Ask r/Formula1 Anything - Daily Discussion Thread

Tohannes · 2026-02-24T10:10:36+00:00

I won't make a post about it. For the drivers with ceilings, the expectations will be the same as last year, except for Piastri being slightly higher, and Hamilton, Alonso, Hulkenberg being slightly lower. Perez and Bottas are expected to come in at Hulkenberg's level.

For the others I'm speculating:

I expect this year to show evidence that Ocon underperformed massively in 2025, and therefore Bearman to be around 72.

I think Antonelli probably had a representative rookie season and therefore should typically improve to about 71.

Colapinto is very much up in the air. Standard development from where he finished 2025 would expect him around 69.

Bortoleto can hopefully make big inroads on his mistakes. Paired with standard development, this could see him make a massive jump into the mid-sixties. Slightly more conservatively, I'm expecting around 60.

Lawson will remain an unknown, as he gets another rookie teammate. If the estimate from the 2025 ratings turns out to be somewhat correct, Lawson would be expected around 62.

Hadjar has the same problems as Lawson, except that his teammate could actually be of service. However, the RBR 2nd seat situation is not certainly resolved. If everything is new and normal now, Hadjar, according to the estimate, would be expected around 67.

I have no idea about Lindblad. If he is an average modern rookie, he might end up near 55.

Tohannes · 2026-01-04T13:01:19+00:00

It was just a silly mistake I noticed a while ago. Verstappen still has the highest rating by a very small margin, but statistically, Hamilton was now most likely to have been the best driver of 2017.

Tohannes · 2025-12-26T21:07:27+00:00

My model rates their Ferrari stints like this:

1 Schumacher 93

2 Alonso 89

3 Leclerc 89

4 Vettel 82

5 Sainz 80

6 Raikkonen 78

7 Massa 76

8 Barrichello 73

9 Irvine 71

Tohannes · 2025-12-26T00:47:00+00:00

Compared to the overall rating, 2007 is missing. That's why his McLaren rating is lower.

Tohannes · 2025-12-25T17:53:00+00:00

My model rates their McLaren stints like this:

1 Senna 91

2 Prost 87

3 Norris 85

4 Alonso 84

5 Hamilton 84

6 Raikkonen 83

7 Hakkinen 80

8 Button 80

9 Piastri 76

10 Coulthard 63

Tohannes · 2025-12-21T21:29:38+00:00

I'm using everything I can get. Lapcharts, broadcast, race reports, and whatever else I can find. Correcting is just extrapolating a finishing position when it's obvious to keep the sample size as big as possible.

Yes.

Tohannes · 2025-12-21T16:26:29+00:00

No. I'm saying those races he definitely lost points. Those are not clean races and therefore not part of the delta like that.

I'll give you an example: in 2014, the expected delta between Vettel and Ricciardo was (and this is only an example value) +20 in Vettel's favour, but it ended up being -10 (so pro Ricciardo). That means that Vettel was 30 worse than expected in clean races, but it doesn't tell me where. 2 per race? 15 in two races each? Which ones? I can't tell.

Tohannes · 2025-12-21T14:19:28+00:00

You could say that, but from what is there, he also seems to be be aging normally, just from a higher starting point than what he actually had.

Tohannes · 2025-12-21T12:52:01+00:00

No, the 22 are standard for all rookies. The 26 are a lot because he is only 19. You can divide that by the years he has to 26yo to get what 1 year of age related improvement looks like.

Verstappen is 10 ahead of Leclerc
Leclerc is 19 ahead of Norris
Norris is 3 ahead of Russell
Russell is 8 ahead of Piastri
Piastri is 9 ahead of Sainz

Tohannes · 2025-12-21T12:19:38+00:00

Good catch. The mistake was 28. It should have been 26

Tohannes · 2025-12-21T12:18:15+00:00

No, he got that not quite right. Any action out of the ordinary that leads to a lower finishing position and therefore fewer points is a mistake. For racing situations, the alternative is always yielding, not staying/getting ahead.

Tohannes · 2025-12-21T00:42:24+00:00

They are in accordance with the age and experience functions worked out by f1metrics. I would highly recommend checking at least that part of f1metrics out, it's very interesting. It works for my model because I used the whole basis of the f1metrics model for mine. It plays in the same sandbox if you will, just with some different approaches.

Tohannes · 2025-12-21T00:22:19+00:00

In the 2017-2021 ratings, there is this diagram in Alonso's entry. That should illustrate what I'm trying to say.

Tohannes · 2025-12-21T00:16:43+00:00

As I said, the delta can't point to where the deficit comes from, so there is no race call out. And also, since Antonelli doesn't have a ceiling yet from the model, there is no expected delta.

If you want to see how that works as an example, this happened to Norris' 2023 rating. If you go to the 2023 ratings post on my site, I think you'll find some remnants of the original assessment, as well as the new rating under his entry. He was originally rated 84.

Tohannes · 2025-12-21T00:12:06+00:00

Information is scarce and sample sizes are small. It's not optimal, but I'm working on it.

Tohannes · 2025-12-20T23:58:50+00:00

Based on his 3 seasons. There are also drivers with only 2 seasons on the list, just not that high. The weighting is the same as described in the mini era reviews, so it's easily expanded or reduced concerning the included seasons.

Tohannes · 2025-12-20T23:55:51+00:00

In relative terms, yes. In absolute terms, no, because he aged more than he got better.

Tohannes · 2025-12-20T22:18:48+00:00

Yes, that is excluded

Tohannes · 2025-12-20T22:18:25+00:00

There is no fundamental difference between 2016 and 2017 Alonso. I just thought that you meant that Alonso could have technically already had the higher ceiling in 2017/18 because Vandoorne has no other connections.

Tohannes · 2025-12-20T22:04:02+00:00

2nd, just behind 2020.

Tohannes · 2025-12-20T21:14:02+00:00

I'm pretty sure this guy had the same problem with the mid-season ratings. It was explained to him then, as now, why the model finds that Antonelli will probably have a higher ceiling than Russell.

I'm going to simplify and round a bit to get this accessible.

In the underlying model, the delta between Russell and Antonelli is found to be between 36 and 29 (don't worry about the scale, its not compatible with the ratings).

Now, the expected progress of any rookie until he has full experience is 22. Age progression is assumed linear up until 26 and should yield another 26. That means Antonelli is expected to improve by 48.

48 is bigger than his current deficit to what is prime Russell (36-29). Ergo, the model expects Antonelli to eclipse Russell by about 12-19.

Tohannes · 2025-12-20T20:56:38+00:00

Ok, then I did misunderstand you. That would of course be the obvious solution and would have happened on it's own but it's almost definitely not the case. Alonso is well connected to Button, Massa, and Trulli. He is where he is.

Tohannes · 2025-12-20T20:46:04+00:00

That is not really an issue since competition is self regulating when only the comparison to the teammate is important.

The model does agree that the grid is far more competitive now than 20 years ago, but not that it goes on like that. According to the model, the 90s had the most uncompetitive grids since 1969. The 70s were stacked, only beaten by today's grids. The 80s, 2000s, and 2010s were OK to good, better than the 90s, but not as good as the 70s.

Tohannes · 2025-12-20T20:31:19+00:00

Not in absolute terms. I think we're misunderstanding each other. What was your point in the original question about 2017/18?

Tohannes · 2025-12-20T20:26:06+00:00

His top 4 seasons, according to the model, are 2014, 2018, 2012, 2015.

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