2018 Driver Ratings & Report Cards

The Report Cards also compare stats of teammates which provides the ultimate measure of really where a driver stands, using the universally accepted, albeit unwritten, rule: beat your teammate first! Some were trounced while others were close, with some surprises too.

We also threw in some choice driver quotes which sort of sum up their seasons.

It's not easy for a four-time world champion to top his previous accomplishments, but Lewis Hamilton did exactly that in 2018. Not only did he see off the challenge of Sebastian Vettel in taking title number five, but he did it while leaving no doubt that regardless of machinery, he is the best driver on the grid. Sure, he benefitted from some Ferrari/Vettel missteps, but when it mattered most, he simply found another level, and that more than anything proved the difference.

For a driver who once harboured so much promise, it's fair to say 2018 was a disappointment for Valtteri Bottas. Even if his zero wins on the season is a misleading stat given lost victories in Azerbaijan and Russia, his eight podiums in 21 races and P5 championship finish aren't, and they paint the picture of a driver who is struggling to earn his keep, even if it's only as Mercedes' number two driver. Hopefully Bottas can find his mojo again in 2019, but if he doesn't, he might find himself pushed out of a very crowded Mercedes driver stable.

He may have managed to finish the season on a high with his win in Austin, but I still can't help but be a little disappointed by Raikkonen's 2018. Make no mistake, he deserves full credit for closing some of the gap between himself and Sebastian Vettel, but there was still never any doubt the Finn was Ferrari's no. 2 driver, and even in that role he could've reasonably achieved more than a solitary victory. Too often he was toothless on Sundays, and when your team has a young, hungry, potential superstar waiting in the wings and championship ambitions, that simply doesn't cut it.

This is a tough one to grade, because on one hand, taking five wins off Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes is no easy feat, but then again, there's a reasonable case to be made we should be talking about Vettel as our 2018 world champion. Indeed, his wins in Canada, Great Britain and Belgium were all mightily impressive, and when "on it" the German looked every much like a legitimate threat to Hamilton, but too often he shot himself in the foot with untimely mistakes and losses of composure.

The fact that he finished with the same amount of wins as teammate Max Verstappen and still finished 70 points behind tells you just about all you need to know about Ricciardo's 2018 season. Winning twice in China and Monaco, Ricciardo could hardly have started the season any better, but the problems with his car and engine never went away, and by season's end even his usual happy-go-lucky demeanour couldn't hide the frustration of what turned out to be another lost season. That said, not all the blame for his 2018 can be placed on Red Bull/Renault, as he consistently couldn't match Verstappen for raw pace, and didn't help his Sunday performances with some very mediocre starts. In any case, it will be interesting to see how he adjusts to his new digs at Renault, and whether the French outfit can more consistently get the best out of him.

About as stark a contrast in beginning and end to the season as you could possibly get, Verstappen's stock took a serious hit in the season's early stages with multiple costly mistakes, yet after several strong performances to finish the season, he ends 2018 as highly-regarded as ever. Collecting wins in Austria and Mexico (with a near-miss in Brazil), five podiums in his last five races,

and the measure of Daniel Ricciardo, the 21-year-old has proved himself to be everything Red Bull had hoped for when he signed with their junior team in 2014, and it really does seem like a matter of "when", not "if" he will win a world championship. However, "if" that's to be soon, he'll need to manage his temperament better than he did in 2018, otherwise a driver like Lewis Hamilton will punish him for it – just ask Sebastian Vettel.

The most boring man in Formula 1, Nico Hulkenberg does nothing but bring home the points, and 2018 was no different. Others may grab headlines, or have their ups and downs, but the German simply puts in solid performances week after week, and this year that was good enough to make him the class of the midfield. Also full credit for withstanding a stiff challenge from teammate Carlos Sainz – it should be very interesting to see how he matches up against Daniel Ricciardo next year.

Now over a year removed from the Red Bull stable, Sainz has started to make his own way in F1, with 2018 being a good, yet not quite great start. On raw pace he was certainly close to teammate Nico Hulkenberg, but his efforts on Sundays weren't quite as impressive, especially considering he had 5 less DNFs to his name. Still, there's no denying the 24-year-old remains one of F1's brightest young talents – let's just hope it doesn't go to waste at McLaren next year.

When the most noteworthy part of your season is crashing under the safety car, suffice to say it's probably not one of your best. Even setting aside that incident in Baku, 2018 marked the first year Grosjean was out-pointed by a teammate since 2013, and that was in large part due to the Frenchman being a non-factor through the first eight races of the season. To his credit, he was consistently strong in qualifying and picked things up with his race performances as the season went on, but if he wants to keep his reputation as one of the better midfield drivers, he can't throw away nearly 40% of the season.

Arguably the most quotable driver on the grid, Magnussen showed in 2018 he's not too shabby behind the wheel either. Beaten only by Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg in the midfield, the 26-year-old quietly put together his best campaign yet, never going more than two races without a top-10 finish, and generally doing what was needed to bring home points for his team. No, he's still not quite the world-beater he was once purported to be, but he seems to have found his spot on the grid, and that's more than most expected of him a few short years ago.

