We have reached the final review of the decade and, after looking over best from races from IndyCar, NASCAR and Formula One, we will conclude with the best drivers from Formula One in the 2010s.
Sixty-six drivers started a grand prix in the 2010s, which seems very low. IndyCar had 104 drivers start a race and the NASCAR Cup Series had 181 drivers start a race. Granted, the grids are larger in NASCAR and in most cases there is more fluctuation in drivers but 66 drivers? That is quite low.
Despite the number of drivers, as with IndyCar and NASCAR, the criteria to be considered for the top ten is you had to win one race. There were 198 opportunities to win a Formula One grand prix in the 2010s. If you could not win one then you are not considered.
For fans of Michael Schumacher, Felipe Massa, Nico Hülkenberg, Sergio Pérez, Romain Grosjean, Kevin Magnussen, Carlos Sainz, Jr., Marcus Ericsson, Kamui Kobayashi, Lance Stroll, Adrian Sutil, Paul di Resa, Esteban Gutiérrez, Jean-Éric Vergne, Esteban Ocon, Max Chilton, Jarno Trulli, Lando Norris, Rio Haryanto and Alexander Rossi none of these drivers were considered.
Twelve drivers won a Formula One grand prix in the 2010s. That's it. With so few race winners, I just ranked all 12; including you know who and we start with our Venezuelan friend.
12. Pastor Maldonado
Starts: 95
Wins: 1
Podium Finishes: 1
Top Five Finishes: 2
Top Ten Finishes: 13
Pole Positions: 1
Average Finish: 15
Seasons with a Victory: 1
Championships: 0
Reason For the Ranking: Look, I will level with you, Pastor Maldonado was not the 12th best driver this decade. His victory in the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix will go down as one of the most absurd things to every happen in Formula One.
Twenty-five drivers had podium finishes in Formula One this decade. Maldonado is one of nine drivers to have only one podium finish this decade. Maldonado's best championship was 14th. Of those other eight drivers, they all finished better than 14th in the championship at least once this decade. One of those drivers is Vitaly Petrov, who had championship finishes of 13th and tenth. It includes Kobayashi, who had three consecutive championship finishes of 12th to start the decade. It includes Nick Heidfeld, who finished 11th in the championship in 2011 despite only starting 11 races. Maldonado ran all 19 races that season and was 19th.
Thirty-three drivers had top five finishes in Formula One this decade. Rubens Barrichello, Paul di Resta, Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll had as many top five finishes at Maldonado. Antonio Giovinazzi, Heidfeld and Felipe Nasr all had only one top five finish.
Maldonado was probably the 33rd best driver this decade in Formula One. He did win one race but outside of that he was just another driver. You could probably make an argument he was only the 40th best driver. I am not sure any one would fight that... except for Maldonado himself.
11. Kimi Räikkönen
Starts: 158
Wins: 3
Podium Finishes: 41
Top Five Finishes: 75
Top Ten Finishes: 119
Pole Positions: 2
Average Finish: 7.7
Seasons with a Victory: 3
Championships: 0
Reason For the Ranking: While being a fan favorite, Räikkönen has been living on borrowed time in Formula One.
Need I remind everyone the Finn was out of Formula One for the first two seasons of this decade? He won twice with Lotus but then spent five seasons with Ferrari and it took until his 96th start with the team to get a victory. In three of those five seasons he led zero, ten and six laps respectively.
Though Räikkönen was in the top five of the championship on five of eight occasions, I am not sure anyone saw him as a real threat. He seemed like a driver going through the motions and Ferrari kept giving him a contract. Now Alfa Romeo is giving him money.
10. Jenson Button
Starts: 137
Wins: 8
Podium Finishes: 26
Top Five Finishes: 46
Top Ten Finishes: 85
Pole Positions: 1
Average Finish: 9.4
Seasons with a Victory: 3
Championships: 0
Reason For the Ranking: It is forgotten how Button backed up his World Drivers' Championship at the start of the decade.
Mercedes-Benz took over the Brawn GP organization and that forced Button out of the ride that he took to the mountaintop. He moved to McLaren, pairing him with Lewis Hamilton and immediately held his own with championship finishes of fifth, second and fifth in his first three seasons respectively. He had two, three and three victories in those seasons respectively.
