The top 10 best F1 drivers of 2023

10. Liam Lawson

What a cameo! It may only have been five races but Lawson, only the second New Zealander in F1 for almost 40 years, did enough to suggest he will be handed a permanent race seat in 2025.

Lawson even had hard-to-please Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko likening him to New Zealand hero Bruce McLaren, describing the 21-year-old as "tough but a very smart man in a fight."

Replacing Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri after the Australian broke a bone in his left hand during a crash in practice for the Dutch Grand Prix, Lawson endured a baptism of fire given the rainy conditions that dominated over the Zandvoort weekend.

But he brought the car home in a creditable 13^th, improving to 11^th at Monza, before scoring a superb ninth and two crucial points in the Singapore Grand Prix in which he also out-qualified Red Bull's Max Verstappen by 0.007 seconds. "One for the future," said Marko.

9. George Russell

Russell slated the season as "the worst" of his career. He is perhaps being harsh on himself but in finishing eighth in the drivers' standings, 59 points behind Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton, it is easy to understand the Briton's perspective.

On reflection, though, Russell and Hamilton were equal in the qualifying head-to-head, with 11 apiece, so it is clear he managed to extract performance over one lap from a car that became difficult to handle at times.

But Russell only has himself to blame for making several uncharacteristic errors – Singapore the low point when he crashed out late on whilst on course for a podium and pushing for the win - that cost him a healthy number of points that arguably could have seen him finish fourth, behind Hamilton.

Russell's season at least finished on a high with third in Abu Dhabi, only his second top-three finish of the year, but a case of too little too late, underlining why he only just scrapes into this top 10. 

8. Oscar Piastri

A superb rookie season for Piastri who underlined why McLaren went through a Contract Recognition Board hearing in the summer of last year to secure the services of a driver previously on the books at Alpine.

Piastri had to patiently wait until the 10^th race of the season and the British Grand Prix before finally proving why he was so sought-after as with long-overdue upgrades on his MCL60 he qualified third and finished fourth, scoring more points in that one race than he had done in the previous nine.

After clinching his first podium in Japan where he was third, Piastri dazzled under the lights in Qatar, claiming the sprint victory from pole position – becoming one of only two drivers to win a race other than Red Bull – and he was second in the grand prix.

By his own admission, race and tyre management let him down on occasion, but his maturity, calmness, his ability to learn quickly, and his all-around speed hugely impressed all inside McLaren, marking him out as a potential champion of the future.

7. Carlos Sainz

You may perhaps think this is harsh on Sainz given he was the only non-Red Bull driver to win a grand prix, and he finished in the top ten in 18 of the 22 races, yet the majority of his season was relatively mediocre, spiced with the odd outstanding drive.

Sainz was out-qualified 15-7 by team-mate Charles Leclerc, and scored only three podiums to the Monégasque's six, even if one of those was a win in Singapore where he delivered an outstanding defensive performance to hold off McLaren's Lando Norris to the chequered flag.

The Spaniard had performed similar heroics two weeks previously in Italy only for a mistake late on that demoted him to third just ahead of Leclerc. Beyond those two drives, it is hard to recall a time when Sainz caught the eye.

In comparison to Leclerc, Sainz's season petered out, arguably as a result of an upgrade on the SF23 in Japan that resulted in the car going away from him and more towards the other side of the garage He was not helped by car issues that forced him out of the Qatar GP before the start, and which saw him knocked out in Q1 in Abu Dhabi before a late-race retirement, albeit when he was running out of the points.

6. Charles Leclerc

The fact Leclerc finished level on points with Fernando Alonso in the drivers' standings, yet only lines up sixth on this list epitomises the turbulent nature of his season which at times was excellent, others bitterly frustrating.

Take the first three races of the season, for example, as a prime indicator of the latter. In Bahrain, Leclerc qualified third and was running third when he retired with an engine failure. As a consequence, after qualifying second at the next race in Saudi Arabia, the Monégasque served a ten-place grid penalty for exceeding the quota of control electronics units. In Australia, he was out on lap one after a collision with Aston Martin's Lance Stroll.

For the rest of the season through to Japan where the SF23 finally received an upgrade that played more to Leclerc's strengths, the rollercoaster nature of his campaign continued. Highs included third in Azerbaijan and Belgium, and runner-up in Austria, but they were spliced with lows such as exiting in Q1 for the first time in three years at the Spanish GP, and finishing a lowly ninth at Silverstone after starting fourth.

Even after Japan, there was a disqualification in Austin for excessive skid block wear, and a failure to start in Brazil where the car spun him into a barrier with a hydraulics failure on a lap to the grid. Yet he was third in Mexico and runner-up in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi to conclude a campaign that also saw him start from pole on five occasions, but fail to convert any into a win.

