The 2019 Formula 1 season is in the books. How do the 20 drivers slated to compete in the 2020 season stack up against one another?
Another Formula 1 season is in the books, and this one ended in the same fashion as the last two and four of the previous five: with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton winning the championship in dominant fashion.
Of the 20 drivers who competed in the 2019 season, 18 are set to return in the 2020 season. Two are set to be replaced, with one set to be replaced by a driver who has previously competed in Formula 1 and the other set to be replaced by a rookie.
How do the 20 drivers slated to compete in 2020 stack up against one another? Here are the way-too-early 2020 Formula 1 power rankings.
#20 and #19
The prospect of Nicholas Latifi’s rookie Formula 1 season should be defined by three categories. One, the most obvious, is the fact that he is competing in Formula 1 for the first time. Two, he is driving for Williams. And three, his teammate is George Russell. The only positive for him from a competitive standpoint is the fact that he has a ride in Formula 1. With Williams, he’ll be lucky to score points; heck, he’ll be lucky to finish in the top 15. And after the beatdown Russell put on Robert Kubica in 2019, it still won’t be easy for him to maximize his potential in low-tier equipment. With that being said, he is a proven talent who had success in Formula 2, and he has earned this opportunity.
George Russell’s ceiling in the 2020 season, like it was in the 2019 season, is 19th place in the driver standings. Unfortunately, as a result of a fluky German Grand Prix and post-race penalties, he was beaten by teammate Robert Kubica for 19th in 2019, but don’t let that fool you. He outqualified Kubica for all 21 races on the schedule, and he consistently outran him during the races themselves. The Mercedes prodigy will be tough to top at the Grove-based team.
#18 and #17
Take away Lance Stroll’s fluky fourth place finish in the German Grand Prix, a race he led for all of a few seconds, and he finishes in 17th place in the driver standings with nine points and without a top eight finish. Even with that fourth place effort, he only finished in 15th in the standings with 21 points, which was a whopping five positions and 31 points behind teammate Sergio Perez, who, in typical Perez fashion, managed to secure his position in the standings with a consistent season, one that did not feature a top five finish but featured eight top eight results. As cliché as it sounds, everyone knows why Stroll is here. Will he continue to prove his doubters correct?
As inconsistent as Romain Grosjean is, he has what it takes to record a decent result every once in a while. He proved in the latter half of the 2018 season, and he likely would have had the chance to prove it again in 2019 had Haas had a decent package, or literally anything other than their worst car in their four-year history in Formula 1. Hopefully the sport’s lone American team will make steps in the right direction this offseason and at least get close to returning to where they were in 2018 next year.
#16 and #15
Kevin Magnussen has shown in the last two seasons that he is the better of Haas’ two drivers, and the fact that he managed four top nine finishes, including two finishes as the “best of the rest”, in what was a disastrous season for the team in 2019 shows that he is capable of contending for solid results when he isn’t locked in a head-to-head battle with his teammate. His success, or lack thereof, in the 2020 season will be dictated by the development of the team’s car this offseason. As for 2019, at least they beat Williams.
There were rumors that Antonio Giovinazzi would be replaced at Alfa Romeo Racing after struggling throughout most of his rookie season, but Ferrari backed him to return to the team and he was ultimately confirmed for 2020. This decision, at least for now, looks like the right one, as the 25-year-old Italian came on strong throughout the back half of the 2019 season. After scoring just one point on a single top 10 finish in the first 13 races, he scored 13 on three top 10 finishes in the final eight races, including 10 on a career-high fifth place finish in the Brazilian Grand Prix. Perhaps most notably, he stacked up well against veteran teammate Kimi Raikkonen down the stretch after getting dominated by him early in the year. He definitely has potential.
