1. Fernando Alonso (last week: 1st, no change) (Season high: 1st, low: 13th)
Fernando Alonso makes it a hat-trick of weeks atop the F1 Power Rankings after another imperious and flawless performance at the Circuit de Catalunya on Sunday, sending the home fans delirious. Ferrari read the tyre situation perfectly but Alonso himself made the difference in the opening stages with some simply outrageous overtaking, passing both Kimi Räikkönen and Lewis Hamilton around the outside of Turn 3 on the first lap, before dispatching Nico Rosberg shortly after the opening pitstop. His 32nd career win sees him take sole possession of 4th on the all-time win list.
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Alonso celebrates with the Spanish flag in front of his adoring fans
Source: Sutton Images
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2. Kimi Räikkönen (last week: 3rd, up one spot) (Season high: 2nd, low: 12th)
Räikkönen continued his solid and successful start to 2013 with an assured drive to second place. Just like Alonso, the Malaysian race remains the only anomaly to an otherwise outstanding start performance-wise from the Finn, who now has more podiums this season than any other driver. The Lotus, as in 2012, appears to be kinder on its tyres than the other cars and Räikkönen used this to good effect, making one stop less than his rivals. The main concern would be the departure of technical director James Allison: although that did not seem to affect Räikkönen in Barcelona, it will mainly be over the second half of the season where his absence could be felt as Lotus look to keep up in the development race and keep themselves in the mix at the front of the field.
3. Sebastian Vettel (last week: 2nd, down one spot) (Season high: 2nd, low: 4th)
The top three drivers in the championship have distanced themselves from the rest of the field and they retain the top three spots in the F1 Power Rankings, albeit in reverse order. Sebastian Vettel retains his championship lead although he was powerless in the battle against the Ferraris and Räikkönen in Spain. It has been a quiet three races for the triple-reigning champion after the Malaysian fireworks - exactly what Seb needed. RBR, however, seem more sensitive to the tyres than their rival teams - or, at the very least, they seem to lose out considerably more from the degradation levels relative to car performance.
4. Felipe Massa (last week: 11th, up seven spots) (Season high: 3rd, low: 11th)
After his horrific Bahrain race, Felipe Massa brilliantly bounced back to claim his first podium of the season and his fourth top six finish. Having been penalized three grid positions in qualifying for blocking, Massa recovered the lost ground in the opening two laps with an aggressive start. The steady rise up to the podium spots was earned through strategy although credit Massa for his performance, comfortably the best ‘#2’ team driver at the moment.
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| Spanish GP Podium Source: Getty Images |
No change for Paul di Resta after another fine display in the Force India. A steady start saw him retain his tail-end Q3 position but he had consistent pace throughout the race to finish just fractions behind Nico Rosberg in the battle for the highest Mercedes-powered finisher - a great position for FI to find themselves in. PDR is getting the job done.
6. Nico Rosberg (last week: 9th, up three spots) (Season high: 2nd, low: 12th)
A second successive pole for Rosberg which would normally almost guarantee you a victory around the Circuit de Catalunya but it wasn’t to be... For the second straight race, Rosberg saw himself falling down the order although he managed to limit his losses to a sixth-place finish, fending off a spirited charge from di Resta. On the bright side, he finally beat Hamilton on raceday which will give him massive relief more than anything else.
7. Charles Pic (last week: 7th, no change) (Season high: 7th, low: 19th)
I was so close to moving Charles Pic up one spot to P6 but felt Rosberg had done enough to leapfrog the Caterham driver. Pic was once again class of the Caterham/Marussia battle in the race, although he did find himself plum last on the grid. The young Frenchman finished within sight of Valtteri Bottas having completed an impressive final stint of twenty-five laps on these notorious Pirelli tyres.
8. Mark Webber (last week: 13th, up five spots) (Season high: 1st, low: 15th)
After floundering outside the top ten in the last two editions of F1 Power Rankings, Mark Webber is up to eighth after a fine drive to fifth place, having tumbled down the order on the opening lap, to record his best finish since the controversial Sepang race. However, the Aussie is already 47 points behind Vettel in the championship so he really needs to find the top step of the podium soon in order to maintain any hopes of winning the title.
9. Lewis Hamilton (last week: 4th, down one spot) (Season high: 3rd, low: 9th)
Hamilton slips to his lowest position in the F1 Power Rankings after a disastrous Sunday afternoon. His fall from a front row start was significantly worse than Rosberg, not even managing to maintain the position into turn 1, which set the tone for his afternoon. He found himself battling the horrendous 2013 Williams halfway through the race and eventually ended up twelfth after a miserable race in which he simply could not get a hold of the tyres. Perhaps worse for Hamilton is the fact Rosberg genuinely outpaced him when it mattered - in Q3 and in the race.
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| It's a stark contrast post-quali to post-race for Merc at the moment Source: AFP |
After a brilliant performance in Shanghai, Daniel Ricciardo slumped back down the standings last week, but he bounced back into the top ten with a superb performance to take the final championship point, just managing to hold off Esteban Gutiérrez. The Toro Rosso appears to have taken a step forward in pace, demonstrated by the team locking out row six on the grid. Ricciardo took full advantage, running inside the top ten for most of the afternoon, despite a poor start.
Note: The top ten was fairly easy to select this week, with drivers putting in performances that were a) significantly better than the rest of the field and/or b) a fair reflection of their season-to-date. From here on, it was a little more difficult to rank the drivers with several teams (McLaren, Williams, Sauber) all having closely matched drivers, the usual situation where retiring drivers were not able to display their ultimate pace (Romain Grosjean, Jean-Eric Vergne) and then Adrian Sutil, who finally had a strong performance but an early technical problem dropped him down the field. I could easily have ranked a fair few of them as equals but that would be too easy...
