P1 with Matt and Tommy - Monaco GP Driver Ratings

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Driver Ratings for the Monaco GP have proven pretty straightforward in the past - but a thousand penalties and the track literally falling apart makes this season's a LOT more difficult...Our brand new live show 'Super Podding' is coming to the UK and Amsterdam this autumn! Get your tickets here: http:/tix.to/p1liveSign up to our Patreon for just $5 a month! You'll get access to every P1 episode ad-free, extended versions of every 2026 race review, early access to tickets & merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with us and other F1 fans! Click here to sign up now: http://patreon.com/mattp1tommyFollow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTokP1 with Matt and Tommy is the world's biggest F1 podcast. Subscribe for new podcasts around every single race throughout the 2026 Formula 1 season! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. We are officially cozy back in our setups. No sun to be had. Vitamin D already lacking Tommy. But we're here driver ratings. Going to be usually Monaco is a relatively straightforward one. But I'm not sure whether this one will be as straightforward. I can't wait for this one.

I'm looking forward to this one because the biggest, gripe is that with driver ratings is we just sometimes it's too easy to agree and there's so many kind of incidents here where I think hopefully we've gone different in how much you put driver blame how much you put team blame there's incidents where is it even the driver's fault sometimes things like that so I think it's going to be a very very interesting one and there's going to be a lot of disagreements with each other as well as everyone else. So that's always fun. And that's the beauty of Formula One.

So let's remain respectful. Right, let's begin with Cadillac driver Sergio Perez. He had a rather eventful race. I'm going to give Sergio Perez. Oh, it's going to be, oh, this is so difficult. A six out of ten for Checo. Now, you might be thinking, what do you mean, Matt?

He finished 10th. He'd scored a point until he got a penalty. But the amount, like the actual mistakes that he made were reasonably careless, if we're going to be completely honest here. One being the initial start where he just drove into the wrong grid box.

He literally started from 16th rather than 18th, gets a drive-through penalty. But then he also, has his point taken away at the end. So he does a great race, keeps it out the wall. The car's shocking. But then at the restart, after the red flag, he's angled his car out of the grid box and got a 10 second penalty.

So it is such a shame for Perez because this, without that, we could be talking 8, 9, 10 out of 10. It's a point for Cadillac. But instead he finishes 15th. I will say outpaced Bottas the entire weekend. He is cooking his teammate significantly at the moment. So well done for that side. But it seems like just these small errors cost him massively in this one.

I'm really annoyed because all the talk of we're going to be different. I've also gone for a six-off test to Sergio Perez. And this one really hurts because I think his actual driving ability on track is a nine, maybe a ten. Because I think, let's start with the positives of Perez. He was so quick this weekend. He nearly got into Q2. He, by the tiniest margin, this was despite his brakes catching fire seemingly all the time during the practice sessions.

And then in the main race, he's obviously finished 10th on the road. Yes, there's been a load of retirements and chaos that's helped him get there. But he drove a very good race. And the problem is, it's two massive errors, one particularly at the end, because of course that's the thing that's knocked him way down the order with a 10 second penalty that's cost him a massive result and that could be you know the race that Cadillac might only get a point all year so I have to downgrade him quite harshly so I can only go for for a six when I think had he lined up in his gridbox correctly at

the end and also at the start of the race we're probably even looking like a nine or a ten here but sadly for Perez you know I'm sure he's more gutted about drive ratings than the actual point itself oh yeah devastated Absolutely devastated Gutted for him The fans gave Sergio Perez a 7 out of 10

Let's now move to Vantori Bottas qualified P20 and did not finish I've gone For a 4 out of 10 for Bottas He was Just absolutely useless

Again to be honest Nowhere near Perez I know your team Perez But I mean He is He's like We're going to be honest here He's having a shocker at the moment

and he's getting like really comprehensively beaten by Perez and yeah he's having an absolute shocker so Bottas the car didn't look that great it looked pretty horrible from watching the on boards that that we saw and stuff but his teammate is obviously doing incredible things and Bottas just doesn't seem up to scratch at the moment nowhere near again obviously the DNF wasn't his fault but qualifying which is meant to be his speciality just nowhere nowhere indeed we have continued our agreeing streak four out of ten for Bottas for me as well yeah as you say it wasn't his fault that he DNFed but Perez showed that without his mistakes that an incredible result for Cadillac was on the cards but for Vautary he didn't even have a

sniff of Q2 whereas Perez for the last few weekends has shown that there could be something on the if everything lines up correctly. So Voucherrity needs to... Lines up correctly, hush. That was actually... It was actually accidental, wasn't it? Yeah, but perfect, in fact. So Valtry needs to lock in

because I see Cadillac maybe realizing quite quickly into their Formula One career as a team that they've already made a pretty big step forward for a new team to be able to be mixing it with the midfield that perhaps they don't need

too heavily experienced drivers for very long and then they'll start to look for a younger talent. So Valtrey lock-in. The fans also gave a four out of 10. Franco Colapinto qualified in 14th and finished in 14th. I am going to go for a 5 out of 10 for Franco Colopinto.

it was very just straight down the middle, not the performances that we've seen over the last couple of weekends from Franco. He was not as quick as Ghazley, who of course was doing miraculous things in that Alpine. This is the first driver I think we're speaking about in terms of pit lane speeding penalties. I am going to say right here, right now, I am not downgrading any of,

of the drivers for the pit lane speed limiting thing because it is 0.1 kilometres now, I think, almost for all of them. And it is a misjudgment from the team slash drive. It's not the driver, right? The driver is told to turn the pit lane speed limiter on and drive through the pits. If there's been a miscalculation,

I can't downgrade the driver for that. So that's where I'm sitting with this one. So yeah, I've gone for a 5 out of 10 for Franco, a disappointing weekend for him, but at least he finished the race. Franco Colopinto I've gone for a five out of ten It wasn't one of his better weekends He couldn't match the highs of his teammate Gasly

Only a couple of tents off But Gasly just put in an unbelievable performance And it all kind of went wrong Because the nature of Monaco And once you're caught in traffic It goes badly Of course, not going to blame him for the speeding of the pit lane But he did have the contact with sights at the end

Which was a little messy I saw an opportunity on a restart. Obviously, we'll talk about this with other drivers and how George Russell bunching up the field made it very, very difficult for the midfield and navigating that area of the track. But yeah, one to forget for Colopinto, I think, compared to what he has been in the last couple.

