Driver ratings

Driver Elo — quali & race

22 active drivers · 6,090 quali h2h since 2003 · 9,268 race h2h · qualifying analysis →

Two parallel rating systems for the 2026 grid: Quali Elo measures one-lap pace head-to-heads in qualifying. Race Elo measures racecraft head-to-heads in the race itself (tyre management, traffic, defending). A driver can be strong in one and weak in the other (Pérez was famously better in races than quali; recent Hamilton flips it). Same machinery, same K-factor, same teammate-head-to-head signal — just different sessions feeding the update. When the underdog wins, both ratings move sharply; when the favourite wins, they barely move.

Data goes back to 2003, the start of the modern Q1/Q2/Q3 qualifying era. Earlier formats (one-hour aggregate, single-lap shootout) aren't directly comparable, so we cap there to keep the head-to-head signal consistent.

What this measures (and what it doesn't): Elo here is a head-to-head dominance rating — derived purely from teammate qualifying and race outcomes. By construction, every rating point above 1500 is mirrored by a rating point below 1500 elsewhere on the grid; the system is zero-sum. A driver paired only with elite teammates has a structurally limited ceiling, because every win is by definition harder. This means a driver's Elo isn't an absolute "how fast were they" rating — it's a "how thoroughly did they beat the people they were actually paired with" rating. A driver like Hamilton, who has only ever had GP-winner-tier teammates (Alonso, Button, Rosberg, Bottas, Russell, Leclerc), can't accumulate the same rating gain as a driver who got to dominate a weaker rookie for several seasons. For an absolute-pace view that complements this — pole rates, Q3 rates, average qualifying position — see the Absolute pace page.

Quali Elo

A grid-wide skill rating learned from every teammate qualifying head-to-head since 2003. Beating a strong teammate moves the rating more than beating a rookie, and the connectivity between team transitions (Hamilton → Russell → Antonelli, Verstappen → Pérez → Tsunoda → Hadjar, etc.) puts every driver on the same comparable scale. Computed from 6,090 qualifying head-to-heads. Anomalous and wet sessions are skipped. The "Peak" column shows each driver's career-high rating with a tooltip for when they reached it.

#	Driver	Team	Rating	Peak	vs grid	H2H n
1	Verstappen	Red Bull	1840	1840	+267	193
2	Russell	Mercedes	1719	1782	+146	132
3	Alonso	Aston Martin	1700	1712	+127	254
4	Sainz	Williams	1685	1685	+111	201
5	Leclerc	Ferrari	1682	1715	+108	151
6	Gasly	Alpine	1646	1653	+73	151
7	Norris	McLaren	1603	1722	+30	133
8	Piastri	McLaren	1601	1614	+28	65
9	Bottas	Cadillac	1594	1642	+21	208
10	Albon	Williams	1585	1678	+12	104
11	Bortoleto	Sauber	1554	1578	-19	23
12	Bearman	Haas	1552	1559	-21	25
13	Hadjar	Red Bull	1549	1560	-24	22
14	Antonelli	Mercedes	1547	1547	-26	23
15	Hülkenberg	Sauber	1544	1656	-29	220
16	Hamilton	Ferrari	1526	1717	-47	282
17	Colapinto	Alpine	1485	1536	-88	26
18	Lindblad	RB	1484	1500	-89	4
19	Ocon	Haas	1469	1592	-104	159
20	Pérez	Cadillac	1466	1581	-107	241
21	Lawson	RB	1420	1489	-153	34
22	Stroll	Aston Martin	1357	1485	-216	164

Click a row to see that driver's recent head-to-heads. vs grid = rating relative to the active grid mean (1573). Quali Elo: K-factor 24, 0.05s draw band, dry sessions only. Rating-difference scale 300 (lower than chess's 400 because F1 teammate pairings repeat over a season). 2003 cutoff = start of the modern Q1/Q2/Q3 qualifying era; older formats aren't directly comparable.

Race Elo

The same Elo machinery applied to race results. Each race contributes one teammate head-to-head: whoever finished ahead wins. DNFs count as losses against any classified teammate; if both teammates DNF, the head-to-head is skipped. Computed from 9,268 race head-to-heads. Race Elo measures racecraft (tyre management, traffic, defending) — distinct from quali pace and often informative when a driver excels at one and not the other.

#	Driver	Team	Rating	Peak	vs grid	H2H n
1	Verstappen	Red Bull	1799	1815	+252	236
2	Leclerc	Ferrari	1648	1679	+101	176
3	Russell	Mercedes	1607	1709	+60	156
4	Alonso	Aston Martin	1593	1783	+46	413
5	Gasly	Alpine	1592	1609	+45	181
6	Sainz	Williams	1590	1590	+43	235
7	Norris	McLaren	1584	1653	+37	156
8	Bearman	Haas	1559	1585	+12	31
9	Albon	Williams	1552	1668	+5	132
10	Hamilton	Ferrari	1538	1670	-9	383
11	Piastri	McLaren	1537	1561	-10	74
12	Hadjar	Red Bull	1532	1568	-15	28
13	Antonelli	Mercedes	1528	1528	-19	28
14	Colapinto	Alpine	1518	1572	-29	31
15	Ocon	Haas	1514	1607	-33	183
16	Hülkenberg	Sauber	1501	1579	-46	257
17	Lindblad	RB	1495	1510	-52	4
18	Bortoleto	Sauber	1492	1519	-55	28
19	Pérez	Cadillac	1472	1623	-75	286
20	Lawson	RB	1472	1546	-75	39
21	Stroll	Aston Martin	1459	1554	-88	194
22	Bottas	Cadillac	1455	1550	-92	250

Click a row to see that driver's recent head-to-heads. vs grid = rating relative to the active grid mean (1547). Race Elo: K-factor 24, no draw band (positions are integers). All race classifications used; lap-1 incidents are not specially filtered. Rating-difference scale 300. History since 2003.

Source · Five Reds Elo · Computed from FastF1 quali + race results 2018-present