 column. As I mentioned, I decided to move my Emerson Fittipaldi entry to this column even though I initially planned it for the IndyCar column. He probably makes more sense with this group anyway since I do think his peak seasons in general were in F1 while I find his IndyCar career a little overrated. I’ve been spending most of my time working on my new paid work and visiting my mom, so I didn’t have time to do any driver write-ups, but I might have a bit more time for that next week after I catch up on some of these paid assignments. Additionally, the winningest drivers I haven’t covered yet will obviously take more time to cover than drivers who had shorter or less dominant careers, who I will be looking at next week.

Sebastian Vettel

2004: C-
2006: C-
2007: C+
2008: E
2009: 4
2010: E
2011: 1
2012: E
2013: 1
2014: C
2015: 1
2016: E
2017: 2
2018: E
2019: E-
2020: C-
2021: C
2022: C

Cumulative points: 467

Vettel was the highest rated F1 driver in my model six times (2008, 2011, 2013, 2015-2017) tying Fernando Alonso for the most #1s in my lifetime. While Alonso to his credit had a lot more longevity and consistency from season-to-season, I think I personally rate Vettel higher because he hit substantially higher peaks in his best seasons than Alonso. He was unquestionably the best driver in the world in 2011 and 2013 in my opinion, although you can certainly debate 2015. His highest-rated season in my model overall is actually 2008 when he swept Sébastien Bourdais after his four consecutive Champ Car titles, but I do think in general his Red Bull years were stronger than his Toro Rosso years. The main problem was his sudden falloff in the 2020s, which takes him out of the all-time great conversation for some but not for me.

Fernando Alonso

1999: C-
2000: C-
2001: C
2003: E
2004: E
2005: 4
2006: 2
2007: E
2008: E
2009: E
2010: 4
2011: E
2012: 1
2013: 4
2014: E
2015: C+
2016: E-
2017: C+
2018: E
2019: E
2021: C+
2022: C+
2023: E
2024: C+

Cumulative points: 387

I know this will be a little controversial since almost every mathematical model ranks Alonso in the top five and gives him numerous #1 seasons. He was tenth in my model after my last update and he was previously higher. When I first created my open wheel model in 2021, Alonso ranked second amongst 21st century drivers behind an anomaly and when I updated the model to include all post-World War II open wheel races, he fell to seventh. Now he is tenth after being overtaken by Max Verstappen and others. The thing is, I think everybody’s models overrate him because he had the good fortune of being Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen’s teammate after they were injured. Furthermore, he had several rookie teammates including Lewis Hamilton, Nelson Piquet, Jr., and Stoffel Vandoorne. Alonso seemed tailor-made to dominate teammate models due to either injured or inexperienced teammates, and I think they vastly overrate him at this point. His fans still act like he’s better than Lewis Hamilton and that’s harder and harder to justify at a certain point. At some point, theoretical numbers are difficult to take over actual numbers, which is why I’ve rated him lower than you might think. Personally, I think Sébastien Loeb was the best driver of Alonso’s heyday anyway. Having said that, I still might take him over a couple of the other drivers who outscored him in cumulative points here because the cumulative points totals are heavily weighted by top fives and his cumulative accomplishments were probably greater than Nigel Mansell’s even if I definitely think Mansell hit a higher peak.

Nigel Mansell

1981: C
1982: C
1983: C+
1984: C+
1985: C+
1986: 2
1987: 1
1988: C+
1989: E
1990: E-
1991: 2
1992: 1
1993: 2
1994: C+

Cumulative points: 444

This is probably overrating him mainly because he is one of only three of these drivers along with Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss who I gave five (or more) top two seasons, but I really do think those seasons were that good. I ranked him second behind his teammate Nelson Piquet with both of them over Alain Prost mainly because Piquet had a 10-1 lead change record to Mansell’s 6-5, even though you could easily argue Mansell came closer to the title. In 1987, they weren’t even close. Mansell had 11 natural races led and 9 TNL to Piquet’s 2 natural races led and 1 TNL. He certainly got a huge break to baby-sit a dominant Williams, but he certainly put up numbers, particularly when he broke the single-season win record in 1992. Other drivers had dominant cars and failed to do that. Then of course he won the CART title as a rookie in 1993. Do I think Mansell is better than drivers like Prost and Fernando Alonso who scored fewer cumulative points? No. I will be ranking them higher. But I do still think Mansell is closer to Prost than Prost is to Ayrton Senna, because I value dominance more than most people. Even my open wheel model (which is entirely based on consistency apart from DNFs) has Mansell (.274) far closer to Prost (.297) than Prost is to Senna (.514). Other people’s models are definitely undervaluing him.