Absolutely. The fans gave Franco a five out of ten. Pierre Gasley qualified P-9 and finished the race in seven. Pierre Gasley, I'm going for a 10 out of 10 for Gasley. He finished third on the road. I think, yes, he obviously was fortunate the fact that a lot of drivers retired, that rocketed him up the order.

But then you look at the fact that he managed to get a McLaren at the start. He made a great move around the outside of Hadjar as well. And this pit lane speed limit thing is just absolutely heartbreaking for him and other drivers that got caught out by it because, you know, no one saw it coming at the end of the race. And the fact that so many drivers got a penalty, it cost Gasly, an unbelievable result. Absolutely heartbreaking as well that he had to do the whole formation lap celebrating,

thinking he got third before finding out of the penalty. Sorry, I don't want to be that guy, but the formation laps of the start of the race, my guy. Sorry, the in-lap. He's like, I've done it, guys. It's not the start of the race yet, but I've done it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know it's Monaco, but yeah.

And yeah, it's just getting for Gassi. I'm really confused by that, actually. I do want to bring something up here. Because when I watch the race and also watching the highlights, they show it, they mentioned that Gassi's got the penalty and he's like punching the wall in frustration and gets annoyed. But then when he crosses the line, he doesn't know he has a penalty. So that just confused me a little bit,

but I don't know what the deal is there. Well, I thought the understanding was that he knew that he had one but not two. Okay. That's my thinking behind it. But then even if he had one, he would have lost the podium. But maybe he thought he was, I don't think he thought he was fourth because he wouldn't have been going that crazy. But yeah, maybe he maybe he'd made it. Either way, like, it's clear as day that he thought he had a podium as he came over the line.

How of Alping not immediately gone? Oh, by the way, yeah, no, sorry, mate, we've got two, five second penalties. We finished seventh. Like, that's all they had to do. He celebrated the entire way around the circuit. They said wait and then didn't elaborate, basically. Yeah. They were like, one, two, three.

Were they like counting? Like, what are we doing here? It was ridiculous. My grade for Pierre Gasley is unsurprisingly a 10 out of 10 as well because of my stance on this pit lane speed limiting offenses. I think that the only consideration here was that it happened twice to him. So after it happening once, at least from the team side, and I don't want to be going in on Alpine too much for both the in-lap and then also this as well.

But surely there should have been a consideration of like, ah, clearly the pit lane speed limiter might not be working correctly. As we had other drivers getting penalised as well, although of course it wasn't the pit-lane speed limiter that was faulty. It was the fact of the measurement between the maths, right? but it's the measurement between the entrance and the exit and all that sort of stuff rather than actually done on time. Yeah, exactly. It's so weird because it's like...

Or speed, sorry, not time. If you cut a corner, say at Monza, you drive straight over the chican at the start. And say the speed limit of going round the chican at Monza, that first corner, is 60 miles an hour. If you just straight lined it at 60 miles an hour, you'd get, you'd be told you were speeding because the distance is shorter. It's really weird, isn't it? Yeah, strange way of doing it, but that's how it's been for donkeys.

Yeah, Gazley, I think he was brilliant this weekend and fully deserving of a 10 out of 10. As you said, about the Lando move, that was crucial for him. I think had we'd had no sort of Russell shenanigans and everything else going on, I still would have considered giving him a 10. If Lando hadn't DNFed,

maybe he still would have beaten him. We don't know, although if we saw Russell and Hadjar and how pit stops could maybe change that battle. But he was the best of the rest and fully deserving of the podium, had it not been for that crazy weird pit lane stuff. The fans gave Pierre Gasly a 9 out of 10. Gabriel Bortoletto, qualified P16, finished in 11th. My grade for Bortoletto,

and obviously there is a consideration here that he was riding with the P1 curse throughout. Sunday. I am going to go for, I think it's a five out of ten. I think it is for Bortoletto. Yes, he's finished 11th on the road. He's been, well, actually, sorry, he finished 13th on the road, put up to 11th with penalties.

But the significant downgrade here, I mean, literally he finished in front of two cars that finished behind him. So there weren't many finishes in comparison to what we normally have. But the main consideration here is qualifying. It was such an enormous mistake to make for Gabby because this wasn't in Q2, this wasn't making it through to Q3 and risking it all. This was Q1 and throwing an Audi that I personally believe

could have easily had a V-carb result this weekend. Had they just had, I mean, Hulk, maybe we'll get onto that, whether it was luck or should have been a racing incident. But for Bortoletto, his weekend was over the minute he did that, he ripped off his front left suspension. So it's a fight from me. For Bortoletto, I've gone for a four out of ten for his weekend. You know, at the end of the day, Monaco is all about qualifying.

And he made a mistake in qualifying. You know, he was the driver to crash on such a promising weekend for Audi. You are absolutely right in saying that you look at the V-carbs, maybe even Williams, and you think that this is the opportunity for all the midfield teams to get those massive points. And Audi, we've said they're always almost there, but this was the weekend where had they just finished a weekend and been where their kind of pace was, they are probably getting a seventh place or maybe even six. So it's gutting for them because Bortoletto looked like he had great pace,

who was quick for the weekend, but that one error cost him massively, and then, of course, his whole race is undone. And I think, you know, you look at, oh, he's finished 11th, but I think it flatters the kind of where he actually was, because, as you say, he's only beaten two cars,

one of them, Colopinta and one of them Russell, who, of course, dropped all the way back. I will say, and the reason why I went for a five rather than anything less, is just purely because he started from the pit lane as well. as much as he qualified in P-16, it was a pit lane to a P-11 in Monaco, which, I mean, again,

sounds incredible on paper, how are you giving him a low grade? But I guess when you factor in other things, it has to be a lower grade because there were some real opportunities there. The fans gave Gabby a six out of ten. Nico Holcomberg, qualified P-13, finished in P-13.

