Who are the top performers on the 2024 Formula 1 grid, and who have struggled, as the sport breaks for summer? Read on for our scores and then rate the grid yourself in our new F1 driver rater
Thursday 1 August 2024 07:49, UK
Fourteen races, eight podium finishers, seven winners and four pole-sitters - the increasingly competitive and unpredictable 2024 Formula 1 season is certainly not turning into the campaign most had envisaged back in March.
So who have been the grid's top performers so far? With the sport now on its annual four-week break, it's certainly a good time to take stock of who is starring and who is struggling ahead of the season resumption at the Dutch Grand Prix on August 23-25.
And we want your say too! Read on for the Sky Sports Digital team's assessment and ratings for the 20-driver grid so far and use the rater tool below to give each of the field - plus their teams - your own mark out of 10.
So running through the grid in current Drivers' Championship order, we have...
Qualifying vs team-mate: 14-0 / Points vs team-mate: 277-131
After continuing one of the most dominant periods in F1 history at the start of this season, the Dutchman has finally found himself being challenged again. He initially responded superbly to grind out wins in Canada and Spain when he didn't have the fastest car but has shown signs of stress in recent weeks.
Despite having gone four races without a victory for the first time since 2020, Verstappen's driving has generally remained at a superb level and he would have been in with a strong chance of victory in Belgium if it weren't for a grid penalty. The defence against Lando Norris that he was penalised for in Austria and some questionable conduct over team radio in Hungary revealed that some small chinks do remain in his mighty armour.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 12-2 / Points vs team-mate: 199-167
After claiming his maiden F1 victory in style at the Miami Grand Prix in May, Norris looked set to establish his status as the sport's next superstar. He maintained strong form in the weeks that followed and could be given the benefit of the doubt after narrowly missing out on wins in Imola, Canada and Spain.
It would also be harsh to blame him for the collision with Verstappen in Austria that almost denied him victory, but a series of errors by driver and team have followed in the three races since. The 24-year-old has shown that he is not yet ready to deliver his best on a weekly basis.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 8-5* / Points vs team-mate: 177-162
He finally secured the victory he had always craved by brilliantly winning his home Monaco Grand Prix in May, but Ferrari's middling form since has made it a more frustrating season for Leclerc than he would have hoped after the team's promising start.
What he will hope proves the nadir of his season came in three of the four races that followed his home triumph - Canada, Austria and Silverstone - when he failed to score points, although he went into the break on the back of a fourth in Budapest and then a return to the podium at Spa. He may still make more notable major errors than Sainz, such as crashing in Hungary practice, but continues to hold a small edge over his team-mate in both their qualifying and race head-to-heads ahead of Lewis Hamilton's arrival next year.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 2-12 / Points vs team-mate: 167-199
Having struggled in the early stages of the season before McLaren got their act together, the Australian has shown major signs of progress over the last couple of months.
He was knocking on the door for a maiden grand prix win in Austria and Britain and was finally rewarded for his consistency in Hungary, albeit in unwantedly dramatic circumstances as Norris took an age to obey team orders. The biggest compliment you can pay Piastri is that it's not overly clear at this moment who McLaren would envisage being their number one driver in the years to come, even if the Australian would surely like to outqualify Norris more often than he currently does.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 5-8* / Points vs team-mate: 162-177
His 2025 plans are now finally confirmed, but Sainz admitted just days before at Spa that the long-running uncertainty about where he would be driving next was "not ideal" to ensure he was consistently performing at his best on track.
Not that this has been particularly evident in Sainz's form and results so far, particularly when you consider he was sidelined from the second round in Saudi Arabia with appendicitis. His winning comeback two weeks later in Australia was remarkable and he has visited the podium three more times since although, the Leclerc-dominated Monaco aside, contenting for more victories has not materialised amid Ferrari's slip in form.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 4-10 / Points vs team-mate: 150-116
The seven-time world champion's final campaign with Mercedes before his move to Ferrari has been strange for many reasons, but perhaps the biggest surprise has been seeing him dominated in qualifying by his team-mate.
It took Hamilton 10 races to claim his first podium of the season in Spain, but it's been a memorable summer since that moment, with an emotional record ninth victory at Silverstone to end a 56-race winless streak followed up by another superb drive to triumph in Belgium, albeit after Russell was disqualified.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 0-14 / Points vs team-mate: 131-277
After a strong start to the season that saw him finish the first six races in the top five, including four podium finishes, Perez has fallen apart spectacularly. In the eight races that have followed, he has reached Q3 just twice and failed to finish higher than seventh.