Jackie Stewart

1964: C
1965: E
1966: E
1967: E
1968: 3
1969: 3
1970: E
1971: 1
1972: 4
1973: 2

Cumulative points: 342

You could make a case that Stewart had a higher average level of performance than any other F1 driver as he is one of the very few F1 drivers who I gave an elite grade every season and not even any E-s. I thought about giving him an E- for his only winless season in 1967, but even in that season, he finished 2nd in the Tasman Series behind only Jim Clark and won that series’s two marquee events, the Australian Grand Prix and New Zealand Grand Prix with Clark finishing second, so he was clearly already a championship-caliber driver at that point. His career is pretty straightforward, but I went with 1971 as his peak because in addition to winning the F1 title, he also won a couple Can-Am races that year proving his versatility.

Juan Manuel Fangio

1940: 3
1941: 2
1947: E-
1948: E-
1949: 4
1950: 1
1951: 1
1952: E-
1953: 2
1954: 1
1955: 1
1956: 1
1957: 1
1958: C+

Cumulative points: 768

Fangio is the highest-rated F1 champion in my open wheel model and with these ratings, he currently sits second behind Michael Schumacher for the most cumulative points. I don’t know which one of them I will end up rating higher because although Fangio certainly achieved a higher level of dominance relative to his peers, he didn’t sustain it quite as long as Schumacher and the F1 fields were significantly worse in his heyday. One thing Fangio has that Schumacher does not have is that he frequently competed in other major league racing events throughout his career. In 1940 and 1941, he won the Turismo Carretera title in Argentina (one of the oldest racing championships and in that era one of the most prestigious), then he later went on to win a World Sportscar Championship race all but one year from 1953-57 including back-to-back 12 Hours of Sebrings in 1956 and 1957. Although he did not win a WSC event in 1955, he likely would have won at Le Mans that year had he not been forced to park his Mercedes after the infamous crash of 70 years and 2 days ago.

Nelson Piquet

1978: C+
1979: C+
1980: 1
1981: E
1982: C+
1983: E-
1984: E
1985: E-
1986: 1
1987: E-
1988: E-
1989: C+
1990: E-
1991: C+

Cumulative points: 260

Piquet had a bizarre career in a lot of ways as he had a history of lucking into titles to a similar extent as Joey Logano. Even though he won three F1 titles, I ended up not ranking him in the top five in any of those years mainly based on how weak his passing numbers were. In 1981, he only ranked third in natural races led and had a single pass for the lead. In 1983, his teammate Riccardo Patrese had a 3-0 lead change record while Piquet was 3-4. 1987 was even worse as Mansell had 11 natural races led and a 7-5 lead change record to Piquet’s 2 and 1-4 respectively. They weren’t even close, which is why I rated Mansell first and left Piquet out of the top 25. Mnny of his other years are hard to assess because he had a long string of inexperienced or mediocre teammates aside from Mansell and Michael Schumacher, but the fast that Patrese was a more efficient passer for the lead in 1983 than Piquet when they were teammates and Piquet won the championship does not say a lot. Weirdly, I think Piquet’s two banner years were the years he didn’t win the title. As I mentioned earlier, his 10-1 lead change record in 1986 is why I took him over Mansell, but his 1980 was better yet. In addition to finishing a close second to Alan Jones in points, Prost beat runner-up Jones for the BMW M1 Procar Championship by a larger margin than Jones beat him for the F1 title. Despite missing two races, he won three Procar races while Jones went winless, which explains why I took Piquet higher. He was also a much more efficient passer than many of his later years. I think that was his best season. The title seasons? Kind of blah.

Nico Rosberg

2005: C
2006: C
2007: C+
2008: C+
2009: E
2010: E
2011: C+
2012: C+
2013: E
2014: E-
2015: E
2016: 3

Cumulative points: 111

Much of this comes down to how seriously you take his early Mercedes seasons when he and Michael Schumacher were teammates. Rosberg was the highest-rated driver in my model globally for the only time in 2010 because of how badly he beat Schumacher, but that was Schumacher coming off a two-year hiatus and he was clearly never as good at Mercedes as he had been with Benetton or Ferrari. Schumacher was in my opinion not the same driver especially in 2010. While I did give him an E for that season nonetheless, I marked the next two years down. Although Rosberg slightly won the head-to-head in 2011, Schumacher was actually faster and then Schumacher blew him out 7-2 head-to-head the next year. Nonetheless, he performed admirably against Lewis Hamilton after that and I do think he went out with a bang and I do think his title season was his best season. He and Hamilton were too evenly-matched for me to consider rating that higher, but I did rate him over Hamilton for that year, which I suppose is very controversial.