The one down side is Button stayed with McLaren and the return of Honda was not the injection of life for the manufacture. Button spent the final two full seasons of his career and a Monaco Grand Prix significantly hampered.
9. Charles Leclerc
Starts: 42
Wins: 2
Podium Finishes: 10
Top Five Finishes: 17
Top Ten Finishes: 28
Pole Positions: 7
Average Finish: 9.2
Seasons with a Victory: 1
Championships: 0
Reason For the Ranking: It is still early in Leclerc's career but he has jumped into Formula One and immediately found results.
His rookie season with Alfa Romeo went so well that Ferrari made him the second-youngest driver to ever run for the Scuderia. He nearly had victory in his second start but the car failed him. Leclerc went head-to-head with a four-time champion as his teammate and won the intra-team battle. He picked up his first two victories at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza. He won seven pole positions, the most in the 2019 season.
It is hard to justify putting Leclerc any higher than nine. There just isn't enough there but in ten years there will be and he should be a little higher in these rankings.
8. Valtteri Bottas
Starts: 139
Wins: 7
Podium Finishes: 45
Top Five Finishes: 78
Top Ten Finishes: 103
Pole Positions: 11
Average Finish: 7.2
Seasons with a Victory: 2
Championships: 0
Reason For the Ranking: After going through the highs and the lows with Williams, Bottas landed at Mercedes and reached the heights every grand prix driver dreams about but continues to have low moments.
Bottas was the top Williams driver in the championship in all four seasons he was with the team. He got the most out of the cars and the competency led him to Mercedes. He has been the clear number two to Lewis Hamilton but he has gotten the points Mercedes-Benz has needed.
Should we be a little disappointed Bottas has had one season where he has been able to challenge Hamilton? This season appeared it would be it after Bottas won the season opener and two of the first four to have him leading the championship before heading to Spain but Hamilton is on another level and Bottas has done a commendable job.
7. Mark Webber
Starts: 77
Wins: 7
Podium Finishes: 32
Top Five Finishes: 51
Top Ten Finishes: 65
Pole Positions: 12
Average Finish: 6.3
Seasons with a Victory: 3
Championships: 0
Reason For the Ranking: Webber only ran the first four seasons of this decade and he was third in the championship three times this decade. He had only one great shot at a championship and as we know his teammate Sebastian Vettel won it but Webber kept Vettel honest at Red Bull.
Webber did all he could to not be the number two driver and he had his moments. Webber was not going to change the perception of who was Red Bull's top driver but he made it clear he was the right driver to have in the team for those four seasons. It was definitely a high-note to go out on.
6. Daniel Ricciardo
Starts: 171
Wins: 7
Podium Finishes: 29
Top Five Finishes: 58
Top Ten Finishes: 98
Pole Positions: 3
Average Finish: 9.9
Seasons with a Victory: 4
Championships: 0
Reason For the Ranking: Though having the same number of victories, three fewer podium finishes and only seven more top five finishes despite nearly 100 more starts than Webber, Ricciardo gets sixth because he forced Vettel out of Red Bull.
Ricciardo came in and the year after Vettel had won his fourth consecutive championship beat his teammate in the championship. Not only did he beat his teammate but he was the only Red Bull driver to win a race that season. Vettel was gone like that.
One season isn' the only reason Ricciardo is sixth for the decade. Let's remember the Australian started with HRT for 11 races, getting him ready for Formula One before a move to Scuderia Toro Rosso. Few Toro Rosso drivers have left an impression on Formula One. We are talking about three seasons and 50 starts where Ricciardo was only hoping to get some points.
Ricciardo got the most he could out of Red Bull at a time when Mercedes had a stranglehold on the championship. He was a one of the drivers that could regularly breakthrough. Now he has moved to Renault and the trajectory of his career is unclear. He turned 30 years old in July. Renault does not appear to be on the cusp of winning anytime soon.
Ricciardo could be one of these talents that had it but never was at the right team at the right time.