I've gone for a six out of ten for Nico Hulkenberg. I think he didn't maximize the result in qualifying, but I do think that, and basically just Audi and how quick I think they were, but he got into that position to basically score a point, and it's how you judge how unfortunately it was. I think he was very unfortunate. Of course, he could have avoided it just,

but I do think it is incredibly harsh. Like, for me, it's a racing incident, particularly because of what George Russell did him backing up that whole pack and just the nature of Monaco. And the way he was just driving around the corner, he wasn't doing anything malicious. He wasn't even going for an overtake. I think that's why I kind of side with him. Well, he was, which is not on Carlos.

Yeah. Well, yeah, sorry, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it's tough on him. But I've gone for a six. I've gone for a six out of ten as well for Nico Holcombberg. Could have been so much more had it not been for that end of race contact with Carlos. still firmly believe that that penalty was really harsh.

But that being said, he had a part to play. He hit Carlos and albeit George Russell caused all of that to happen by being four or five seconds a sector slower and that sort of sector one and into the hairpin. But yeah, it's, I can't believe we're talking about Audi not scoring points again after looking so, so quick this weekend. And I was going to say they weren't, they were fast and reliable, but had mistakes, but then again, Bortoletto, as much as he crashed in qualifying,

also had an issue on the way to the grid. So it's still trying to figure out how to keep these cars working throughout a weekend for Audi. But for Nico, I've gone for a six. The fans get him a five. Esteban Ocon, qualified 17th, finish the race in 9th. I am going to go four? and eight out of ten for Esteban Ocon. Again, this is a driver that has got reasonably lucky,

but you make your own luck in Formula One sometimes, and he was able to take advantage of other people's mistakes or pit lane speed limiting, which I don't blame them for, but this still happened. So, Hasse are not the fifth or sixth fastest car, and you have to respect that Ocon has kept his nose clean, and he was reasonably good this weekend.

I don't know how we compare Ocon and Behrman because it's very difficult to do that with not a lot of, well, Ollie got literally knocked out in Q1, but that was due to that late red flag. Same with Ocon, same with Ocon as well, of course, but O'Con ended up out qualifying him due to that. So, yeah, eight out of ten. Solid weekend from O'Con.

I've gone for a seven out of ten for Estabana O'Con. I think his result is good fortune, but of course he does deserve credit for being one of the few that kept it out of trouble. Yeah, Hasse, they didn't maybe deliver the pace, and Ocon has been always very good around Monaco, but it wasn't kind of a really, really strong weekend for him. But he did keep out the walls, obviously finished in the points,

got 10th place, just finished ahead of Perez and then managed to get promoted once Holgerbeg's penalty got in and decent points after what's been a tough kind of run for O'Con. Certainly the fans gave him a 7. Olly Bearman qualified P19 and did not finish. I have gone for a 4 out of 10 for Olly Bearman.

He had the crash in FP3 which was a big one. then we got into qualifying and yeah it was behind his team of course got caught out by the red flag but you know that's a risk that you take in in Monaco and why we've said many times

that you kind of need to get a lap in as early as possible when it counts because it's something that's happened many times at Monaco and then had contact on the first lap and lost his front wing so then of course retired as well which wasn't his fault but just

a weekend to forget for Ollie for sure I am going to go for a 5 out of 10 for Olly Behrman. There are so many things to take into account here and I don't really want to give him lower than a 5 and yeah, maybe he's my second favourite driver or whatever, I don't care. But I've gone for a 5 out of 10 because the, as I mentioned with Ocon, the Q1 elimination was down to the fact that basically they need a prep lap unless your Carlos signs will get onto him.

But for Olly Beerman and for Hassey, they struggle to get anything out of that final run. And then as for, yeah, he crashed in FP3. That was 100% of his fault. As much as he said it was a bizarre crash, he was offline. So I think that was probably one of the big factors as to why that happened. The losing of the front wing, I'm sorry, I've watched this replay. And it is, I don't know what Ocon's doing.

It's absolutely ridiculous because I know it's, you know, the start of the race and everyone's jostling for position. But Ockon, in my mind, has shaped for the inside of the hairpin, and then bailed out of it at the last millisecond, and then Olly's already committed to the outside line, and then just drives into the back of his teammate. For me, that is not Olly's fault in the slightest, and I think he's very unlucky for that to have happened.

So, yeah, both hash drives could have been out with that sort of move, but it didn't happen for O'Con, thankfully, for him. him but yeah I did I don't pin any blame on Ollie for the start of that one so I've gone for a five the fans gave him a four out of ten Lance stroll qualified 22nd and did not finish I have gone for a three out of 10 for Lance stroll uh qualified dead last I know his teammate was 21st so it's not like it's like it was miles off but still not quick in comparison comparison to Fernando. I think he was maybe 9, 10 seconds at

the biggest margin between Fernando, but we know how this is with Monaco, right? It's it doesn't stretch out as much when you're in actually, to be fair, I think Alonzo and Stroll were in their own sort of pack of just Formula 3, then you have the Formula 2, then you have the Formula 1 cars that were

lapping after lap 10. But it's still, you know, he crashed out of the race. He blamed it due to engine braking. I think there definitely was a factor for the disintegrating track as well. Did you hear the Perez? Do you see the Perez video on that?

Yes, I have seen Perez. Just basically saying from like lap 20 odd, by the way, guys, you need to sweep that because it's really bad. They didn't do anything until... And then when Lance goes into the wall, Perez goes, that's not his fault, which is, I thought was interesting. Yeah, I mean, Lance himself said, I think it was the engine breaking. So, you know, you've got to take what he says, you know, it's gospel, Lance Stroll.

