F1 News
Aston Martin scores high with experts, new power ranking shows
- GPblog.com
Since 2018, Formula 1 has been doing 'power ranking' of drivers and teams. After each race, a driver was given a grade based on the race. For example, Max Verstappen received a 9.2 for last season's Miami race. The FIA now also comes out with the power ranking from the winter test, and there are some surprises in here.
Based on the data the FIA gets, they have ranked the 10 teams.
Numbers 1 to 5
It is no surprise, but in first place has landed Red Bull Racing. Given topping two of the three winter test, this is not really a surprise. As number two, Scuderia Ferrari may enter the race. According to the FIA, Ferrari is still very close to numbers three and four, but because Ferrari kept its cards well closed, they may now call themselves number two in the power rankings.
Mercedes may call itself number three in the power rankings. The FIA does nuance this though, as predictions indicated that Mercedes would go behind number four. Nothing proved less true, and so the data showed that Mercedes was still slightly ahead of number four.
Based on last season, you would say that Aston Martin at number four is a big surprise, but the experts already predicted this, with the data showing that the AMR23 is the fourth best car on the grid. Just below that ends Alpine, they have dropped one spot in the rankings compared to last year. Pierre Gasly revealed that there is more to the A523 than has been shown. According to him, this was due to the red flag that came in the third test.
Surprising number 7
Although Guanyu Zhou finished on top in the second test, Alfa Romeo still finished sixth. The surprising number seven is then McLaren, the team that did very well two seasons ago now has to make do with seventh place in the standings.
Number eight for the standings is AlphaTauri, the car of Nyck de Vries and Yuki Tsunoda did not leave a strong impression on the track. According to the data, they would even finish just above the number nine and ten in the standings.
To finish with the last two teams, we start with the number nine, Haas. The data shows that they are not really consistent, though it is true that the midfield will be very close. So whether Haas will surprise on Saturday and Sunday remains to be seen. And last but not least, Williams closes the list. The material was reasonably reliable, but still the data showed they were the least during the winter test.