Aston Martin is not exactly a team that we rarely see in last place in the driver rankings Motorsport-Magazin.com see. In Imola, one of Team Silverstone’s drivers ended up at the bottom for the third time in seven races. But for the first time it’s not Lance Stroll. But old master Fernando Alonso.
Stroll, who finished 19th overall last year with an annual average of 3.53 and is doing even worse this year with 3.92, did not make any serious mistakes in Imola. With an Imola mark of 2.53 thanks to a strong comeback with an alternative strategy, he even managed to take eighth place in the rankings – his best of the year.
Alonso even worse than Sargeant and Perez
This means he clearly overshadows Alonso, who had one of the worst weekends of his career. Accident in the third training session, which meant being behind in qualifying and second to last, then a race to forget, converted into a test session. This is clearly reflected in the ranking with 4.84. It is Alonso’s worst result in the MSM ranking.
Logan Sargeant (4.31), who was overwhelmed by track limits, and Sergio Perez (4.45), who was in the worst form in Europe, also finished ahead of Alonso. He just doesn’t get the absolute negative values from Stroll. In 2024, the ranking in Jeddah and Shanghai even exceeded the five mark (5.10 and 5.55).
Max Verstappen’s ranking victory ahead of Norris clearer than the race victory
Max Verstappen is gaining some breathing room at the top of the rankings. While Lando Norris is again slowed down by the editorial grade: like in Miami, he clearly wins the readers’ rating, but only gets one of three possible Very Good from the MSM editors. Verstappen wins three Very Good and thus the victory. At 1.26 he has less stress than in the real race to stay ahead of Norris (1.49).
Yuki Tsunoda, Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri crack the two-man average and complete the top five. Tsunoda also benefits from strong editorial marks. Lewis Hamilton (3.06) fails again in Imola due to the ranking points.
Norris vs. Verstappen has to wake Imola from a deep sleep
There are no top marks for the race itself. Pit stops were initiated early on the course, which was hostile to overtaking. After that the race stopped. Very deep at the top. It wasn’t until ten laps before the end that some people were probably startled again by Norris suddenly charging at Verstappen. The editorial team in particular tends to ignore this.
- Reader rating race: 2.9
- MSM grade race: 4.33
- Overall grade race: 3.62
Driver ranking Imola 2024: The MSM grades
| Run | driver | Menath | Niedermair | Stone Cracker |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Verstappen | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Norris | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 3 | Leclerc | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 4 | Piastri | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 5 | Sainz | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 6 | Hamilton | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 7 | Russell | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 8th | Perez | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| 9 | Stroll | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 10 | Tsunoda | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 11 | Hulkenberg | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 12 | Magnussen | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 13 | Ricciardo | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 14 | Ocon | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 15 | Zhou | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 16 | Gasly | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 17 | Sargeant | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| 18 | Bottas | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 19 | Alonso | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 20 | Albon | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| … | … | … | … | … |
| Run | 5 | 4 | 4 |
F1 driver ranking Imola 2024: Hardship cases from the editorial team
Christian Menath
Positive hardship case: Max Verstappen
Negative hardship case: Fernando Alonso
Is the Red Bull that good or is it Max Verstappen? I think the world champion showed that he can make the difference even when the car is not at 100 percent. Verstappen already won the race on Saturday. He just doesn’t make mistakes. Lando Norris, on the other hand, showed that the McLaren actually had more potential in the second stint – but he wasn’t able to exploit its potential with Charles Leclerc breathing down his neck. It’s a shame for him and for the race. I was disappointed with Fernando Alonso this weekend. The error rate was far too high and the pace wasn’t good enough. His problem races are slowly piling up.
Florian Niedermair
Positive hardship case: Yuki Tsunoda
Negative hardship case: Sergio Perez
Yuki Tsunoda is almost becoming a regular in this section. Once again the Racing Bulls driver impressed across the board. Small flaw: A little more could have been achieved in Q3, but he still clearly outshone Daniel Ricciardo. A success across the board! Sergio Perez can’t say that about himself. The parallels with 2023 are frightening for him: Perez had a good start to the season, but almost exactly a year after he had a weekend to forget in Monaco, the Mexican has now screwed up the European start again. And that’s double: first an accident in training, then a weak qualifying with Q2 exit, the damage limitation in the race was also a bit poor. In the preseason he got into a whirlpool that he couldn’t find his way out of for months. This year he has to prove that he can do it differently.
Markus Steinrisser
Positive hardship case: Oscar Piastri
Negative hardship case: Logan Sargeant
Lando Norris gave the A, Oscar Piastri the positive hardship case? Let me explain. I definitely think that Norris deserves a very good rating. I accept his explanation that he had to sort out an imperfect balance after the pit stop, and he finally managed it. The internal defeat in qualifying is a thousandth guess. Piastri is worth additional highlighting because he turned in a top lap in qualifying and because he looked strong in the race. Racing was his problem area last year. But he didn’t perform at Norris level when it mattered most. Hence the difference in grades, and yet the hardship. Once again, Logan Sargeant is one of those in a negative sense. The statistics show that it was Imola’s fifth qualifying in which he did not get a single lap into the classification despite several attempts…
The top 5 in the MSM 2024 season ranking after Imola
Verstappen also has five wins in the MSM rankings so far in 2024, giving him a comfortable cushion over second-placed Norris. The Red Bull driver would need more than two zero numbers to take the lead in the points standings. The somewhat weakening Carlos Sainz is now slipping behind Leclerc in his annual grade average. Sargeant and Pierre Gasly remain the only drivers without points.
This is how the MSM driver ranking works
Long-time MSM readers already know the ranking; the now proven system of previous years will be entering its sixth year in 2024. Immediately after the finish of each Grand Prix we call you in our Formula 1 live ticker for the race and here in the article about the grading of all 20 drivers. Until the next lunchtime (or longer for evening overseas races) you can evaluate what it’s worth.
The average of your marks is used to give each driver a reader’s mark. In parallel with you, we, the MSM F1 crew around Christian Menath, Florian Niedermair and Markus Steinrisser, also rate the performance of all drivers on the weekend in question. We also calculate an average from our judgements – the MSM mark. The overall mark is created in the last step by averaging the user and MSM marks in equal parts. In the event of a tie in the final ranking, the best individual mark decides.
As a little extra, each editor provides their personal hardships of the weekend by choosing and explaining which driver particularly caught their eye. Once in a positive sense and once in a negative sense. The overall result is always in circulation online 6:00 p.m. the day after the race.