What DriverIndex measures the nine dimensions of a drive
A Formula 1 race is not one skill, so grading it as one number throws away most of what happened. Nine independent measures run against every driver in every round — each computed from official timing data, each with the car's own contribution taken out, each ranked across the whole grid on its own page.
The nine measures
click any one for the full 2026 rankingExpected Position
Result vs the car’s natural slotWhere did the driver finish compared with where their car should finish? Every car has a natural slot in the field; beating that slot earns credit, falling short costs it. Car failures are handled so a driver is never punished for machinery that broke underneath them.
2026 leader: Max Verstappen · 10.00 BRace Pace
Pure speed, car removedThe heart of the index. Race pace with the car’s baseline performance stripped out — what is left is the time the driver found (or lost) that the machinery alone does not explain.
2026 leader: Max Verstappen · 9.84 CConsistency
Lap-after-lap repeatabilityHow repeatable a driver’s clean laps are across a race. Metronomes score high; scruffy, erratic afternoons score low. Traffic, safety cars and pit laps are excluded so only representative laps count.
2026 leader: Yuki Tsunoda · 9.54 DAttack & Defence
Wheel-to-wheel craftRacecraft in traffic: converting attacking opportunities into position gained, and holding ground when under fire — always weighted by the opportunities the race actually offered, so quiet races don’t distort the picture.
2026 leader: Max Verstappen · 9.83 ETyre Management
Making the rubber lastHow well the driver preserves tyre performance across a stint compared with the rest of the field on equivalent rubber, isolating the driver’s hand from the compound and the phase of the race.
2026 leader: Nico Hulkenberg · 9.99 FQualifying
One-lap speed, car adjustedSaturday performance judged against the machinery’s baseline, not the stopwatch alone. A midfield car dragged into places it doesn’t belong scores higher than a rocket ship parked on pole.
2026 leader: Fernando Alonso · 9.71 GRace Start
Lights out & the opening rushThe launch and the opening rush: net positions and ground gained or lost by the first sector of lap one. Documented car problems at the start are neutralised — only the driver’s part is scored.
2026 leader: Charles Leclerc · 9.68 HPit Stop Execution
The driver’s share of the stopPit stops are a team effort — this score isolates the driver’s share: the approach and the getaway. Time spent stationary and the crew’s work are excluded by construction.
2026 leader: Nico Hulkenberg · 9.12 ICleanliness
Errors & penalties ledgerA ledger of driver errors and sanctions across the race weekend, converted to a single cleanliness dial. Unlike the other scores this one starts from a flawless weekend — every mistake or penalty subtracts from it, so a spotless race sits at the top of the grade and each incident pulls it down.
2026 leader: George Russell · 9.65How the nine become one rating
from nine scores to a place on the gridEach measure is graded on a 6–10 scale, and the nine combine into a single grade for that drive. Drivers are then re-ranked on that grade and paid points on the official Formula 1 scale, which is what builds the DriverIndex Championship over a season.
A season rating — the number on The Index — is measured differently on purpose. It is the mean of a driver's race grades with their worst round dropped, because a rating is a question about how good someone is, and a single bad afternoon in a dozen rounds is not the answer to it. The championship drops nothing: there, a lost race costs the whole race, as it should.
Race grades and season ratings are read on different scales, so a driver's season number can sit above their best single race. They answer different questions and are not versions of each other.