Castrol Driver Rankings

[NaBUru38]

Since there isn't any forum on motosport in general, this one seems the closest to the theme: the Castrol Driver Rankings. It ranks thousands of racecar drivers from dozens of championships around the world into a single table. It takes into account the results from the last 12 months - the full primary championship and up to two extra races from other championships (e.g. Dario Franchitti and Juan Pablo Montoya at the 24 Hours of Daytona).

The top 6 F1 drivers in 2010 are among the top 10 in the rankings, with Vettel 1st, Webber 2nd, Alonso 4th, Hamilton 5th and Button 7th. WRC's Loeb is 3rd whereas Ogier and Latvala are 19th and 20th. Drivers from those three championships plus IndyCar and Nascar drivers fill all places up to 42th. Davide Valsecchi (GP2) is 43rd, Paul di Resta (DTM) is 44th, Juho Hänninen is 46th and Simon Pagenaud (ALMS) is 56th.

Perhaps the rankings within a contry are more interesting. In the United States, Ryan Hunter-Reay is 11th, Marco Andretti is 19th, Scott Pruett is 23rd and Danica Patrick is 25th - the rest up to the 28th are Nascar drivers.

In the UK, Hamilton is 1st, then it's Button, Franchitti, Di Resta, Justin Wilson, Dan Wheldon, Paffett, Oliver Turvey, Matthew Wilson and Sam Bird. I'd hardly rank Rob Huff, Andy Priaulx, Kris Meeke and Darren Turner below Wilson, would you?

In Germany, besides the F1 suspects it's Timo Scheider, Mike Rockenfeller, Marco Wittmann, Christian Vietoris, Klaus Graf, Martin Tomczyck, Ralf Schumacher, Stefan Mücke, Thomas Mutsch, Timo Bernhard and Michael Bartels. It's surprising to me that Jörg Bergmeister, Dirk Müller and Sascha Maasen are outside the top 20.

[dyewat808]

I know this has garnered a bit of criticism here and there, but I like these rankings. They work well imo.

[strider]

They're interesting, but not definitive. The Weighting given to the various categories needs to be reviewed.

[NaBUru38]

You are right, strider. Abolve all, GP2 should be given much less weight and lower formulae even less. Touring car and sports car drivers should be above them.

[FIRE]

Nice idea but currently touring car and endurance racing is underrated.

[SALEEN S7R]

It would have to depend too on what level of sportscar and touring car racing. FIA GT, LMS, ALMS, WTCC, DTM etc should all be above GP2 perhaps, but series like FIA GT3, International GT open and the BTCC should not, for example. IMO.

[NaBUru38]

Exactly, Saleen. Also, Kristensen lagging behind Nykyaer and Gené lagging behind Juncadella is ridiculous.

[Bezzen]

This is the sort of thing I've been working on for the last six years (in my own pace ), but as usual Autosport beat me to it.

I'm not weighting the championships though - that takes care of itself in a way.

[Peat]

Does anyone actually look at these? Just seen the banner on Autosport and remembered that they exist.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by Peat

Does anyone actually look at these? Just seen the banner on Autosport and remembered that they exist.

I didn't even know that....

Originally Posted by FIRE

Nice idea but currently touring car and endurance racing is underrated.

That much is clear.

Who compiles the rankings? Members of the Seb Vettel fan club?

[NaBUru38]

So, the 2013 Autosport World Rankings are:

1. Sebastian Vettel
2. Sébastien Ogier
3. Lewis Hamilton
4. Mark Webber
5. Fernando Alonso
6. Nico Rosberg
7. Jimmie Johnson
8. Kyle Busch
9. Matt Kenseth
10. Kimi Räikkönen
11. André Lotterer
12. Scott Dixon
13. Romain Grosjean
14. Kevin Harvick
15. Allan McNish
16. Will Power
17. Tom Kristensen
18. Felipe Massa
19. Loïc Duval
20. Jari-Matti Latvala

The top 5 drivers in F1 are in the top 6, then Railkkonen 10th, Grosjean 13th and Massa 18th.

In Nascar, Johnson is 7th, Kyle Busch 9th, Kenseth 9th, Harvick 14th, Edwards 22th, and Logano 26th.

In rally, Ogier is 2nd, Latvala 20th, Neuville 21th, and Hirvonen 41th.

In IndyCar, Dixon is 12th, Power 16th, Castroneves 24th, Hunter-Reay 25th, and Pagenaud 35th.

In sports car racing, Lotterer is 11th, McNish 15th, Kristensen 17th, Duval 19th, Treluyer 23th, Fässler 29th, Luhr 47th.

In touring car racing, Yvan Muller is 58th, Mike Rockenfeller 62nd, and Jamie Whincup 84th.