Red Bull tried to relieve some of the pressure on Perez by giving him a two-year contract extension in early June, but his qualifying performances, in particular, have been dismal with errors plaguing him. His race-day at Spa, when he went from a much-needed second on the grid to a depressing eighth at the flag, had briefly looked like it might be the final straw for Red Bull but he's again earned a reprieve and will return, in what the team urgently need to be in stronger form with McLaren piling on the pressure in the Constructors' Championship, at Zandvoort.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 10-4 / Points vs team-mate: 116-150
Amid a lot of noise about the possible identity of his next team-mate, Russell has put together a campaign that suggests he is capable of leading Mercedes into their post-Lewis Hamilton era.
His qualifying form has been superb, bettering Hamilton by 10-4 in their head-to-head. He was guilty of letting an opportunity for victory slip away in Canada but bounced back by taking an opportunistic win in Austria, before being extremely unfortunate to have victory taken away from him by disqualification in Belgium. That DQ and a water leak at Silverstone have skewed his position in the standings.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 9-5 / Points vs team-mate: 49-24
After the podium highs and feel-good factor of last year, this has not been the season that either Aston Martin or their star driver would have envisaged so far. The frustration has shown at certain moments but Alonso, to his credit, has continued to hustle a difficult car into the top 10 more often than not. Indeed, he was particularly opportunistic when the AMR24 was a slightly more competitive proposition back at the start of the season to qualify highly and then hang on to reasonable race results.
Alonso's 9-5 qualifying lead over the much-maligned Stroll is not as emphatic as it was last year, and there have been a few uncharacteristic mistakes along the way too, particularly at Imola and Austria, but the fact the two-time champion, who turned 43 on Monday, has again scored around 70 per cent of their points so far underlines his evergreen value to them.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 5-9 / Points vs team-mate: 24-49
Stronger qualifying performances have allowed Stroll to often be a little further up the grid so far in 2024 than he often was with a more competitive car last year, as his improved head-to-head against Alonso in this area underlines.
Stroll's two-time champion team-mate continues to deliver the majority of the points though and with greater regularity, with Stroll delivering his best weekends in Melbourne to finish sixth and then on home soil in Montreal, when was seventh. Consistency, as ever, remains an obvious area for improvement though up against a competitor like Alonso and in a car that doesn't guarantee a solid haul of points every week.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 11-3 / Points vs team-mate: 22-5
It's arguable that Nico Hulkenberg's stock in F1 has never been higher. He continues to qualify and finish regularly in the top 10 for Haas, has a Sauber deal in his pocket from 2025 ahead of their transformation into the Audi works team, and is very much back as a consistent factor on the grid approaching his 37th birthday after a few years operating as a 'super-sub'.
Back-to-back sixth-place finishes in Austria and Silverstone are Hulkenberg's impressive season highlights so far and, impressively, mean he is ahead of both RB drivers in the championship at the summer break.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 9-5 / Points vs team-mate: 22-12
Still not seemingly ever in serious contention for a Red Bull promotion, yet Tsunoda's evolution into a more rounded and consistent driver has continued in 2024 despite the presence of an eight-time race winner across the RB garage.
Although the gaps have closed between the two drivers recently, Tsunoda can be pleased to be leading Ricciardo 9-5 in their qualifying head-to-head and be 10 points ahead in the standings. A Miami weekend when he scored points in both the Sprint and the Grand Prix, finishing seventh in the latter, was a particular standout performance.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 5-9 / Points vs team-mate: 12-22
The good news for Daniel Ricciardo is his 2024 has got better as it has gone along and that improvement has taken away any immediate threat, for now at least, to his position at RB.
He still doesn't have a contract for next year though and will now look to build on the form that outqualify Tsunoda in three of the four races before the summer break if he is to show that the 'old Ricciardo' is still around somewhere.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 4-10 / Points vs team-mate: 6-5
Amid the turmoil, uncertainty and general underperformance that has sent Alpine spiralling down the grid, Gasly scored six of their meagre haul of 11 points in a run of four races from Monaco to Silverstone and, like team-mate Esteban Ocon, has had to make do with scraps left on offer from the quicker teams on certain race weekends.