But I do think there is a factor there as well. But still, a weekend to forget for Lance. as is the entire season, I'm sure. So I've gone for a four out of ten for Lance stroll, obviously miles off Alonso. Difficult one with the crash, you know, because it's not the usual kind of straight into the wall and 100% the driver's fault, obviously he has crashed,

so I will kind of downgrade him for that, of course, because other people are. So you're downgrading him, and you said he's miles off Alonzo and you've gone four out of ten? Yes, because I've worked. some some things as well and oh my word the car is actually trying to kill him i don't know if you saw the the crazy moment in the tunnel on lap two um but oh my word that assamarton is absolutely horrendous i can't believe he's just going what normally is just a very easy turn at the tunnel and it snaps on him

and he basically laughs at how crazy uh this car is to drive well i'm looking it up so keep talking But yeah, I am going for a four out of ten because, yeah, as he say, yes, his qualifying was poor, but he was driving behind Fernando Alonso. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a moment. That is a moment in the tunnel.

Why is it sideways there? That is fascinating. Okay, the fans gave Lance Stroll a three out of ten. Fernando Alonzo, qualified 21st and finished 10th. I have gone for a nine out of 10th. Fernando Alonso. He, of course, benefited quite a lot from the misfortune of others,

but still did an incredible job in an absolutely horrendous car, beat stroll by an enormous margin, which is maybe not a surprise anymore. And Fernando Alonzo, you know, kept out of trouble. In qualifying. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, in qualifying, yeah. I was going to say, and in the race,

but there's because strolls in the war. By several laps in the race. Yeah, exactly. But Fernando, yeah. he was there to pick up the pieces of course he finished behind peres on the road but benefited and got a a point for astin martin finally at probably what's been maybe even their worst weekend which was a surprise because you thought this might be one where they could actually perform because it's not maybe all down to the engine but alas um astern martin still struggling quite a lot but alonzo got a point

which feels like a championship in that has to mind, certainly. It really does. I can't believe we're sat here and Tommy's given Fernando a nine. I've gone for 10 out of 10 for Fernando Alonzo. I mean, we've just watched a video, you just made me watch a video

of stroll in the tunnel trying to kill him. And then now you're telling me, what more could he have done? He's put seven tenths on his teammate in qualifying, and he scored a point in a quite literal tractor. I mean, I don't need to... He's done better drives this season, and we can't give him a 10 for just finishing like 15.

I said he can. And I know how much it angered me giving Arvid Limblet a 10 out of 10 for some people last time out. But, you know, these are our grades and yours are yours. But yeah, I've gone for a 10 for Fernando, because starting on the back row of the grid and scoring a point in the categorically worst car on the grid, when else are we going to give him a 10 at this stage

when we've been literally meming the life out of this Aster Martin car all season long. So yes, there is luck involved, but I can't give him anything lower than that. Oh, he should have beaten blah, blah, blah. No, I think he's maximised absolutely everything. The fans gave him a 10 out of 10 as well. I'm glad you agree. Well, crazy, I was the one that not. Normally it's the way around where Alonza gets a six every week and I'm there like,

that was an 8 out of 10 drive. He was like 14th and the worst car on the grid. And now I'm like, Fernando should have got a podium, guys. Come on. Look in. Let's now head to a driver we just spoke about. Arvid Lindblad, qualified in 15th and finished the race in 6th. I am going to go for...

Hmm. It's a very lovely result. I'm going to go for an 8 out of 10 for Arvid Lindblad. I think he did get reasonably lucky, I believe, with the timing of red flags and looked to be off the pace of Lawson, if I'm going to be completely honest with you. We'll speak about Liam after this. Still, you know, a great weekend for Arvid to be scoring that amount of points. Kept it clean as well, of course. We saw an overtake as well, so he should actually get a 15 out of 10.

because of Albon making that error. But yeah, I think that he was definitely the slower V-car driver this weekend. So, yeah, I'm going to go for an eight because I think Good Fortune did very much play a part and maybe on paper made Lawson look less good than he actually was when you take into account everything. So eight out of ten. I've gone for an eight out of ten as well for Avid Limblad. Yeah, I think he was off Lawson's pace.

qualifying was a bit of a let down when you see what Lawson managed to do, but deserves a huge amount of credit for avoiding any errors and mistakes and things in his first Monaco Grand Prix, which is, you know, deserves some credit for sure. And the fact that other drivers have made a lot of mistakes here and there, and there's been a race of so many kind of errors and problems and crashes and craziness, the fact that he's managed to keep it out the walls and everything and get a great result deserves credit. So I've gone for an 8 out of 10.

The fans gave Arvid an 8 as well. Liam Lawson, qualified 10th, finish the race in 5th. I have gone for a 10 out of 10 for Liam Lawson. I think his qualifying was absolutely brilliant. I don't think that the racing bulls was a car that should have been making it into Q3 when you look at some of the others. I don't think it's obviously terrible, but I don't think they had,

say, like the advantage that they had in Canada, for example, where they were looking mighty. And made no mistakes. He was the quickest V-carb driver all weekend and, yeah, deserved the amazing result he got in the end and got the reward for his great speed and keeping it out the walls and executed, you know, the weekend very well.

So I think I've gone for a turn. It's got to be a 10. You think you've gone for a 10. I was going to say something else. And then I was like, I think. And then I stopped and just said, yeah. But I'm glad you think you've gone for a 10. My thinking of going for number is 10 out of 10.

Very, very easy. I think you all saw that coming from when I spoke about Arvid's grade. Lawson, massively impressive. He was, yeah, so quick this weekend. Potentially could have outqualified Gassley, but I'm not going to downgrade him for that. just genuinely a brilliant performance from him. And if he keeps this kind of performance up, which again, I think he's been one of the drivers of the season so far this year.