#14 and #13
Daniil Kvyat experienced some highs and some lows in his return season to Formula 1 with Toro Rosso in 2019. Most notably, he finished in third place in the German Grand Prix for what was Toro Rosso’s first podium finish in 11 years. Unfortunately for him, despite the fact that he outscored rookie teammate Alexander Albon in the season’s first 12 races 27 to 16, it was Albon who got the nod to replace the struggling Pierre Gasly at Red Bull Racing following the summer break. From that point forward, Kvyat struggled, as Gasly proceeded to outperform him on a fairly consistent basis at Toro Rosso.
The first half of the 2019 season showed that Kimi Raikkonen still has what it takes to be competitive on a race by race basis, as he dominated teammate Antonio Giovinazzi and scored points in eight of the 12 races before the summer break while Giovinazzi scored a single point in just one. But he scored points in just one of the season’s final nine races. While a case could be made that Alfa Romeo Racing took a step back, Giovinazzi scored points in three of the final eight races. Could the 2020 season be Raikkonen’s final year in Formula 1?
#12 and #11
Esteban Ocon is the only driver in the 2020 driver lineup who has competed in Formula 1 before but did not do so in 2019. He is set to replace Nico Hulkenberg at Renault after Mercedes passed him up to retain Valtteri Bottas. Many fans saw Ocon as being somewhat overhyped considering the fact that he did not beat his teammate, Sergio Perez, in either of his two seasons at Force India/Racing Point, and it won’t exactly be easy for him to change that in 2020 with him set to be paired with Daniel Ricciardo.
After struggling in the first 12 races of the 2019 season driving for Red Bull Racing, Pierre Gasly was demoted back to Toro Rosso, where he seemed to rediscover his mojo, the mojo he had throughout the 2018 season with the Faenza-based team that ultimately resulted in him being promoted to Red Bull Racing. He consistently beat teammate Daniil Kvyat, even recording a career-high second place finish in the Brazilian Grand Prix, the team’s highest result since 2008. Red Bull Racing were wise to retain him with Toro Rosso for 2020, both from the standpoint of not giving up on him and from the standpoint of not rushing him back to the Milton Keynes-based team.
#10 and #9
Sergio Perez did what Sergio Perez does, beating his teammate, this time Lance Stroll, with a consistent yet under-the-radar kind of season. He clinched 10th place in the driver standings with a last-lap pass of Lando Norris in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, making the 2019 season the first season in Formula 1 history to end with 10 drivers from 10 different countries in the top 10 in the standings. Perez, who hasn’t finished outside of the top 10 in the standings since 2013, should be in a great position to contend for the “best of the rest” title in 2020 after finishing the 2019 season with eight point-scoring efforts in the last nine races.
Renault’s year as the reigning “best of the rest” team didn’t go quite as planned, as they were dominated by customer team McLaren in the constructor standings in what was Daniel Ricciardo’s first season driving for the French marque. But Ricciardo maintained that he was not regretful of his switch from Red Bull Racing to Renault, and he did have some strong showings in 2019, including five top six finishes and a season-high fourth place result in the Italian Grand Prix. Renault will have some work to do to catch back up to McLaren in what is set to be their final season providing engines to the Woking-based team.
#8 and #7
The resurgence of McLaren took them from a lower-tier mid-pack team to the dominant mid-pack team, and that led to an incredible rookie season for Lando Norris, who won the head-to-head qualifying battle over teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. 11 to 10. Unfortunately, he was struck with vast amounts of misfortune in the form of mechanical errors, even losing what would have been a career-high fifth place finish in the Belgian Grand Prix on the race’s final lap. Had he not lost that result, he would have finished behind only Sainz in the “best of the rest” driver standings. Nevertheless, as long as McLaren continue at their current pace or improve even more, Norris should be a legitimate “best of the rest” contender.
Carlos Sainz Jr. didn’t just win the unofficial “best of the rest” title in 2019. He dominated the rest of the mid-pack. Sure, Alexander Albon and Pierre Gasly finished right behind him in the driver standings, but they both competed for Red Bull Racing for roughly half the year. Sainz finished the season with 96 points, while the next “best of the rest”, Daniel Ricciardo, finished with just 54. As noted above, McLaren’s resurgence in 2019 made them the dominant mid-pack team, so expect more of the same from the 25-year-old Spaniard in 2020.