What happened to Amelia Earhart? Who killed JFK? Is Bernie Ecclestone immortal? All great mysteries, and now we can add Stoffel Vandoorne's F1 career to that list. After all his success in the junior formulae, much was expected of the Belgian, but come the end of 2018, the only thing he'd succeeded at was becoming Fernando Alonso's punching bag. Maybe the team's struggles and the pressure of matching up with Alonso affected him more than he let on, but in losing 21-0 to his teammate in qualifying, and going 14 straight races without scoring, he simply didn't look like the same driver McLaren once moved mountains to make room for. Maybe the talent is still there somewhere, but for a team that values performance as much as potential, McLaren seem to have made the right choice to let him go.

Perhaps the hardest driver to grade on the grid, how do you assess another lost year for Fernando Alonso? Instead of competing for one more championship, the Spaniard spent his final F1 season saddled with a middling car that got worse as the season went on, and that meant his talents remained very much underutilised. Still, it's a serious credit to him that he managed to best both a Haas (Romain Grosjean) and Force India (Esteban Ocon) driver in the championship – not to mention absolutely smoking teammate Vandoorne in the H2H – but P11 will do nothing to fill his trophy case. He deserved more.

Long a controversial figure at Sauber for his ability to outlast seemingly more-talented drivers, his run with the team came to an end in 2018, but oddly enough, not before giving his reputation a significant boost with his best season yet. Sure, against teammate Charles Leclerc his stats don't look too good – 4-17 in qualifying, 3-9 in races – but that's why the Frenchman is widely regarded as a future world champion, and by consistently hovering around the top-10, Ericsson showed this year an ability to be a solid, if unspectacular F1 driver. Don't be surprised if the next time a team's finances slide into the red, the Swede is the first driver they call.

The undisputed breakout star of 2018, it's hard to see what more Leclerc could've done to impress in his debut F1 season. Comfortably ahead of teammate Marcus Ericsson, the 21-year-old often managed to put his car further up the grid than it realistically belonged, with three straight P7s to finish the season further attesting to his quality. Unsurprisingly, Ferrari wasted no time promoting him to their senior team, where all signs point to him being a legitimate threat to four-time champion Sebastian Vettel.

Proof that points aren't always as indicative of overall performance as we'd like them to be, Ocon enjoyed a very good 2018, even if the standings don't necessarily show it. Beaten by Sergio Perez in the 2017 H2H, the Frenchman was able to decisively turn the tables this year, consistently having the measure of his teammate, even if he never got a stand-out result on Sundays, with four P6's being the best he could muster. If there's any knock against him, it's that there still tend to be the occasional moments of ill-discipline -- most notably punting off Max Verstappen in Brazil -- but in any case, there's no doubting the 22-year-old made some significant strides this year, and that makes his loss from the 2019 grid all the more difficult to stomach.

Another year, another out-of-nowhere podium for Sergio Perez, what more could you want? In all seriousness, 2018 was another solid year for the Mexican, albeit one that started slowly – including his P3 in Baku, Perez scored only twice in the first eight races, but then finished the season with 10 top-10s in his last 13. Considering the turmoil around Force India, he could hardly have picked a better time to lift his game, and while he may not possess the outright pace of his teammate, there's no doubting he provides as much value on-track as he does off of it.

A surprise inclusion in the Toro Rosso lineup for the end of the 2017 season, Hartley was always walking a particularly fraught tightrope, and it seems that after 2018, that act has come to an end. The former Le Mans winner was just never able to find the pace to cement his spot in F1, and while there's no denying he bore the brunt of the Honda engine's issues, it doesn't excuse the fact that teammate Pierre Gasly scored more than seven times the points with the same equipment, while dominating in all the head-to-head categories (15-6 in qualifying, 7-4 in races). Unsurprisingly his team have opted for new blood in 2019 and barring a miracle reprieve, it looks like his time as an F1 driver is over.

Set to move up to the big time with Red Bull in 2019, the jury is still out on whether Gasly can be a top-shelf driver, but in 2018, he at least he did nothing to dissuade that notion. Outdoing Brendon Hartley across the board, there's no doubt he was the superior driver at Toro Rosso, but that said, Honda's decision to use 2018 as essentially a testing year, meant that amongst the wider field, he often went unnoticed. Still, if his raw pace carries over to his new team, and he can have more races like Bahrain – P6 in qualy, P4 in the race – there's every reason to hope he can be more than just Max Verstappen's sidekick.

The nicest thing that can be said about Sirotkin's lone season in F1 is that it wasn't quite

Enduring a largely underwhelming rookie season, the hope for Lance Stroll was that 2018 would mark a significant step forward in his development – unfortunately, that didn't turn out to be the case. How much of that can be put down to the quality of his car remains to be seen, but he failed to separate himself from rookie teammate Sergey Sirotkin in any meaningful way, trailing 8-13 in qualifying H2H, while edging the race performances 9-8. If he is to eventually shed the "pay driver" tag, he'll have to do much better in 2019, lest he ends up dominated by new Racing Point teammate Sergio Perez.