[NaBUru38]

Top drivers by country:

o- United States: Most are from Nascar. From IncyCar, Hunter-Reay is 6th, Andretti 14th, Kimball 18th, and Newgarden 24th. From sports car racing, Jordan Taylor is 28th, Scot Pruett is 33rd, Scott Tucker 34rd, and Joey Hand 35th.

o- United Kingdom: F1, WEC and IndyCar dominate the top 10: Hamilton 1st, McNish 2nd, Button 3rd, Franchitti 4th, Wilson 5th, Di Resta 6th, Conway 7th, Sam Bird 8th, James Jakes 9th, Anthony Davidson 10th. From touring car racing, Gary Paffett is 14th, James Nash 15th, and Tom Chilton 16th.

o- Germany: F1, WEC andALMS dominate the top 10: Vettel 1st, Rosberg 2nd, Lotterer 3rd, Hülkemberg 4th, Luhr 5th, Sutil 6th, Graf 7th, Rockenfeller 8th, Heidfeld 9th, Vietoris 10th. There's four GT drivers in the top 20: Lieb, Basseng, "Mücke and Stippler.

o- France: Ogier and Groesjean are 1st and 2nd, of course. But the other F1 and rally drivers are well behind: Vergne 10th, Loeb 11th, Pic 13th, Bouffier 15th, Bianchi 16th. Pagenaud is 5th and Bourdais 7th. The rest are sports car and touring car drivers: Duval 3rd, Tréluyer 4th, Yvan Muller 7th, Sarrazin 8th, Lapierre 9th, Prost 12th.

o- Australia: Most are from V8 Supercars. The top 3 are of course Webber, Power and Ricciardo. Then Ambrose is 4th, Briscoe 10th, and John Martin 11th.

o- Spain: The top 5 are Alonso, Sordo, Serviá, Oriola and Molina. Antonio GarcÃ*a is 9th and Marc Gené 11th, whereas Carlos Sainz Jr is 6th.

o- Brazil: The top 3 are of course Massa, Castroenves and Kanaan. Then Farfus is 4th, Nasr 5th, Cacá Bueno 6th, Daniel Serra 7th, De Oliveira 8th, Christian Fittipaldi 9th, and Thiago Camilo 10th.

[NaBUru38]

Conclusion: the rankings are heavily biased in favour of feeder formula drivers, and against GT drivers.

I mean, Lietz is the top ranked GT driver at 206th! Long, Dumas, Dirk Müller and Milner are outside the top 400! In contrast, there are five F3 drivers in the top 200 and ten in the top 300.

[FIRE]

This list is ridiculous.

[NaBUru38]

Curiously, Austosport has a complete different top 50 drivers list.

5 drivers in the top 15 come from F1: 1st Vettel, 4th Alonso, 7th Hamilton, 11th Hülkenberg, 13th Nico Rosberg. Kimi Räikkonen is only 25th, and Mark Webber 32th.

GP2 runner-up Sam Bird is 20th overall, and the champion Fabio Leimer is 37th! What's worse, Kevin Magnussen is 8th, Daniil Kvyat 18th, and Raffaele Marciello 26th.

In rallying, WRC champion Sébastien Ogier ranked 2nd overall, and runner-up Thierry Neuville 40th. Oh, and Loeb is 12th.

In Nascar, Jimmie Johnson is 3rd, Matt Kenseth 10th, Kyle Busch 16th, and Kevin Harvick 31st.

In V8 Supercars, Jamie Whincup ranked 19th and Mark Winterbottom 29th.

In IndyCar, Scott Dixon was 5th, Hélio 23rd, Pagenaud 28th, and Justin Wilson 44th. So Tony Kanaan's win at Indianapolis meant nothing.

In DTM. Mike Rockenfeller ranked 17th, Augusto Farfus 22nd, and Gary Paffett 41st. Paffett finished sixth, whereas Bruno Spengler finished third but was ignored.

In WTCC, the champion Yvan Muller was 27th, and Rob Huff 42nd, even though Gabriele Tarquini was runner-up and James Nash 3rd.

In BTCC, the champion Andrew Jordan ranked 34th and Colin Turkington 38th, who ended fifth behind Shedden, Plato and Neal.

In WEC, Andre Lotterer was 6th, Loïc Duval 9th, Frederic Makowiecki 14th, Allan McNish 15th, Tom Kristensen 23th, Anthony Davidson 30th, Mike Conway 36th, and Gianmaria Bruni 47th. It's good to see a few GT drivers there, but I can't understand why the LMP1 champions are behind the runner-ups.

And Oliver Turvey was 49th. Actually, there's 15th British drivers in the list, versus five Germans, seven French and four Americans. Only four are in the top 30, though.