Tyre Management
How 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.
This season, Nico Hulkenberg leads Tyre Management: 9.99 against the grid, across 10 rated races. The single best Tyre Management performance of the year belongs to Nico Hulkenberg — 10.0 at the SUZ.
How the grid reads on Tyre Management in 2026
what the season table actually saysAt the top. Nico Hulkenberg leads Tyre Management on 9.99, 0.86 clear of Kimi Antonelli on 9.14. 23 drivers have enough running to be rated, and the field runs from 9.99 down to 6.50 — a spread of 3.50 of a grade point.
The speciality. Nico Hulkenberg is P1 on Tyre Management but only P17 on The Index overall — 16 places better here than at everything else put together. On this one measure, this is what they are for.
The soft spot. Lewis Hamilton runs the other way: P5 on The Index but only P20 here, 15 places worse. A driver good enough to rank high overall is giving something back on tyre management.
Same car, same measure. Team mates share machinery, so the gap between them is as close to a clean read as tyre management gets. The tightest pair on the grid is Williams — Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon separated by just 0.02. The widest is Audi, where Nico Hulkenberg is 3.01 ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto.
What this number is not. Tyre Management is one of nine independent measures, and a driver can lead it while sitting mid-table overall — the season grade in the last column is this metric alone, not a summary of the driver. It is also a rating against the rest of the grid this season, not against history: it says who is doing this best right now, not who has ever done it best.
Season ranking
click a round to sort · each round on its own, Season against the grid| Pos | Driver | MEL | SHA | SUZ | MIA | CAN | MON | ESP | AUT | GBR | SPA | HUN | NED | ITA | Season |
|---|
A race grade rates one afternoon; a season grade rates a driver across the year against the rest of the grid. They answer different questions, so they are not versions of the same number and the season figure is not the row added up. – = not classified that race (insufficient running, or the situation made the metric unmeasurable — the driver is never penalised for it), and never counted towards the season; the championship still accumulates per-race points.