Unlike last year, Ocon comfortably leads the qualifying head-to-head over Gasly, although the lap time gaps are regularly close, with the latter finishing the first phase of the season with a hat-trick of frustrating races.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 3-10 / Points vs team-mate: 5-22
Magnussen's chances of extending his second stint at Haas into a fourth year have ultimately been undone by his form over the past 18 months against Hulkenberg, with the Dane not doing quite enough to make a compelling case for another year at the expense of either the incoming Oliver Bearman or Ocon.
As in 2023, Hulkenberg's superior qualifying positions have ultimately made much of the difference, with Magnussen's two points-scoring results in Japan and Austria also coming as the second car in the Haas finishing order. Still, he remains impressively committed to the Haas cause as evidenced by his entertaining, albeit robust - make that overly robust in the eyes of the stewards - defence against Hamilton in the Miami Sprint to try and help his team-mate ahead out.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 10-4 / Points vs team-mate: 5-6
The villain in the piece in Monaco when he collided with Gasly on the race's opening lap when both Alpines were running in the points, Ocon has otherwise performed strongly in difficult circumstances in what will be his final season at Enstone before a winter move to Haas.
Ocon was the quicker driver when the 2024 Alpine was at its worst in the season's opening rounds, taking a 5-0 lead in qualifying and delivering the team its first two Q2 appearances of the year. After 10th-place finishes in Miami, Canada and Spain, Ocon signed off for the summer break with an impressive weekend in Belgium via what became a season-best ninth.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 13-0** / Points vs team-mate: 4-0
Williams' form so far this year means Albon's season has at least not yet proved to be quite as eye-catching as last year, but he clearly remains the driver at the team most likely to deliver them crucial points finish. Indeed, that fact was underlined by the team's decision back at April's Australian GP to bench Logan Sargeant for the remainder of that Melbourne weekend so Albon could race their one-undamaged car, despite the latter being the one who crashed his one in practice.
A pair of ninth-placed finishes in Monaco and at Silverstone have provided 100 per cent of the team's points so far and keep them off the bottom of the Constructors' Championship ahead of Sauber.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 1-13 / Points vs team-mate: 0-0
In a year when he is fighting for his F1 future, Zhou's form in his Sauber head-to-head with Bottas certainly hasn't aided his case for either a contract renewal or the chance of being picked up elsewhere.
Neither Sauber driver, of course, has been helped at all by the team's wildly-disappointing car and the situation behind the scenes which has now seen the leaders of their transition into Audi for 2026 replaced by Mattia Binotto. Zhou has suffered some misfortune, although he has been clearly the second-quickest Sauber driver this year. He did, however, record their best race finish of the year with 11th at the Bahrain season-opener, which means he is classified ahead of Bottas on zero points in the standings.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 13-0** / Points vs team-mate: 0-4
Williams have, at least so far, stuck with Sargeant mid-way through his second season of F1, but the American's search for a breakthrough in F1 still hasn't materialised and we now know he definitely won't be in that seat next year after the team succeeded in luring Sainz to partner Albon.
Sargeant has certainly appeared to have moved closer to Albon's pace compared to what was often a large gap last year and had said not to truly judge him until he got the same latest-spec lighter car as his team-mate, which was the case for the final races before the break. Consecutive Q2 appearances at Silverstone and the Hungaroring were a positive step forward by Sargeant, before a more difficult weekend followed in Belgium. With only 11 points separating the last three teams in the standings, Sargeant's lack of contribution to Williams' total has not helped his cause.
Qualifying vs team-mate: 13-1 / Points vs team-mate: 0-0
Last place in the Drivers' Championship on results countback among the three drivers without a point doesn't truly reflect Bottas' season so far. Sauber's poor car means points indeed haven't been there for the taking, but Bottas has dominated his qualifying head-to-head with Zhou and finished races as the lead driver more regularly.
As other targets such as Sainz go elsewhere, it's Bottas' reliability that seems to be keeping the former Mercedes driver in the running to stay at Sauber next to the incoming Hulkenberg.
*Carlos Sainz did not take part in the Saudi Arabian GP
**Logan Sargeant did not take part in the Australian GP
Formula 1 returns after the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on August 23-25, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream every F1 race and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership - No contract, cancel anytime
