1. Kimi Räikkönen
The #1 ranked driver won’t always be the man who won the
most previous race or is leading the championship but, after just once race, it
is difficult not to rank Kimi Räikkönen top of the pile. The Lotus team were
lurking in free practice – with Romain Grosjean topping the dry/wet FP3 – but they
saw themselves shuffled back to row four in the chaotic qualifying session.
However, Räikkönen turned it on in the race and drove perfectly with Lotus
nailing the strategy. His fastest lap in the dying stages was the icing on the
cake. His 20th career win ties him with Mika Hakkinen (14th
all-time).
2. Fernando Alonso & 3. Felipe Massa
It was a close-call between Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa
for this runner-up spot. Massa out-qualified his more illustrious teammate and
seemed to have the measure of him through the first third of the race before
Alonso called his strategy switch which left the Brazilian in a no-man’s land
type position. Alonso was his usual imperious self and strangled the most out
of the car and it will please him greatly to beat the Red Bulls. Massa almost
seemed to lose confidence after the strategy change and faded in the closing
stages, the 21-second gap by the end of the race gives Fernando the edge in
these rankings. Their excellent fast-starts remain from 2012 and Fernando’s
avoidance of Lewis Hamilton when the latter outbraked himself again demonstrated
his extreme skill behind the wheel.
4. Sebastian Vettel
Ranking Vettel was difficult. On the one hand, his dominant
pole position and strong Friday pace suggested that 2013 was threatening to be
a walkover 2011-style but then the sparks seemed to fizzle out during the race.
The car never seemed to be the quickest on the track, tailed by the Ferraris in
the early stages before eventually dropping to third. Vettel again silenced any
doubters about his overtaking potential and, let’s face it, while this might
all sound negative, he still finished on the podium!
5. Adrian Sutil
Sutil could easily have been placed as high as fourth, especially
bearing in mind how he was able to pull away from Vettel and co. during the
middle of the race whilst on older tyres. Brief moments of race rustiness
aside, it was an excellent performance from Sutil, who was unlucky to drop out
of the top five towards the end of the race as his tyres fell apart. Vijay
Mallya and his team will feel vindicated over their controversial decision to
re-hire their former driver.
6. Lewis Hamilton
Fantastic weekend for Hamilton. Mercedes seemed unsure of
their true potential during preseason testing but they came alive during the
weather-affected qualifying session. Lewis got the crucial edge on Nico Rosberg
in quali and comfortably had the better of him through the race. Perhaps most
importantly, it is evident that Lewis is enjoying himself behind the wheel and
he is continuing this re-invigorated form that we have seen from him since the
announcement that he was leaving McLaren, and the fact he finished leap years
ahead of his former team will have not escaped his attention.
7. Jean-Eric Vergne
Vergne is the main ‘winner’ in this first edition of F1
Power Rankings. His 12th-placed finish in the Toro Rosso is rewarded
with 7th in these rankings. JEV was excellent in qualifying and
missed out on Q3 by virtue of being caught out on the wrong tyres – arguably
the only blemish in his weekend performance, inexperience can no longer be an
excuse. Regardless, Vergne still outqualified his Aussie teammate and ran
strongly in the race, always around 8th-13th, mixing it
with the McLarens, Webber and Grosjean. A surprisingly high number of finishers
kept Vergne from the points but a lead lap finish is a good foundation for
2013.
8. Nico Rosberg
It’s a whole weekend of ‘ifs-and-buts’ for Rosberg.
Brilliant in the wet Q1 and also in Q2 but faded in the drier Q3 and fell
behind Hamilton. Was running comfortably in the top 5 when his car failed but
he will be more disgruntled at the fact he was beaten by Lewis. It is always difficult
to rank a driver who doesn’t finish because you can never predict what would
have happened but Rosberg earns 8th thanks to his aforementioned
wet-weather heroics and the fact that he comfortably had the measure of anyone
below him in these rankings in the race.
9. Paul di Resta
Difficult to know what to make of di Resta’s weekend;
quicker than Sutil in qualifying, comfortably put in the shade by the German in
the race but only finished three second behind him. No doubt that Sutil’s
strong pace was strategy-based thanks to qualifying outside the top ten and Di
Resta says he was also held up by Jenson Button. It’s a long season but Paul
simply has to beat Sutil if he is to stand any chance of earning a drive at a
top team.
