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The 2024 Belgian Grand Prix wasn't a classic if you're measuring it on the number of overtakes completed, but it was undoubtedly the most entertaining scrap for supremacy between Formula 1's new 'big four' so far in 2024.
But who extracted the maximum just to be there and who should really have made more of a fist of things?
That played a crucial role in determining this week's driver rankings, as Edd Straw assesses the F1 field at Spa.
How do the rankings work? The 20 drivers will be ranked in order of performance from best to worst on each grand prix weekend. This will be based on the full range of criteria, ranging from pace and racecraft to consistency and whether they made key mistakes. How close each driver got to delivering on the maximum performance potential of the car will be an essential consideration.
It’s important to note both that this reflects performance across the entire weekend, cognisant of the fact that qualifying is effectively ‘lap 0’ of the race and key to laying the foundations to the race, and that it is not a ranking of the all-round qualities of each driver. It’s simply about how they performed on a given weekend. Therefore, the ranking will fluctuate significantly from weekend to weekend.
And with each of the 10 cars fundamentally having different performance potential and ‘luck’ (ie factors outside of a driver’s control) contributing to the way the weekend plays out, this ranking will also differ significantly from the overall results.
Started: 1st Finished: 3rd
Capitalised on the conditions in qualifying to the produce second-fastest time and therefore grab pole position (once Max Verstappen's grid penalty had been applied) in a Ferrari that really wasn’t at that level even in the rain.
Despite the Ferrari being fourth-fastest of the cars in the lead group, Leclerc ensured he minimised his race time losses to finish ahead of three cars he shouldn’t have done.
Verdict: Got everything out of the Ferrari.
Started: 3rd Finished: 1st
Hamilton did everything right at Spa, qualifying strongly and then making his way to the front in the first stint to put himself in the box seat.
The only question mark is whether he should have passed his team-mate George Russell in the final laps, which considering how difficult overtaking was for everyone would be a harsh criticism.
But he beat everyone on the orthodox strategy and only Russell’s strategy gamble meant he was second on the road.
Verdict: An outstanding weekend.
Started: 11th Finished: 4th
Verstappen described this as a weekend of damage limitation considering his engine penalty, which he managed brilliantly.
Fastest by six tenths in wet qualifying to take a pole position that never was, he quickly cleared the leading midfielders to latch onto Norris and run eighth.
With passing impossible, the remaining four places he gained were thanks to strategy and Russell’s exclusion.
Verdict: Mitigated the penalty damage.
Started: 8th Finished: 8th
With the Aston Martin now working far better, Alonso is back on form and couldn’t have done any better at Spa than he did.
He took ‘Class B’ pole position and converted to a one-stopper to regain the lead of that group having been undercut by Alex Albon and Daniel Ricciardo at the first stops.
Thereafter, he showed consistent pace to mirror on-the-road winner Russell’s strategy.
Verdict: Couldn’t have done more.
Started: 6th Finished: DSQ
Russell struggled in qualifying with the lack of rear bite through most of qualifying, failing to improve on his final Q3 run and lining up only ahead of Sainz of those in the leading group.
His inspired call to switch to a one-stopper, combined with the durability of the hards, meant he produced a superb on-the-road victory (cruelly snatched away by his subsequent disqualification) with the quality of the drive needed to avoid a tiny error that might have let Hamilton get ahead late on high.
Verdict: Qualifying struggles offset brilliant race drive.
Started: 10th Finished: 9th
Despite a water leak that restricted his FP1 running and opting for a low-downforce set-up, Ocon played a starring role in qualifying by reaching Q3.
He then converted that into a race drive that at one stage looked set to net him ‘Class B’ victory, only for Alonso to convert to a one-stopper having lost a position to the Alpine by running longer in the first stint.
All things considered, Ocon couldn’t have done much more.
Verdict: Maximised a limited package.
Started: 5th Finished: 2nd
Piastri qualified behind his team-mate by a slender margin but produced a far more accomplished race to chase the Mercedes drivers over the line.
However, going deep at his second pitstop cost him a couple of seconds and perhaps without that, and nailing an overtake on Leclerc a lap or two earlier, he might have been able to pose a bigger threat to Hamilton and Russell. However, overall he had a much calmer race than his team-mate.
Verdict: Not perfect, but outdid Norris.
Started: 13th Finished: 10th
Ricciardo’s qualifying was compromised by setting his Q2 lap earlier than others because of fears of renewed rainfall. But although starting on softs didn’t translate to early gains of position, it did ensure he made an early stop to make undercut gains.
He repeated that at the second stop to jump Albon, and passed Lance Stroll in the final stint to take what became the final point after Russell’s exclusion.
Verdict: A strong weekend's work.
Started: 10th Finished: 12th
This was a weekend of nearly-but-not-quite for Albon in a Williams that could get close to the top 10 but not quite into it. He missed out on Q3 by just three thousandths of a second after a strong lap, then ran 10th early on in the race.
However, his points chances were dented by not having two sets of hards available and he lost out to Ocon and Ricciardo, the latter undercutting his way past at the second stop.