11. Jules Bianchi (last week: 12th, up one spot) (Season high: 6th, low: 12th)
It figures that having written the above paragraph it would be Jules Bianchi, of all the drivers, who wins ‘best of the rest’ this week. Bianchi’s solid start to his rookie campaign continued as he rebounded from a broken front wing on the opening lap to once again beat Max Chilton. Taking that into account, Bianchi finished a more than respectable distance behind both Bottas and Pic and the Nice-native will look to work his way back into the top ten in his home race next time out.
12. Sergio Pérez (last week: 8th, down four spots) (Season high: 8th, low: 17th)
Checo beats JB to P12 in the rankings thanks to team orders working against him in the race. I understand F1 is a team sport and accept team orders as part of it - the Mercedes tactics in Malaysia were a case point where Rosberg had nothing more realistically to achieve if he were to overtake Hamilton. In Barcelona, however, Sergio Pérez was on significantly fresher tyres than Jenson Button, Rosberg and di Resta, and there was a distinct possibility of him catching the sixth-place battle. A good weekend for Checo, making it into Q3 and scoring a couple of points.
13. Jenson Button (last week: 10th, down three spots) (Season high: 5th, low: 13th)
Button slips to his lowest position in the F1 Power Rankings this season after once again being outperformed by Pérez. Credit Button for his excellent recovery after a lousy qualifying and opening lap saw him slip to 17th and then for being able to make his Pirellis last. The team orders were not his fault but he should have been beaten by his team-mate.
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| After their Bahrain squabble, team orders were clearly enforced by McLaren even if denied by the team Source: RTE |
They were fourteen places apart last week in the rankings but it’s fourteenth position where they both find themselves in this week. Both drivers can consider themselves unlucky as they suffered technical problems at the exact same time early on during the race. Grosjean’s suspension damage proved fatal to his race and his very steady start to 2013 came to an unfortunate end. Sutil, meanwhile, encountered a pit-stop problem which dropped him to a distant last, having made a brilliant start, and he showed impressive speed to rebound to 13th. Both drivers, however, are being comprehensively outperformed by their respective team-mates.
16. Jean-Eric Vergne (last week: 19th, up three spots) (Season high: 7th, low: 19th)
JEV finds himself moving up the F1 Power Rankings despite his DNF. He was narrowly beaten by Ricciardo in qualifying and the gap actually widened between the two STR drivers in the race before Vergne found himself being driven into by Nico Hülkenberg in the pit lane. The incident eventually led to his retirement and JEV will be gutted not to have made the most of an improved-looking car.
17. Esteban Gutiérrez (last week: 22nd, up five spots) (Season high: 15th, low: 22nd)
And so we reach the ultra-hard Williams vs. Sauber battle to rank the drivers near the foot of the table... Let’s give Gutiérrez some credit for his performance on Sunday in Barcelona. Initially, he made it into Q2 but a penalty saw him drop to 19th on the grid but he managed to recover those lost places on the opening lap. Incredibly, he found himself leading the race during the opening round of pitstops for a couple of laps. Yes, the lack of field spread and the Pirelli tyres helped his cause but it was still by far and away his most composed performance and he was desperately unlucky not to end up with a championship point as he could not find a way past Ricciardo at the end of the race. Still, Esteban says 11th felt like a victory.
18. Pastor Maldonado (last week: 17th, down one spot) (Season high: 17th, low: 22nd)
What a difference a year makes. On the anniversary of driving his Williams to his maiden victory, Pastor Maldonado found himself languishing well outside the top ten for the whole weekend, as he has done all year long. Furthermore, he also appeared to nearly drive into the wrong pit box during the race and was penalized for speeding in the process of doing so. However, despite all this, he still managed to beat Valtteri Bottas and he finally moves above his team-mate in the rankings
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| Remember this? What a difference a year makes... Source: AP |
A horrible weekend for The Hulk. The car was slow and then, to compound things, he was released far too early from his pitstop and crashed into Vergne. Hülkenberg is obviously not to blame for the release but surely he could have braked in time to avoid the STR? The inevitable penalty that followed finished off any hope of scoring a point and, for the first time this season, was outshone by Gutiérrez. 19th might be harsh but his season really is that bad.
20. Valtteri Bottas (last week: 16th, down four spots) (Season high: 11th, low: 20th)
Bottas finds himself slipping down to his lowest ranking of the season and mainly down to the reasons expressed in the Maldonado entry. By the end of the race, he was coming under pressure from Pic, and that says it all about the 2013 Williams.
21. Giedo van der Garde (last week: 21st, no change) (Season high: 20th, low: 21st)
VDG ran into trouble for the second race running as his wheel fell of the car shortly after his pitstop. However, up until that point, he was having an impressive weekend; he won the Caterham-Marussia qualifying battle and found himself racing with Button and the Williams until his untimely demise. Pic drove superbly to maximize tyre performance so it would have been interesting to see whether Giedo could have done the same. Alas, it’s no change this week, unfortunately.
22. Max Chilton (last week: 18th, down four spots) (Season high: 18th, low: 22nd)
Another clean weekend for Chilton but he slips from his best ever ranking to his worst as he now props up the rankings. He falls below fellow rookie backmarker van der Garde as the latter finally showed some sparkle in his debut campaign. Chilton will hope the run of European tracks will give him the chance to show his pace on familiar territories. He can feel slightly hard done by in this 22nd position, but the same can be said of so many other drivers who have fallen into the bottom third of the rankings.
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