He has excellent results. So another one, sorry, I didn't mean to do the meme, but another one to put on the board for Lawson. And yeah, he's having a great season so far. So fully deserving of a 10 out of 10 and the much quicker V-carve driver, I would say, around Monaco. The fans, gave him a nine. What are you doing?

I'm sorry, this is the first time lashing out. How on earth is that a nine? Is it because Gassie finished ahead of him on the road? Don't care. It was definitely a 10. Carlos Sines, qualified P12, did not finish. This one's difficult because he got yeated. How much do you put a little bit of sprinkling of seasoning of blame on the yeatage being on his side?

I don't really. put much blame at all on him. I'm going to go for, God, what am I going to do? Eight out of ten for Carlos Sines. I think he had a really strong weekend. If you listen to his interview, he said he put the lap of his life in qualifying. And if we think about how heavily we grade this stuff in quality, of course, this was Q1. Q2, he left a bit on the table. But Q1, he was the, I think the only driver to actually make it into Q2 on that final lap without a prep lap. So Carlos made something work that no one else did, which I think definitely needs to be commended

because, of course, he was on the back foot after the red flag came out. And then he was on for points. Both Alex and Carlos were working together beautifully. And I will say that, you know, when you watch the aerial shot-ish, you know, the camera angle of the hairpin, it's easy to say, Carlos, why did you come across? But also, Carlos probably is not. expecting. Yeah, he's not, he can't see that and he's not expecting Nico to be there and he has to kind of drift over that way

to go for the next right hander. It's the racing line. So it's just really unfortunate for Carlos but I think the 8 out of 10 shows that I believe he had a pretty strong weekend. I have gone for a 7 out of 10 for Carlos Sainz. Yeah, he's unlucky not to get points there of course getting taken out the race. Williams of course did that strategy again that worked for them last year and it was almost going to be absolutely perfect until Carlos got taken out because it would have got both of them points but yeah Carlos drove a good race

and it's a shame that he didn't get rewarded for his drive. The fans give Carlos a 7 out of 10. Alex Alborne qualified P11 and finished the race in 8th. I have gone for an eight out of ten for Alex Alburn. I think it was a great result. He got the points, which is great for Williams because they've struggled to get them this year. I don't think Alex has had the best of season so far. He's struggled to get points on the board.

But here, eighth place is massive for Williams, a strong weekend, out qualifying Carlos, when I think Carlos, you know, has been very strong recently. And Albon, yeah, delivered a great result to get P8. And, yeah, very impressive from Alex to get some big points on the board for Williams. I have gone for an 8 out of 10 for Alex Albon as well. I really don't think, and I don't want to downgrade Carlos for being taken out of the race. And that's why I've done this, because Alex and Carlos could not be separated this weekend. they were 28,000ths of a second separated in qualifying.

So I can't give Alex a bit of, you know, a one point additional nod for the fact he he out qualified his teammates. They were so, so close. And then in the race, they were working together to come and score great points for Williams. So I'm going to go for the same grade for both of them because I think that's the fairest in my head. So Alex gets an eight out of ten as well. And the fans get a

I'm sorry, I'm not grading you guys I'm not grading you guys You guys get a 7 out of 10 No, you graded Alex A 7 out of 10 Maybe we should start doing that Yeah Based on how we think

From the previous episode We're going to grade you guys A 2 out of 10 Because you shouted at us The entire way through For our opinion Indeed Let's now go to

Louis Hamilton Qualified third And finished The Race in Second I've deliberated this one quite extensively. So as we know, I'm not downgrading him for the speeding penalty. This is tough, this is tough because I'm genuinely considering him giving him a 10. Was there more in qualifying?

It's so hard because you're looking at Ferrari from Friday, oh, they're the fastest car, but Saturday they weren't. It's a 10 out of 10 for Lewis Hamilton. giving him a 10 because he had an excellent weekend this weekend. He outqualified Charlecler, which is no mean feat. We will get on to the first grade once I process that. But for Hamilton, I don't think I can really downgrade him on what he did this weekend. Genuinely was on Charlotte Clare's hills throughout Friday. And to be fair, he was ahead of Charlotte Clare in one of the practice sessions. And I think he loaded a lot of pressure

in the Charlechler camp and Hamilton is going from strength to strength at the moment at Ferrari. He genuinely is. Canada was an excellent performance and now this one, I can't fault him. So, yeah, I'm going to go for a 10 out of 10.

I'm locking it in. I have gone for a 9 out of 10 for Lewis Hamilton. So good to see, basically, the Hamilton evolved back. That's two races now with a P2. The stronger Ferrari driver, absolutely this weekend on a team on a trek where you know his teammate is an absolute specialist at the reason i can't go for a tent and maybe it's just because of

hamilton and how good he is just in his whole career um is that you know we all know these drivers can elevate themselves further and i know that Ferrari will maybe a little bit uh off but you know unbelievable quality maybe gets pole position of course he was third on the grid but yeah still a fantastic performance it's very nearly a 10 but I'm going for a nine for Hamilton and it's so good to just see him back fighting at the front second in the world championship as well now is incredible and just shows what a great job he's doing and how much he's turned his form around when essentially last year you know he was probably the the flop of the season and now he's one of if not the most impressive driver I think

we're seeing so far this season. So great job from Hamilton. Yeah, really enjoying the regs. One thing I always wanted to add, and the reason why I've lent more towards a 10, was just his race pace as well was really strong. You know, when LeCleur was in the Grand Prix, Charle was really that close.

He started to eke back towards Lewis towards the end of the stint, I think it was. But Hamilton, yeah, was unfazed. So 10 out of 10 from me, and a 9 out of 10 from the fans. Charlotte Claire qualified fourth did not finish he did not I've gone for a four out of ten for Charlotte Claire

I think one of his messiest weekends of his career a track that of course he is so good around and has been so good around in recent years we'll start with qualifying of course yes he finished fourth but there were errors all over the place his Q3 was an absolute mess let me know when you finished

Yeah, I will do. Take your head off. It was an absolute mess. His first run, put him on the back foot, put a load of pressure on him. Then, you know, he was basically looked desperate at the end where he went into the wall to just try and gain anything from the car. And maybe there's a bit of frustration there that how quick they were on Friday and it was coming together for him. Of course, crashed out in the Grand Prix, didn't have the pace that Hamilton had.

