Driver ratings Austria: Two outsiders on the podium

(Motorsport-Total.com) - Two surprises on the podium, but the winner of our driver ratings at the Formula 1 race in Spielberg is also the winner of the Grand Prix. This was the result of the three pillars of readers, experts, and editorial staff after the race at the Red Bull Ring.

This means that Lando Norris will score the 25 points this time – for the first time since his victory in Monaco. The McLaren driver led in all three classifications. Norris received the top score of 1 for his weekend performance from both the editorial team and Marc Surer, and he also received the highest rating of 1.34 from the more than 300 readers.

Second place went to Liam Lawson, the only rider to receive the top rating from the editorial team and Surer, who "didn't expect" sixth place on the grid. This also laid the foundation for his ranking, as the New Zealander didn't fare so well with readers.

Four drivers were rated by readers with a 1 before the decimal point – Lawson was not one of them. He "only" achieved a 2.04, making him the fifth-best driver.

Readers rated Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto significantly better, scoring his first Formula 1 points with an average score of 1.64. Surer also gave Bortoleto a 1 after his "breakthrough," but because the editors only gave him a 2—because, among other things, he was outsmarted by Fernando Alonso in the closing stages—he finished third behind Lawson.

At least in the official Formula 1 voting he was named driver of the day.

Oscar Piastri (Surer: "He lost the race in qualifying") and Charles Leclerc ("Clean performance from him and Ferrari") also received a 1 before the decimal point from the readers, but not top marks from Surer and the editorial team, which is why they narrowly missed the podium.

Verstappen loses ground

Nico Hülkenberg, who finished just one place behind Bortoleto in the race, finished six places behind him in the ratings ranking. "From P20 to P9 was strong. Q1 was not," Surer criticized the German's poor qualifying, giving him only a grade of 3. Hülkenberg finished seventh in the readers' rankings with a 2.17.

Max Verstappen, however, came away empty-handed this time. His qualifying and race were barely assessable, resulting in an average finish of eleventh and a loss of ground to Piastri in the overall standings. He now sits second, 29 points behind Piastri and one point ahead of George Russell.

The big losers in the ratings are Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Yuki Tsunoda. "That couldn't have gone well," said Surer about Antonelli's maneuver that took Verstappen out of the race. The youngster received a 6 from the expert, but the readers were somewhat more lenient, giving him a 4.88.

Tsunoda was also penalized by Surer with a 6, while the editorial team awarded both drivers a 5. Thus, the readers decided, with Tsunoda seeing a significantly worse result with a 5.48.

Click through: This is how Surer rates the 20 drivers!

Marc Surer's ratings for the remaining drivers can be found in detail in an extended photo gallery . In this photo gallery, both the Formula 1 expert and the editorial team explain their individual ratings for each of the 20 drivers. Hopefully, users will now be able to better understand how the driver ratings were determined.

By the way: Many users would like more transparency from the editorial team when awarding grades. Therefore, we have decided to publish the individual grades of our editors in a separate table. However, for the overall editorial grade, which constitutes Pillar 3 of the system, the editorial team agrees on a common full grade in a conference.

This conference, which has become a regular fixture on our agenda every Monday morning after Formula 1, can sometimes get heated as different opinions clash. We gather arguments for or against a better or worse grade.

How we award our grades

The idea behind our grading system is to evaluate performance over a weekend, and especially during the race, with grades (1 = Very Good, 6 = Unsatisfactory). This is done to eliminate external influences beyond the control of the drivers themselves. And to ensure that the editorial team isn't the only one making subjective assessments, as is the case with football magazines, we've created three equal pillars: readers and experts.

And this is how we calculate: We calculate the average score from the average ratings of Motorsport-Total.com users, the ratings from expert Marc Surer , and the ratings from our editorial team. This average results in our driver ranking. We only display one decimal place, but we consider all decimal places for the calculation. These partially invisible decimal places determine the ranking order of two drivers in the event of a supposed tie.

The grades of the individual editors: We are often asked how our editorial grades are determined. All editors on our Formula 1 team first submit their grades individually. In an editorial conference the morning after the Grand Prix, we then discuss the results and agree on joint editorial grades, which usually (but not always) reflect the average of the individual editors' grades. The determination of editorial grades sometimes leads to heated discussions. The goal is to agree on joint driver grades that every editor can live with.

Driver of the Year Award: Based on the overall results of a race weekend, we award 2025 points for the annual standings. Similar to the points system in the real Formula 1 World Championship, the winner receives 25 points, second place 18, and third place 15 – down to one point for 10th place. There is no bonus point for the fastest lap. At the end of the season, the driver with the highest points total will receive the Motorsport-Total.com Driver of the Year Award 2025.