10. Jules Bianchi
A Marussia in the top 10?! Indeed. It is never easy to
decipher how well the ‘backmarkers’ have performed but Bianchi was in a
class-of-one amongst them. The French rookie thrashed his tail-end
contemporaries in the wet Q1 before only finishing one lap down to Räikkönen. It
is easy to see why he is part of the Ferrari academy and following the route of
Alonso and Webber before him is a distinct possibility. However, keeping feet
on ground, it is just one race and Bianchi will now be the target for both
teammate Max Chilton and Caterham.
11. Mark Webber
Another race goes by where it seems like if there’s any bad
luck going around the Red Bull garage, it falls on the #2 side of it. An early
KERS issue meant Webber struggled at the start, which in turn compromised him
for the rest of the race. In the end, he methodically made his way back up to
sixth – not far off Hamilton. He might be seven places behind Vettel in these
rankings but he is still only seven points behind his triple-World-Champ
teammate, and he should be into the top-10 after Malaysia.
=12. Romain Grosjean, Jenson Button, Sergio Perez
It was simply impossible to separate this trio of drivers in
the rankings, but for different reasons. Grosjean helped Lotus bookend a top-10
and was sandwiched between the McLarens. The Frenchman struggled with his
set-up after he only received newer parts on Saturday, while Räikkönen had them
on Friday. That said, he had a poor start, just like Webber, but was unable to
gain as much ground back as the Aussie. It’s likely he would have found the one
second needed to beat Button over 58 laps had he been able to set the car up
properly. However, when you ponder if he would have been in Räikkönen position
all things being equal, you tend to think it unlikely.
Button, meanwhile, seemed to get the most out of the McLaren,
capping off an all-round disappointing opening weekend for McLaren. Not much to
report for JB; didn’t make any mistakes and earned two points through reliability
and a stroke of luck with Grosjean’s issues. The two McLarens were split by
less than two seconds at the end of the race, which probably shows Perez had
the stronger race, after starting a lowly 15th. Button made the
right call on tyres in quali to make it into Q3 while Checo had the better race
tyre-strategy and that meant they ended up pretty even after 58 laps.
15. Nico Hülkenberg
The most difficult man to place in the rankings – how do you
even rank a driver who didn’t start the race?! It’s a desperate case of “what
might have been” for Nico: an 11th-place qualifying effort would
have seen him likely adopt the counter-strategy that worked so beautifully for
Sutil. But there’s no guarantee and he could easily have found himself in the Turn
1 gravel trap instead, such is racing in Melbourne. As expected, he comfortably
had the measure of his rookie teammate, Esteban Gutierrez, and will likely be
the lone Sauber challenger against the Force Indias and the McLarens in the
next few races at least.
16. Valtteri Bottas & 17. Esteban Gutierrez
Two men who put in solid, if quiet, drives on their debut;
Bottas was the dictionary definition of mid-table mediocrity this weekend,
qualified 16th and finished 14th, while Gutierrez went
from 18th to 13th. Bottas outperformed his more
experienced teammate Pastor Maldonado while Gutierrez recovered well from his
disappointing qualifying. The Williams has not been as good as hoped and Bottas
could find it difficult to keep up with the main midfield pack while Gutierrez
will need to focus on his own results and avoid getting rattled by Hülkenberg.
Bottas edges 16th in the rankings as he beat his team-mate.
18. Daniel Ricciardo
A disappointing home race for Ricciardo; outqualified by
Vergne and then found himself on the grass on the outside of Turn 1 and
slipping to dead last before a broken exhaust ended his day prematurely. One to
forget.
19. Charles Pic
Incredibly, with one season of F1 under his belt, Pic is now
the elder-statesman at the rear of the field (not literally, though, only
Chilton is actually younger than him out of the four). However, he was
well-and-truly beaten by Bianchi and even lost out to Giedo van der Garde in
qualifying. Pic was easily the lead Caterham in the race but it will be
worrying for the team that they seemed to have slipped behind Marussia –
despite earning the extra money for edging their arch-rivals to tenth in the
constructors last season.
20. Max Chilton
The youngest Brit on the grid damaged his front wing early
on but rebounded to avoid finishing last on his debut. Bianchi has a lot more
experience in an F1 car so the early margin between the two drivers is perhaps
not a great surprise but he will be expected to narrow the gap as the season
goes on.
21. Giedo van der Garde
VDG is in a similar position to Chilton, in that it is
probably expected that they will be outperformed by their teammate in the early
stages of the season (at least). Caterham appear to have the slowest car at the
moment and it will not be an easy season for the 27-year-old Dutchman.
22. Pastor Maldonado
Outqualified by Bottas before making a basic error in the
race. Who’s the rookie in the team again?
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