Verdict: Kept Williams in the hunt.
Started: 14th Finished: 15th
Bottas felt he got the best out of the car in qualifying to line up 14th and flirted with a points finish on what could have been a one-stopper. He held 10th, ahead of Stroll with Ocon, Ricciardo and Albon on two stoppers closing in, when he came in for a second stop on the basis the team felt it was inevitable he’d lose positions.
However, given this dropped him to 15th he would have finished higher, and at least had the chance to try to hang on in the points, had he stayed out.
Verdict: Did what he could with limited machinery.
Started: 7th Finished: 6th
Until the final run of Q3, Sainz looked on course for a strong qualifying performance but on new intermediates at the end of the session he struggled for grip and produced an untidy lap as a result.
That, along with a failed attempt to one-stop after starting on hards, made for a difficult race, one in which he took a brief bite of the Stavelot gravel in the first stint.
Verdict: Final Q3 run swung things against him.
Started: 4th Finished: 5th
Norris admitted after qualifying that “I’ve not been driving particularly well” and subsequently described the wide moment at the first corner after another iffy start as “embarrassing”. That wasn’t his only untidy moment in battle, either.
His pace was good, but with overtaking so difficult that early error in particular made his race difficult.
Verdict: Too many rough edges.
Started: 2nd Finished: 7th
Perez squandered his chance to bolster his case for staying at Red Bull with a lacklustre race having qualified decently, if unremarkably given he lapped six-tenths slower than Verstappen after using all of his intermediates reaching Q3.
Slipped from second at the start to what was effectively ‘last in class’, and although his strategy was far from ideal he was the slowest of the drivers in the top four teams.
Verdict: An opportunity missed.
Started: 17th Finished: 14th
The main difference between Magnussen and his team-mate in Q1 was that while Nico Hulkenberg had one all-out lap on his second set of inters, Magnussen changed earlier and ran push-cool-push, which he regretted.
But in the circumstances, being a couple of tenths slower was a good result. He drove a good race on the ideal medium/hard one-stop strategy, but ultimately the car pace meant that he was only ever challenging for lower-midfield positions.
Verdict: A decent, if unobtrusive, weekend.
Started: 15th Finished: 11th
Stroll couldn’t emulate Alonso at Spa, with a spin that led to him wiping out the front-left corner at the top of Eau Rouge in FP3 preceding a lacklustre qualifying in which he never looked like escaping Q2 given he was “not at one with the car”.
He complained extensively of too much drag in the race, despite clocking the highest speed-trap figure by some margin, but couldn’t make the one-stopper work as well as his team-mate and slipped behind Ricciardo, Ocon and Albon in the closing laps.
That said, his race pace relative to Alonso wasn’t bad.
Verdict: An underwhelming weekend.
Started: 12th Finished: 13th
Aside from flying early in qualifying when he really came alive, Gasly seemed a little subdued at Spa.
He fell in Q2 and felt that more aggressive outlaps compromised his tyre prep and despite spending the early stages of the race chasing team-mate Ocon he didn’t have the speed of the other Alpine. An overheating problem was blamed for that as he faded from points contention despite running a similar strategy to his team-mate.
Verdict: Not at his best.
Started: 20th Finished: 16th
As he had a 60-place grid penalty, Tsunoda’s Q1 attempt wasn’t entirely full-blooded, although he did have a couple of runs.
Starting from the back meant he was always on a hiding to nothing, but he admitted that he was never entirely comfortable and struggled for pace having not made much progress after passing Logan Sargeant early on, with Hulkenberg the only other driver he could beat despite a one-stopper.
Verdict: Not great even factoring in penalty.
Started: 16th Finished: 18th
Hulkenberg felt there was “not a good rhythm or harmony in the car that I usually feel” from the start of the weekend and wasn’t surprised to be eliminated in Q1 having stuck with a lower-downforce set-up and struggled to get the inters working.
He had the same bad feeling in the race and marked it down as one to forget after finishing last on a two-stopper built on a very short first stint.
Verdict: Neither car nor driver at their best.
Started: 19th Finished: DNF
This proved to be a futile weekend for the ever-unfortunate Zhou. He struggled on his first Q1 run then had a nightmare on his second having been held for too long in the pits, meaning the prep for his lap was ruined by traffic and the resulting drop in tyre temperature.
He wasn’t to blame for impeding Verstappen, which earned him a grid penalty, given the team had told him the Red Bull was not pushing. Then, while running 18th after starting on hards, first a loss of power and subsequently, once that was sorted, an unrelated brake problem forced him out.
Verdict: Had no chance to impress.
Started: 18th Finished: 17th
Sargeant struggled for pace in wet and dry conditions, finding the car unpredictable.
That was compounded by terrible traffic as he tried to start his final Q1 lap, which meant he had no chance of improving. The race wasn’t much better and it was disappointing that after his recent improvements Sargeant was unable to continue his upward trajectory at Spa.
Verdict: Little sign of the recent progress.