5. Fernando Alonso
Starts: 174
Wins: 11
Podium Finishes: 44
Top Five Finishes: 70
Top Ten Finishes: 111
Pole Positions: 4
Average Finish: 8.9
Seasons with a Victory: 4
Championships: 0
Reason For the Ranking: Alonso did more with less and was agonizingly close to adding another two World Drivers' Championships to his résumé this decade.
I think Alonso covered over many of the flaws Ferrari has had for the last ten seasons and we have seen many of those exposed since his departure from the Maranello-based team. Alonso was second, fourth, second, second and sixth in the championship while with Ferrari. Felipe Massa was his teammate in all of those seasons and Massa was never better than sixth in the championship during that time.
Alonso took the leap of faith to McLaren and the Honda engine never panned out. However, Alonso got the most out of the faulty car. In 2015, he was fifth in the Hungarian Grand Prix when up to that point McLaren had two points finishes for a total of five points. The following season he picked up two top five finishes and scored a fastest lap in Italy. The year after that he got another fastest lap, skipped Monaco to run the Indianapolis 500 and still finished ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne in the championship. In his final season, he handily outperformed Vandoorne with 50 points to the Belgian's 12 points.
Alonso's career will go down as incredible but also lacking. Every move was one or two years off. His numbers are great but they still will not tell the truth length of his greatness.
4. Max Verstappen
Starts: 102
Wins: 8
Podium Finishes: 31
Top Five Finishes: 57
Top Ten Finishes: 76
Pole Positions: 3
Average Finish: 7.7
Seasons with a Victory: 4
Championships: 0
Reason For the Ranking: Verstappen came in as a boy and did not buckle from the pressure.
There were many skeptics when it was announced the Dutchman would make his Formula One debut at 17 years old for Toro Rosso. The Red Bull program pushed the limits of driver selection going younger and younger and this move forced a strict age limit as well as Super License points.
Regulations aside, Verstappen outscored teammate Carlos Sainz, Jr. by 31 points in his rookie season with Toro Rosso. Verstappen's increasingly improving results combined with Daniil Kvyat's uninspiring results led to Red Bull making a swap early in Verstappen's sophomore season and the rest is history.
Verstappen won on his Red Bull debut and he pushed his teammate Ricciardo for nearly three seasons with him taking the number one position in the team and asserting himself as one of the top drivers in Formula One. Verstappen has made a name for himself with impressive wet-weather drives and an aggressiveness that at times has led to youthful mistakes but it has also gotten him better results against drivers with at least a decade of Formula One experience.
Each season he has improved, he has gotten a little more consistent each season and with an improving Red Bull and a ripened Honda engine the 2020s could be when the young protégé meets the great expectations set before he was a man.
3. Nico Rosberg
Starts: 136
Wins: 23
Podium Finishes: 55
Top Five Finishes: 75
Top Ten Finishes: 108
Pole Positions: 30
Average Finish: 6.7
Seasons with a Victory: 5
Championships: 1
Reason For the Ranking: You cannot ignore a world championship.
Rosberg might have been in the right place at the right time but when put head-to-head with teammate Lewis Hamilton it was not a walkover. Rosberg had the ability to keep up with Hamilton and beat Hamilton enough to be a championship-challenger.
With that said, Rosberg was also known for stepping on his teammate's toes to stay ahead. There were plenty of clashes and infighting, some of which landed at the feet of Hamilton but most of the time it felt Rosberg was the instigator, notably Spain 2016 and Austria 2016.
There was a level of consistency though that cannot be ignored. While Hamilton had his few problems in 2014, Rosberg kept putting the car on the podium and forced Hamilton to win more than double the number of Rosberg's victories to win the world championship. He did win seven consecutive races from the end of 2015 through the first four races of 2016.
At the end of 2016, there was no margin for error and Rosberg basically had to finish on the podium for the final nine races of the season. While we saw the fragility of Rosberg in other seasons, when he had a chance to close that season out he did.
2. Sebastian Vettel
Starts: 197
Wins: 48
Podium Finishes: 111
Top Five Finishes: 156
Top Ten Finishes: 172
Pole Positions: 52
Average Finish: 5.0
Seasons with a Victory: 8
Championships: 4
Reason For the Ranking: The Red Bull days.