#6 and #5
Alexander Albon was exactly what Red Bull Racing wanted when they replaced Pierre Gasly with him 12 races into the 21-race 2019 season. He gave them consistency they needed by consistently running in the top six, something Gasly couldn’t do, and he only finished outside of the top six in the Brazilian Grand Prix when Lewis Hamilton spun him out of what would have been a career-high second place with a lap and a half remaining. The questions for Albon will be whether or not he can regularly challenge the other Red Bull Racing, Ferrari and Mercedes drivers and whether Red Bull Racing can enter 2020 with a more competitive package in their second year with Honda engines.
Kimi Raikkonen, Charles Leclerc, it doesn’t matter; whoever Sebastian Vettel’s teammate is, he has demonstrated over the last few years that he will make more than his fair share of unforced errors each season, even costing himself the titles in both 2017 and 2018. In 2019, perhaps the most disastrous season of his career, he even nearly faced a suspension for dangerous driving. Perhaps he will enter he 2020 season more relaxed after Leclerc became the first driver to beat him in the driver standings during his Ferrari tenure. Then again, perhaps he will feel even more pressure to perform and make more silly errors.
#4 and #3
Valtteri Bottas had his best career season in Formula 1 in 2019, finishing in a career-high second place in the driver standings with a career-high four victories, a career-high 15 podium finishes and a career-high 326 points. His goal is to improve to the point where he can challenge and beat teammate Lewis Hamilton in 2020. He could very well improve, however, and still end up outside the top three. Ferrari and Red Bull Racing are both slated to improve after coming on strong in the second half of the 2019 season, and let’s not forget the fact that Hamilton is a six-time champion and has had Bottas covered quite comfortably since the pair became teammates in 2017, winning 31 races to Bottas’s seven along with three titles.
Charles Leclerc is the clear-cut number one driver at Ferrari, whether the team choose to accept it or not. He gives them their best opportunity to win races week in and week out, and he showed it in 2019. Ferrari struggled throughout the year on many levels, yet Leclerc, in his first season driving for the team, became the first driver to beat Sebastian Vettel in the driver standings during Vettel’s tenure at Ferrari. He did it with the first two victories of his career and a series-high seven pole positions, and he had two additional victories get away from him through circumstances out of his control.
#2 and #1
Max Verstappen continues to improve year after year, both from a consistency standpoint and an overall competitiveness standpoint. He won a career-high three races in 2019 and has never won fewer races in a season than he did in the previous year, and he finished in a career-high third place in the driver standings. When a driver other than Lewis Hamilton eventually does win the world championship, don’t be surprised if it’s Verstappen. In fact, in races that Verstappen has won, Hamilton’s statistics have been disastrous. He has what it takes to reach that level. The question is whether or not Red Bull Racing will be able to improve enough in their second year with Honda engines to make it happen.
There is still no good reason not to rank Lewis Hamilton at #1.
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He is poised to break Michael Schumacher’s all-time wins record (91) in 2020, sitting just seven wins behind it with 84 and having won 62 races in the last six years. He has failed to record 10 victories in a year just once since the V6 turbo hybrid era began in 2014, as he won nine races in the 2017 season.
He has won the last three championship by an average of 73.67 points, including the last two by an average of 87.50, and he has won five of the last six by an average of 69.40. He is also slated to tie Schumacher’s titles record with his seventh championship in 2020.
Even if you include his five-point defeat to Nico Rosberg in 2016, he has come out on top by an average of 57.00 points per year in each of the last six years. He can be beaten, but can he be beaten over the course of an entire 22-race season? The world is still waiting.
The 22-race 2020 Formula 1 season is scheduled to get underway on Sunday, March 15 at Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia with the Australian Grand Prix.