Now the F1 2024 summer break is here, it’s time to look at the report cards of the drivers as they get set for their holidays.
Some have performed better than others this year, and while we have Power Rankings to look at each driver’s average post-race rating for the year, here we’re going to look at the drivers we believe haven’t made it into the top 10 for the best of 2024 so far – and will be grading them from A to F, though of course, there is still plenty of time for things to change before the full season is completed.
F1 2024: Grading our 10 worst-performing drivers of the season so far
Pierre Gasly
A harsh inclusion to be among the ‘worst’, absolutely, but Pierre Gasly is here more for the fact there isn’t room in the top 10 as much as anything else.
A slow start to the year for Alpine meant that he and Esteban Ocon have been hamstrung by their machinery, but for both drivers, more often than not, they have done what they can to get the most out of it.
Esteban Ocon
Again, like Gasly, another driver where there is not room among our top 10 rather than putting him among the true worst – though incidents such as in Monaco, where he collided with his team-mate’s wheel which sent him flying, did not help matters.
There have been some fine drives in there, not least in Belgium last time out, with some strong overtakes to make his way into the points, and the 9-5 and 10-4 race and qualifying head-to-head leads over Gasly cannot be overstated either, but for that moment of Monaco hot-headedness, that’s what keeps him outside our top 10.
Alex Albon
Shall we do a similar assessment to the first two drivers here?
Again, Albon could be a contender for the top 10 in other circumstances, keeping hold of his perfect record in Grand Prix qualifying against Logan Sargeant (though the American has now broken that stranglehold in Sprint qualifying), but he’s been edged out for the best of 2024 so far by other candidates here.
Lance Stroll
Now, Lance Stroll has managed to close the gap to Fernando Alonso this season, but that gap was pretty sizeable last year.
He sits on around half his team-mate’s total of points at the summer break stage now, with a fine P6 in Australia and P7 finishes in Canada and Silverstone to go with it, but while Alonso has certainly had his off-weekends this year, the two-time World Champion still comfortably leads both qualifying and race head-to-heads 9-5.
Valtteri Bottas
Bottom of the Drivers’ Championship, Bottas actually features among the lowest scorers on the average driver ratings for the year, with plenty of weekends which could be best described as ‘anonymous’ in a Sauber which has not looked up to scratch at plenty of circuits, with pit-stop issues plaguing the team early in the year to boot.
To the head-to-heads we go, then, and with the Finn 9-5 ahead in races and 13-1 ahead in qualifying, there’s arguably not too much more he can be doing over Zhou Guanyu – but like both Alpine drivers, he’s slightly hamstrung by the car underneath him.
Daniel Ricciardo
A lack of consistency has been the Honey Badger’s problem this year, as the man himself has admitted, and while he has had glimpses of some excellent highs, like a P4 finish in the Sprint in Miami, his team-mate has been the one to be the more consistent finisher so far this year.
While there has been a positive upward trend of late, with three points finishes in the last six races, looking at the season as a whole, Tsunoda is the one to still have the upper hand within VCARB.
He’s staying where he is after the summer break, though, so has more chances to impress for a seat next year.
Zhou Guanyu
As we mentioned with Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu has not had a regular points-scoring car underneath him so far this season and, to his credit, thanks to his P11 finish in Bahrain, he sits above his team-mate in the Drivers’ standings.
He is looking to put himself in the shop window for a seat for next season, with his current team and his former junior employers Alpine the most viable options remaining, and if he is to remain in the sport, he will need to start finishing ahead of an experienced multiple race-winner like Bottas on a regular basis to prove his worth.
Kevin Magnussen
It’s not as though Kevin Magnussen has driven badly this season per se, it’s just that his team-mate has driven so well in the sister Haas that the team’s decision to part ways at the end of the season seems to make sense.
A return to Team Enstone or even a move to Sauber to partner up with Hulkenberg for an immediate reunion would be his most likely course of action to stay on the grid beyond the end of the year, but given how he has talked up the life away from Formula 1 on multiple occasions this season, if he does not stick around, he may not see it as the end of the world either.
Sergio Perez
After a bright start to the season, the wheels appeared to come off for Sergio Perez quite quickly regarding a World Championship challenge.
The story of whether or not he would retain his seat beyond the summer break is well-told by now, but the fact it was even a topic of conversation in the first place shows just how starkly things dropped off for him.
He went from four podiums in the first five races to none in the last nine, not out-qualifying or out-racing Max Verstappen at all this season (the only time coming when the Dutchman retired in Australia), in one of the most one-sided battles on the grid.
Everyone knows how strong a driver Perez can be, and the good news for him is he has time to turn things around, and he needs to grab that opportunity with both hands.
Logan Sargeant
To take a moment for Logan Sargeant here, having your team principal publicly courting another driver in Carlos Sainz while you’re still driving for your Formula 1 career is unlikely to do your confidence any favours while on track, and he batted away those questions admirably before the Spaniard was announced.
However, the fact of the matter remains that, while he has improved on last year’s performance, he has simply not been close enough to Alex Albon on a regular basis to warrant keeping his Williams seat beyond the end of the year, and barring a huge upturn in form after summer, his driving future is likely to lie elsewhere.
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