As I touched upon at the end of the Best Races post, Red Bull-era Vettel was one of the most ruthless winners of the 2010s. It was a driver that could take a broken car and drive it to an astonishing result that most other drivers could not come close to matching.
Vettel won when the pressure was on and he also won when the rest of the field was out of his rearview mirror. The dominance was historic. He won the final nine races of the 2013 season, a Formula One record. He won 13 races that season, matching Michael Schumacher's single season record. He had 17 podium finishes in 2011, matching another Schumacher and a record that Hamilton has since also matched in four of the last five seasons.
Though he has not come close to matching his glory days at Red Bull, Vettel has had respectable showings, winning races with Ferrari and with consecutive vice-champion seasons in 2017 and 2018. However, we have also seen Vettel become a little more unhinged in recent seasons. We saw Ricciardo force Vettel out the door in 2014. In 2017 and possibly even 2018, Vettel had the better car but could not close out the season. He started the 2017 season with three victories and three runner-up finishes in the first six races and was leading the championship after the Belgian Grand Prix only for Hamilton to go on a tear and clinching the championship three races early while Vettel got caught in first lap accidents and had a few gremlins.
Vettel was leading the championship halfway through the 2018 season until he threw away a certain victory in Germany when no one was pressuring him. He simply went off in a drizzle and from there on the championship was Hamilton's. Vettel won four of the first ten races in 2018 but only won one of the final 11 races.
We have seen Vettel get caught in clashes with Verstappen and now Leclerc and appear to be the weaker man in each case. For a driver that started the decade unbreakable we are seeing the cracks form and the end approaching.
1. Lewis Hamilton
Starts: 198
Wins: 73
Podium Finishes: 124
Top Five Finishes: 157
Top Ten Finishes: 176
Pole Positions: 71
Average Finish: 4.7
Seasons with a Victory: 10
Championships: 5
Reason For the Ranking: The numbers speak for themselves.
Hamilton won 73 races, 25 more than the next driver. He won 71 pole positions, 19 more than the next driver. He is the only driver to win a race in every season this decade and he won five championships.
We have seen Hamilton make an assault on the record book that many never thought was possible in the shadows of Michael Schumacher's retirement. When Schumacher walked away from Formula One at the end of 2006, no one thought 91 grand prix victories could be touch. Alain Prost was still second all-time at the end of 2006, 40 victories off Schumacher. Seven championships seemed untouchable. Schumacher reached 5,000 laps led when no other driver had broken 3,000 laps led.
Hamilton entered in 2007 and he spent the entire 2010s running down the German. We will head into 2020 with Hamilton needing only eight victories to surpass Schumacher's 91. Hamilton has led 4,486 laps in his career, 625 laps behind Schumacher. He is one world championship away from seven.
While Hamilton still has records to break he has already shattered many. In this decade, Hamilton became the all-time leader in pole positions, he has won the most races from pole position all-time and he has the most front row starts all-time. He has started the most consecutive races. He has the most races led in Formula One history. He broke the record for most consecutive races led and has since matched it. If he leads one lap in the 2020 Australian Grand Prix he will break a record he set. He matched Nick Heidfeld's record of most consecutive victories and he has since matched it again. If Hamilton finishes the 2020 Australian Grand Prix he will have another record.
Hamilton re-wrote the Formula One record book before Schumacher's ink had even dried. Did he have the benefit of being with the best team? Of course, but we could be talking about Nico Rosberg having all these records if it was as simple as having the best car. We have also seen plenty of times when Hamilton has pulled out victories and results from sheer intelligence. While Schumacher made a reputation of taking out other drivers and running rivals off track, Hamilton has seen his success come with wit more than aggression.
We do not know how long Hamilton will race into the 2020s. It feels like he could walk away once he gets to the top but there are plenty of worthy milestones to achieve. He only needs 16 victories to reach 100 grand prix victories and he is a guy who has been averaging north of ten victories a season for the last half of the decade. The outright lead in championship could be his and he could (along with Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso if he returns to Formula One) become only the second driver to win a grand prix in three different decades joining Jack Brabham in doing so.
I don't think Hamilton will do in the 2020s what he did in the 2010s but I think we will see him further expand on what the possibilities are for a grand prix driver and continue to improve his case for the greatest driver of all-time.
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