I'm surprised. Actually, I thought that Shell would be all over the back of Hamilton, and they'd kind of race together, but Hamilton, you know, went off into the distance, and yeah, they came close together at the end. But of course, the crash, again, there's talks of the brakes, a bit like Stroll with his incident with the engine, but at the end of the day, he has put it in the wall.

And, yeah, it's a really poor weekend overall for Shal on what could have been the track where he it was their big chance I think for victory particularly with how good he is around it indeed I have gone for a four out of ten as well for Charlotte Claire

yeah crashed in both competitive sessions qualifying and the race yeah it's it can't be any higher than that yes his pace at times was excellent

and thought maybe, maybe there was a chance of the win at the start of the weekend, but, you know, the, it's such, it's such gray area, isn't it? This, this, you know, how did he crash? Was it the tract is integrating? Was it his brakes and the fact that, I mean, he said after the race that he, wasn't it that he had, his front brakes locked and then his rears didn't decelerate at all. And I think he was even caught speaking in the pits and saying, oh, I put this amount of pressure on and you know he he was mystified as to why he's gone in the wall and when you watch the onboard you know I said in the podcast like I don't I don't blame him for it but like

how can I give him any more than a four for a weekend where he has not completed each either session so very tough very tough indeed but we move on because I don't want to talk about it anymore ever again yes the fans gave him a six oh very generous Lord who is the fan boy because it might not be me. Of course it's me. Let's go to Isaac Hadjar, qualified in fifth and finished in third. I've gone for an eight out of ten for Hadjar. I think I was slightly harsh on him in the main race podcast where I said he was really slow.

And the reason why he was really slow is because he was managing a problem with his engine and he had no first gear. And you could tell he was having a, bit of a meltdown and I feel sorry for the person on the receiving end of a lot of those team radio messages but for Hajjar he managed to you know and worked around that problem and I think he does deserve credit that it's not easy to manage problems around a circuit like this especially when you're this early into your career so yeah I've gone for an eight out of ten I've gone for an eight out of ten as well for Hadjar yeah it wasn't incredibly fast this weekend

obviously, you know, not on the Stappen's level when it came to qualifying, of course, but if you'd have said that he'd got a podium after, you know, the crash that he had in practice, he would have been dreaming, I think, you know, a really bad moment for him must have been gutted, the pressures would have been on him. And then, yeah, to have the issue in the race, to manage it the whole time, to kind of keep his head and keep it on the road when others were having issues and yeah was there to basically bag

a brilliant result for him and his team. What I find absolutely insane is that during the red flag and the reason why he was under investigation was that the Red Bull team started doing work on the car like replacing spark plugs and things like that

then they were found like the FIA were like, well you can't do that and so they then took it all off and reverted the car back to its original state, which I, I don't know about you, but that's a penalty. That feels like it should be a penalty. Yeah, that is crazy because I imagine, and I'd love to please mention the comments if you are one of these people, that if you're a George Russell fan, you're probably going,

that guy that's touched the car, can he now wait five seconds and then serve that five second penalty and then go, oh, we've served it now and then go again? because I'm guessing, no, you can't do that. So, yeah, it's obviously a very strange rule that one that they were able to get away with that one. When queried about their works, they stopped working and reverted the car to its previous state without replacing any part. That should be a penalty in my opinion. That's such a weird ruling. But anyway, well unto Hagell, that's not down to him.

And an eight out of ten. The fans gave him an eight as well. Max Verstappen Qualified second Didn't finish or really even do anything What are we doing about this? We are grading him for his qualifying Okay, right, because we need to make this clear

that Monaco clearly is a special case here then because we have had And we've had NAs for this kind of thing So can we just make it clear to everybody what we're doing here. Well, I want to give them a grade, shock. There you go, Sark. You want to give them a 12?

12, yeah. Because essentially, Monaco, it's all about qualifying. And also, like, I've made this point before that if Hadjar, if Gazley or whatever, put it on pole position, and then the car breaks down, it seems incredibly harsh to give them no grade at all and not be rewarded. did for something brilliant that they've done in qualifying because essentially, you know, and the same goes for the other way. Had Max binned it in the war in qualifying, started last and his car broke down, he deserves to get less than N.A. Because he's had a bad race.

Okay, so it's a case-by-case basis. We just need to clear this up because there are a lot of people that care much more about our grades than we do and they need clarity to. me. But it is a case-by-case basis. We say this with everything in Formula One when it's penalties. It's not just like, this person did this, so then this person did this. And I think, you know, feel free to say it in the, in the comments. I'm sure you will. They already have. It's already said. I'm sure they have. But I don't, I don't believe it is for someone's series. So you go ahead. I've gone for a nine out of ten for Maxa Stauffin. You can only judge

when he's qualifying and he put up an unbelievable lap to almost get pole position in a car that's clearly not there yet, you know, ahead of his, comfortably ahead of his teammate. It was a phenomenal lap. And then, of course, you know, had it been his error like Limblood that you gave a 10, just a reminder, had it been his error for the start, I would have downgraded him, but it's not. Okay. So thanks for bringing it up. Look, that was one piece of information I was not made aware of when making that grade.

So I will revert to a five out of ten for Limblad in Canada. And no, look, we're already locked in and people are over it. And now they're not Tommy because you brought it back up. So, Max Verstappen, I am going to go for. And you can't get higher than Hajar. I didn't even do the race, bro. I'm going to go for an 8 out of 10 for Max if we're going to grade him for qualifying

and then not doing the race but then there's Limblad by the way he did a sprint all right before you start shouting at me that was a different sprint weekend we saw that he was unbelievable in both quality and race trim anyway back to this yeah I can't I can't give him a higher grade than Hadjar who scored a podium his first podium for Red Bull

so that's why I'm going for an 8 out of 10 for Max he put three tenths on Hadjar which is a decent chunk. It's not on Alonzo Stroll level. But yeah, that's not to take away from Max's quality performance. I wish we'd been able to see what he could do in the race. I really do, or at least down towards term one. I think not a lot, just purely from the Red Bull and what we've seen this year.

