It is a phrase that is sometimes used in motor racing when teams or sponsors are weighing up their options on what particular driver or rider to sign for them. In fact, if you are a regular viewer of BT Sport and the MotoGP coverage then it is a phrase you will hear Neil Hodgson use quite often. The “Stock Value” of a racer.
We can all have opinions based on results and championships as to who the best performing racers are on the market, the current talk of Max Verstappen is a prime example. What I wanted to know was, if I was to gather all the figures and stats together from races and qualifying, add a few equations in such as their level of performance and the particular machinery they have at their disposal, what would their stock value be?
I sat down with somebody who loves their spreadsheets, formulas and mathematics and we set about compiling all the stats on the current Formula One drivers this season to see what their valuation was, no matter whether they had raced at one Grand Prix weekend or the entire season. The stats entered would then be calculated to find their “stock value”.
This is by no means intended to be 100% serious as we all know motor racing is about talent, wins and championships and the performance on the track, but the table below does make for interesting reading when you look at where certain drivers find themselves. Especially when you consider this is all about statistics and numbers. As the pundits say, a racers stock value will identify how good they are actually performing.
The interesting point I noticed when we were calculating stats is that using the formula we had was that Ricciardo, Rosberg and Vettel had a a better Qualifying stock value than Hamilton. At the other end of the scale, Wehrlein had a better Qualifying stock value than both Sauber drivers.
We took all the stats and all the performances. There is no set figure to compare it against but as an example if you took Mr Fictional Driver who won every Grand Prix so far, got every pole, every fastest lap and basically did everything right in the race and qualifying based on the formula we used, that stock value would be 50.36.
Here are your Formula One Drivers Stock Values.
Please don’t take it too seriously.
F1 DRIVERS STOCK VALUE
1. Stoffel Vandoorne – 29.40
2. Lewis Hamilton – 23.11
3. Nico Rosberg – 20.10
4. Daniel Ricciardo – 17.98
5. Sebastian Vettel – 14.25
6. Valtteri Bottas – 14.07
7. Romain Grosjean – 13.36
8. Kimi Raikkonen – 13.09
9. Max Verstappen – 13.01
10. Sergio Perez – 12.76
11. Kevin Magnussen – 11.31
12. Felipe Massa – 10.36
13. Fernando Alonso – 9.86
14. Esteban Ocon – 9.75
15. Carlos Sainz Jr. – 9.30
16. Daniil Kvyat – 9.05
17. Nico Hulkenberg – 8.57
18. Jenson Button – 7.86
19. Felipe Nasr – 7.17
20. Esteban Gutierrez – 6.29
21. Jolyon Palmer – 6.31
22. Marcus Ericsson – 5.96
23. Pascal Wehrlein – 4.26
24 – Rio Haryanto – 0.74
See You At The Chequered Flag
Neil Simmons
Twitter: @world_racing