Stirling Moss

1950: C
1951: C+
1952: C+
1953: C+
1954: E-
1955: 3
1956: 2
1957: 2
1958: 1
1959: 1
1960: 3
1961: 2
1962: C+

Cumulative points: 529

Even though Moss never won an F1 title, he was generally regarded as the best driver in the world after Juan Manuel Fangio stopped competing full-time in F1 after 1957 and I agree with that assessment. He was certainly better than Mike Hawthorn in 1958 and I think he was better than Jack Brabham in 1959. F1metrics ranked him first four years in a row from 1958-1961. I rated Brabham and A.J. Foyt higher in 1960, but you can certainly debate that. For 1961, I think Moss probably was the best F1 driver but there was no way I could not give that year to Phil Hill even as mediocre as his F1 title was when considering he became the only driver to win the F1 title, Le Mans, and Sebring in the same year. I don’t even think Hill was that mediocre. I think he obviously had blinding speed given his five straight poles and he’s mainly judged harshly because he fell off after that because he lost the desire to race. Moss likewise had a lot of sports car wins, winning 15 World Sportsar Championship races either overall or in class while simultaneously competing in F1, which is why I gave him seven consecutive top five seasons globally.

Jenson Button

2000: C
2002: C
2003: E-
2004: E
2005: E
2006: E
2007: E-
2008: C+
2009: E
2010: E-
2011: E
2012: E-
2013: C+
2014: C+
2015: E-
2016: C+
2018: E-

Cumulative points: 96

Button was consistent but he’s the only driver here that I gave no top five seasons because I just didn’t feel he had that high a peak, relative to these other drivers. As a result, he scored the fewest cumulative points, but 96 is still a lot and he would beat Nico Rosberg at least if I counted the top five drivser just as regular Es rather than awarding bonus points for top five seasons (perhaps I’m awarding too many…) He did do a great job overachieving in some underpowered cars in 2004-2006 after a lackluster start to his career, then caught the lucky break when the FIA approved Brawn’s diffusers, which suddenly made him dominant in 2009. Do I think that was his best season? No, not really. He kind of limped to the championship over Vettel and he blew out Rubens Barrichello worse other years. His speed percentile advantage over Barrichello was +16.50 in 2006, +12.01 in 2007, +8.43 in 2008, and +11.57 in 2009. 2006 was also the only year he led my model globally because he beat Barrichello 10-1, the same margin Michael Schumacher did the previous year. He was on rails that year much more than in his title season. I may pick 2011 as his best season instead (the one time he seemed better than Lewis Hamilton when they were teammates) and it’s a tough choice between those two. But I don’t think his title season is it.

Emerson Fittipaldi

1970: C+
1971: C+
1972: 1
1973: E-
1974: 3
1975: E
1976: C
1977: C
1978: C+
1979: C
1980: C-
1985: C+
1986: C
1987: E-
1988: E-
1989: 4
1990: C+
1991: C+
1992: E-
1993: E-
1994: C+

Cumulative points: 245

For all his success, I definitely think 1972 is Fittipaldi’s peak beause he was the only driver to win the F1 title while his teammate failed to score a point. That is a histori and pretty amazing accomplishment even if a lot of his F1 career outside of his 1972-75 power run was kind of hit or miss. I wasn’t really sure what to do with the years when he was driving for his brother Wilson’s Copersucar team. It was a pretty awful single-car team and Emerson even started missing races, but he also had no full-time teammate so it’s significantly harder to know how to rate those seasons. I definitely think 1978 was his best of those years as he got the team’s best finish (second), got their only top ten points finish (tenth) and he qualified for all the races after DNQs in ‘76 and ‘77. It was clear he had fallen off by ‘80 because he finally did have a teammate in Keke Rosberg who kind of blew him out. While I do think Fittipaldi’s F1 career is a little underrated (I definitely think he was overall the second-best Brazilian driver and I’d take him over Nelson Piquet, but it seems the F1 centrists don’t agree), I think his CART career is overrated. Although he became the second driver to win in 11 consecutive IndyCar seasons after Bobby Unser, he was overall extremely lucky with 22 wins despite only 14 TNL and 14.01 lead shares. While I do rate his 1989 CART title season extremely highly, it seemed like he was seldom head and shoulders above his teammates when he had them. In 1986, he actually finished behind his teammate Kevin Cogan in points (who is widely regarded as a hack after his 1982 start crash). At Penske, he was definitely the team leader in 1992 when Rick Mears retired mid-season and was replaced by Paul Tracy, but you can argue somebody was better every other year. Not only did Al Unser, Jr. annihilate him in 1994, but Tracy was clearly better in ‘93 and ‘94 as well and Fittipaldi only beat him in points because Tracy crashed too much, but I think Tracy’s advantage in dominance compensates for that IMO. I didn’t even rate his 1995 because he only won at Nazareth on fuel mileage after Eddie Cheever ran out of gas while running away with the race in an A.J. Foyt car, then he missed the Indy 500 and finished 11th in points. To be fair, it is impressive Fittipaldi was putting up seasons like that in his late 40s, but his Penske cars definitely made him look better than he was at that point. The longevity is amazing as he had I believe the second-longest gap between first and last major league open wheel wins behind only Mario Andretti, but I do think his CART stint is overrated.

Next week: I’m going to do the next ten drivers I haven’t done yet on the NASCAR, IndyCar, and F1 win lists, although I’ve got to say I’m starting to run out of legends, especially on the NASCAR and IndyCar side.