I still firmly believe that Hamilton would have probably got him maybe. And how it's impossible to get into the lead from second, as we mentioned in the podcast, 2002. 2002, yeah. How? It's a long, long time ago. So annoying. But yeah, Max, phenomenal qualifying. And yes, he's getting a nod, a cheeky nod.

Eight out of ten. The fans gave him an eight as well. Kimmy Antonelli. Qualified first, finish first. It's a seven out of ten for Kimmy Antonelli. Just left a lot out there. 10 out of ten, obviously, for Kimi. No notes.

No negatives. Just probably his. most impressive weekend of his entire really long Formula One career. It's Monaco. Pressure of the championship. Mercedes kind of on the back foot to some degree. George Russell's sticking its sixth in qualifying. You would even have forgiven Antonelli for a P3 or P4 in quality.

But no, he was P1. He was so quick in the race that he left everyone for dust whenever he wanted to push. I don't have any other words. because I'm genuinely speechless at what we're witnessing. Five wins in a row for Antonelli. Ridiculous. I've gone for a 10 out of 10 for Antonelli. It's finally a 10 because, and it's a full deserving 10,

because it is the absolute perfect weekend. You know, there's been debates of the fact that some people will say, I deserved a 10 anyway because he won the race. But, you know, we've given him nines a lot of the time because he's never executed like perfect wins. and there's been lots of circumstances and he's had poor starts and then come back through the field

and we know how good the Mercedes is. The Mercedes was not clear this weekend. You look at what his teammate managed to do and Antonelli did a perfect quali lap, a perfect race. You know, he just went off into the distance, see you later. And yeah, when the pressure could have been on, when I think what's most impressive as well

is it wasn't even like a case of drove the perfect qualifying lap which we'd still give him a 10 for I think because he's driven the perfect qualifying lap and it'd just been a normal monoco race lights to flag he controls the pace but he bolted was never in doubt of losing that victory and in the craziness of the track breaking up people getting penalties left right and center two you know two race starts because of the situation we have with the red flags all these things could have easily got in his head for a young driver that's going for the World Championship and knows that this is a huge opportunity for him to get a massive points lead in the championship and he just did absolutely nothing wrong all weekend. It was perfection. It was absolute perfection.

10 out of 10 as well from the fans unsurprisingly. We now go to George Russell qualified 6th, finished 12th. I have gone for a 5 out of 10 for George Russell. Of course there'll be people saying he's very unfortunate for his drive-through penalty, but his teammate dominated the race. And, you know, I said this with Bortoletto's grade.

Your Monaco Grand Prix is make or break in qualifying. And George had a poor qualifying. His teammate put it on pole position, and he was sixth. And when you are out of position in Monaco, that is the nature of what happens at Monaco, that you get stuck behind a car that, you know, can't get, has a problem with first gear and it's going so slow that you end up being lapped by your teammate. But that is just what happens.

And, you know, even the, even the drive-through penalty, which he got for, of course, touching his car, I heard a radio where, and Sky were mentioning this, and I think Bernie Collins was saying this as well, that when your team say, stay out, you don't come into the pit lane because they're not ready for you. And they could easily have not had any tires or anything like that. And yes, it's the fault of the team because they've touched the car. But they were saying, stay out, stay out. And he came into the pits.

So it's not like, there's a little bit of, obviously I'm not saying like, it's 100% his fault for a drive-through. But you have to put a bit of blame there. Even other things at the weekend, like he was so close to getting, a penalty going almost out of the pit lane, like on the white line, which looked incredibly marginal. That's perfection. Perfection.

He's not getting a penalty, right? You can't be downgrading him for that. The grid box as well. I'm not grading him. I just saying that I think like there was like investigations here there and everywhere. It was a really messy weekend from him. And yeah, like, he needs to like pick it up and find out what's what's gone wrong because it was just a case of it all went wrong in qualifying and then just got even worse in the race.

I've gone for a five out of ten as well for George. I don't think you can really downgrade him any more than that, just pure, and I did even contemplate maybe one point higher, but I'm going to go with a five, because, you know, without that whole Mercedes pit stop debacle, he's going to finish third. So, but then on the other side of things, there are things to downgrade him on how slow he wasn't qualifying to be that far off. Your very young 19-year-old teammate, it's just not really a good look for George after, you know, being very impressive over the last few seasons. The speeding penalty, I don't, I'm not going to downgrade him for that, as I haven't with everyone else. I hear your point about the pit stop confusion.

I just, I still think it's 90% Mercedes fault. Just because George has thrown the cat amongst the pigeons and pit, that doesn't mean that it's his fault. Like, it's the responsibility of the team to not touch the car because they know they have a penalty, but they have. And it's only one member of the mechanics, wasn't it? So, yeah, it's a really tough grade.

And I can understand where people could sit between a four and a seven. If you actually think about where he might have ended up. But I'm going to go with a five. And considering the numbers I've just said as the scale, the fans, they didn't agree with any of those numbers and went for a three out of ten for George Russell, which I think is insanely harsh. The worst grade of any one so far.

Him and Lance. Lance who ended up in the walls. Yeah, Lance always gets the three, doesn't he? Yeah, wow, that's incredibly harsh. Indeed. Okay, we now go to Oscar Piastri, qualified in seventh and finished in fourth. I am going to lock in a seven out of ten for Oscar Piastri.