5. Alex Albon

This may appear a surprising choice but for sheer consistency across the course of the season, particularly in a Williams that was never upgraded after the August summer break, then Albon hit the mark, both in qualifying and grands prix where others failed.

Remember this is about the driver, not the car, and for Albon to score all but one of Williams' 28 points across the season cannot be understated. His contribution allowed the team to clinch seventh in the constructors' championship, its highest position for six years after finishing last in four of the previous five.

Albon often hauled the car into the top ten in qualifying, notably a three-race run in Canada, Austria and Britain, where he finished seventh and eighth in Montreal and Silverstone, as the car's straight-line speed proved formidable.

Remarkably, despite the stop on development, Albon scored more points after the summer break than before, with his race craft and positioning sense often keeping him ahead of quicker cars. He also finished the season as the only driver to out-qualify his team-mate, in this case, Logan Sargeant, in all 22 races.

4. Lewis Hamilton

It was not vintage Hamilton, far from it, with the seven-time F1 champion ending a second successive season without a win to his name, yet he still managed to clinch a comfortable third in the drivers' standings.

Lewis Hamilton's performances were subject to the vagaries of a car in which he all too often lacked confidence, primarily due to the rear being unstable given the forward positioning of the cockpit compared to the cars of his rivals, notably Red Bull.

There were still six podiums, including three as runner-up, and 20 top-ten finishes overall, marred only by his first-corner collision with team-mate George Russell in Qatar, followed by his disqualification from the United States Grand Prix after finishing second.

After taking a legitimate second in Mexico, there was a subdued conclusion to the season across the final three races. But there’s enough to suggest throughout the year overall that if given the right car next season he will be a more consistent challenger.

3. Lando Norris

You have to brush aside the first eight races of the season when McLaren deployed a MCL60 behind in development over the winter. It meant the team's real challenger did not materialise until the Austrian Grand Prix with a powerful upgrade.

Taken in isolation from that race on, if the championship had been held over the final 14 grands prix, then Norris would have finished second to Verstappen in the drivers' standings such were his performances in a revitalised car that received further updates ahead of the Singapore GP.

Throughout that period, the only blots on his copybook were a number of his qualifying performances. Norris notably made mistakes in Qatar and Austin especially when he should have clinched pole, as well as in the final race in Abu Dhabi after which he pointedly stated he had done "a s**t job on Saturdays".

There were, however, six creditable runner-up finishes in grands prix behind Verstappen, and a stunning performance in Mexico where the Briton finished fifth after starting from 17^th.

2. Fernando Alonso

The old master was back, delivering a display over the year that showcased his talents and belied his 42 years, certainly at the start of the campaign when Aston Martin surprised everyone by delivering a car second only to Red Bull.

Alonso scored six podiums in the first eight grands prix when the AMR23 was its most competitive. But for a poor pit wall decision over tyre choice in mixed conditions during the Monaco Grand Prix, Alonso might just have had a 33^rd career victory, with the long wait now stretching to a decade.

Even through Aston Martin's mid-to-late-season slump, Alonso still dragged the car into the points, notably finishing runner-up for the third time in the year in the rain-hit Dutch Grand Prix before a welcome third in São Paulo. Those results came after a disastrous showing from the team in the preceding two races in Austin and Mexico City, with the two-time F1 champion retiring in both.

Alonso finished fourth in the drivers' standings, describing the season as the best in his career alongside 2012 – whilst with Ferrari – when he missed out on a third title by three points to Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel. Given Alonso's memory for detail, who are we to argue?

1. Max Verstappen

No argument again. Yes, Alonso turned back the clock, but you cannot dismiss the achievements of Verstappen who re-wrote F1's record books with a sublime season that will be incredibly difficult to match, never mind beat for as long as the sport exists.

The 26-year-old set new benchmarks with the number of races won in a season (19); wins to races percentage (86.36%), beating Alberto Ascari's 71-year mark; consecutive number of wins (ten), and most laps led (1,003).

Of course, the obvious argument is that Verstappen had the best car, and the RB19 will go down as one of the best – if not the best – in F1 history, but set against the benchmark of team-mate Sergio Perez, the Dutch driver eclipsed the Mexican in every facet.

Even when Perez had the upper hand in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, winning the sprint and race to suggest he would be a challenger to Verstappen, the latter switched to another level as he learned all he could about his car in different settings and modes whilst lagging behind in Baku, and never looked back from the next race in Miami where he beat polesitter Perez from ninth on the grid.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.