(Motorsport-Total.com) – It could have been an extraordinary weekend for Carlos Sainz. It was – but for the wrong reasons: The Williams driver and ambassador of the Madrid ring clashed with several opponents at the Formula 1 premiere on the new track in Madrid, received two penalties, and eventually retired from the race early. This was also reflected in the reader ratings of Motorsport-Total.com.
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Formula 1 expert Marc Surer, the editors, and the readers agreed: This weekend performance was “poor”. Sainz consequently received a grade of 5 from all three pillars of the reader rating and was by far the worst Formula 1 driver at the Spanish Grand Prix.
At the other end of the scale was Lando Norris with an almost clean sheet: “Pole position and lead – only the virtual safety car came at the wrong time,” commented Surer. He and the editorial team each gave Norris a straight 1, while the readers rated the current Formula 1 world champion on average with a grade of 1.48. This resulted in the final grade of 1.16 – with Norris clearly ahead.
World Championship leader Kimi Antonelli only in third place
Behind the third-place finisher in the race came the actual second-place finisher: Max Verstappen received the final grade of 1.58. In his case, Surer and the editorial team disagreed. Surer made no deductions and said: “The instruction to give the place back may have cost him the win.” The editorial team and readers seemed to miss “that certain something” for the best grade.
In third place in the reader rating was the actual race winner Kimi Antonelli with the final grade of 1.89. Why did the editors and Surer rate the World Championship leader lower than Norris and Verstappen? Surer explained: “Antonelli was good – but no comparison to Monza.” There he had completely convinced all three pillars of the reader rating and achieved the final grade of 1.05.
As in reality, Antonelli also leads the table in the reader rating. Behind him, Verstappen and Norris are separated by only one point. Lewis Hamilton has fallen out of the top 3 and is now only a few points ahead of George Russell. Nico Hülkenberg follows as the only German just outside the top 10. Directly ahead of him: Franco Colapinto after fifth place in the reader rating for Madrid.
Who really shone in Madrid – and who didn’t?
How the editorial team discussed the driver ratings after the Spanish Grand Prix is a topic on Tuesday evening at 8:30 p.m. in the call-in show “Live bei Scheuren” on the Twitch channel of Formel1.de. Host Kevin Scheuren invites users to join via Zoom personally and chat with him about the Spanish Grand Prix and Formula 1.
Click through: How Surer rates the 22 drivers!
How Marc Surer rates the other drivers can be read in detail in an extended photo gallery. In this photo gallery, both the Formula 1 expert and the editorial team justify their grades for each of the 22 drivers individually. So that users can hopefully understand even better from now on how the driver ratings came about.
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Madrid: The driver ratings from Marc Surer and the editorial team
By the way: Many users want more transparency from the editorial team when it comes to awarding grades. That is why we have decided to also publish the individual grades of our editors in a separate table. For the overall editorial grade, which makes up pillar 3 of the system, the editorial team agrees on a common full grade in a conference.
In this conference, which has become a fixed program item for us every Monday morning after Formula 1, things sometimes get heated when different opinions clash. And we collect arguments that speak for or against a better or worse grade.
How we award our grades
The idea behind our grading is to evaluate performances over a weekend and especially in the race with grades (1 = very good, 6 = insufficient). External influences that the drivers cannot control themselves should be excluded. And so that not only the editorial team subjectively evaluates, as is the case with football magazines, we have created three equal pillars with the readers and the expert.
And this is how we calculate:
From the average rating of Motorsport-Total.com users, the rating by expert Marc Surer, and the rating by our editorial team, we determine the average. From this average value, our driver ranking results. We only display one decimal place, but for the calculation, we use all decimal places. From these partially invisible decimal places, the order of the ranking of two drivers in the case of an apparent rating tie results.
The grades of the individual editors:
We are often asked how our editorial grades come about. All editors of our Formula 1 team first give their grades individually. In an editorial conference on the morning after the Grand Prix, we then exchange views and agree on common editorial grades, which usually (but not always) reflect the average of the individual editor grades. When setting the editorial grades, discussions sometimes get heated. The goal is to agree on common driver grades with which every editor can come to terms.
Award for Driver of the Year:
Based on the overall grades of a race weekend, we award points for the 2026 annual ranking. Analogous to the points system in the real Formula 1 World Championship, the winner receives 25 points, the second 18, the third 15 – down to one point for tenth place. There is no bonus point for the fastest lap. At the end of the season, the driver with the most points is awarded the Motorsport-Total.com Award for Driver of the Year 2026.
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