Good weekend. It seemed as though Lando, who, shock, didn't have a clean weekend because of reliability was slightly faster. Looked at one point that Piastri might even be on the podium, which would have been pretty pretty, sensational considering McLaren being the fourth fastest car around here, which was a surprise to quite a few people. But he was able to just, I mean, clearly, if you just go around Monaco and not pick up too many penalties, of course he picked up one for speeding, which he served, I think,

didn't he, under the safety car, I think it was. So it actually was sort of negated. But yeah, a seven out of ten for Oscar, a reasonable weekend, good points, but nothing to write home about. Definitely I've gone for a seven as well for Oscar. It was one of those races where he of course outqualified his teammate. He had a better a better Q3. Lando had a lot of issues, of course, but then he was one of these drivers that was able to just drive their race. McLaren were so surprisingly poor the what we thought they were going to be, which is of course no fault of Piastri.

but then kept it out of any kind of trouble for the, really, other than, of course, the speeding penalty, to bag a really solid result. And I think he would, I think him and McLaren would have taken forth all day long, based on how poor they were this weekend. But Oscar's been rewarded for basically just having a good weekend where he's not made any mistakes.

The fans gave Oscar Piastri a seven as well. Lando Norris qualified eighth did not finish I've gone for a six out of ten for Lando Norris I think one harsher than Piastri because they were racing each other into term one which put him behind Gassley which of course meant

that was going to ruin his race of course not downgrading him for the reliability that it had of course which is why he failed to finish but again like you know, unideal preparation all weekend for what's happening with Lando and the unreliability. I have seen a graphic that someone has posted about Lando's reliability issues. I think we did something similar to this before, but it is now insane reading even more.

So I'll just go into the problems that Lando has had this year. So Australia, you had a gearbox and clutch issue and missed 80% of the session in FP1. in FP2 he had power unit issues which meant he didn't do any running FP3 deployment issues qualifying was where they duct tape his front wing and of course had that deployment issue again sprint qualifying deployment issues in China qualifying had a minor issue in the race he had a power unit issue

which meant he was didn't even start the race FP1 his straight line mode didn't work in in Japan FP2 had a hydraulic leak FP3 had an ERS issue which was the second battery to go qualifying deployment issues in Miami had issues in qualifying with the boost and deployment

in the race he had a rear wing problem but of course that was a race where he actually did well round five Canada Debris at the start of the race of course they had the whole issue with putting on the inters and then he had a DNF for a mechanical failure then we go to Monaco round six

where in FP2 he had a fourth power unit failure which meant you know terrible for him again and then in the race another issue

which meant he DNFed like that is some of the worst reliability I know we're joking about other teams and CAD like an Aster mine he must have the worst reliability on the whole grid

that has to be horrendous to be right up there you'd think that you reading that out is you know if you knew nothing about Formula 1 you're like oh yeah back in 180, Lando Norris used to drive for blah, blah, blah, and here's his reliability issues.

That's the kind of reliability problems we expect from old school Formula One, not in 2026 F1. Of course, the new regs are throwing a large amount of Spice Landau's way. And as we've said, he's been great when it's been clean, but he's not really had too many of those. I have gone for a six out of ten for Lando as well. Untapped pace. I think he genuinely did have a lot of speed, made a bit of. mistaken his final lap in Q3, which of course cost him.

I think he would have outqualified Oscar, probably not much more. I think he even said that after qualifying. And then as for the race, yeah, I'm downgrading him a little bit, just purely because of losing that position to Gasly. Of course, he was squeezed. You go side by side with Oscar. Oscar sort of jolts over to the right a little bit too late. And by that point, Lando has already gotten out the throttle and it gave Gasly the opportunity

to get through. And that really did scupper his race. up until the point of the DNF. So I've gone for a six. The fans, they've gone for a five. Here we go then. Who is our P1? I cannot choose anyone other than Kimmy Antonelli,

as much as there have been some very solid 10 performances. Hamilton, I mentioned, of course, as a 10. Lawson as well. I gave Alonzo a 10. A lot of 10s for those that actually escaped Monaco, Unharmed. Gazley as well, of course. But yeah, it has to be Antonelli because he was simply unstoppable.

Indeed, yeah, it's easily Kimi Antonelli. It is a 100% score, five stars, you know, 10 out of 10, perfection can't get any better. You know, it's the best weekend of his career and the best drive of his career. But it's probably the drive of the season so far in terms of just the fact that he's executed everything to perfection and the fact that, you know, we'll see how good Kimmy Antonelli his career is going to be. I, spoiler, a lot. I think it's going to be very, very good. And what he's already shown.

But how many times have we seen great drivers when the car isn't 100% even if they've been dominating the whole season and they go into a race where the car isn't as good this weekend and they still dominate? And that's exactly what Kimmy's done. And I can't believe he's doing that at 19. years old and in only a second Formula One season. So yes, I don't think

this will be his last victory and goodness knows what his run is going to be potentially at the moment with how good he's driving. Exactly. 66 points the gap to Lewis Hamilton in the championship and then George Russell two further back from that. So he's got a big

old buffer has Kimmy. And that is it. Thank you everybody for tuning in to this driver rating. It's a very interesting one. Be keen to hear your thoughts of where you sit on that. If you're downgrading due to the speeding penalties, if you're upgrading for other things that we didn't mention, I'm sure you've already let us know. If not, please do. And we look forward to seeing you literally this weekend, of course, for Barcelona, the circuit to Barcelona, Catalonia. We will be live as normal for our usual watchalongs. So come and join us for that. So yeah, Tommy, final thoughts?

Final thoughts? That was a lot of fun. Of course your voice is going. And the final thoughts. It just gave up. Your final thoughts is literally your final thoughts as you've lost your voice. I've lost, I've drunk all my water. Yeah, it's a, it was an insane race makes it even more difficult for drive ratings. But I do enjoy the fact that we can disagree.

And if you think if there's proof that no one's, you know, incorrect or everyone has a different opinion, 71 people gave Kimmy Antonelli a 9 out of 10 for that weekend wasn't enough 4% of the vote he got just didn't deliver should have done better OK well we've left it on that note we'll see you soon lots of love

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