MPH: F1 team-mate battles – which drivers were quicker in 2023?

F1
- Last updated: December 21st 2023

Qualifying often – but not always – tells the story of which driver has the real raw pace, superior over one lap. Mark Hughes looks at which team-mates came out on top

2023 Saudi Arabian GP Russell Hamilton mercedes

Mercedes drivers' qualifying pattern is tough to analyse

Mercedes

Mark Hughes

Who is faster than whom? One of the fascinations of F1 is how that is ultimately unknowable, given how machinery muddies the waters. But the team-mate comparison is at least one step more certain, given that they are driving the same car. So at the end of a long season, this is how each of the 2023 driver pairings stacked up in qualifying.

Here’s how the comparison has been compiled. For each driver pair, only times from the same session have been included. So if one gets through to Q2 and the other goes out in Q1, we only compare their Q1 times, so the comparison is not skewed by track evolution.

All wet qualifying sessions have been taken out. There is way too much random variance on any wet or even damp circuit. According to when you cross the line to begin the lap, the track could be 1sec or more faster/slower than when your team mate did, so invalidating any comparison.

2023 Mexican GP Charles Leclerc Ferrari

When his Ferrari is on the edge, Leclerc is invariably faster, but Sainz comes alive with a more understeer-heavy car

Ferrari

To account for the differences in lap times between circuits, all lap times were converted to a percentage above the fastest time (i.e. usually the pole). We have then converted those percentage-adjusted differences back to a lap time difference based on the average pole position for all the tracks (which worked out at 1min 24.073sec) which have been included (ie all of the dry ones).

“Alonso got a tune out of the Aston regardless of its balance”

We have not included any comparisons where one or the other driver was handicapped by, for example, a technical issue or being badly baulked, anything which has resulted in an unrepresentative lap. Coming under this heading, we haven’t included Lance Stroll’s Bahrain time, driving as he was virtually one-handed because of his broken wrist.

In any situation where a driver has gone slower in one session than in the previous one, we’ve taken the faster time. So in Brazil, for example, all the top 10 actually set their best times in Q2.

It’s not perfect but it’s an attempt at removing as many of the random variables as possible.

When we do all that, we get the following list, beginning with the biggest differences and working down to the smallest:

2023 F1 team-mate comparison

We can make some general observations for each pairing, looking at the composition of the bald numbers.

Fernando Alonso’s gap over Stroll is way bigger than was Sebastian Vettel’s last year (0.131sec). But Stroll’s season goes in and out of phase with the car traits. He liked its balance in its original form, before its Canada update. He disliked it between Canada and Qatar. But found it more to his taste again with the Austin update to the end of the season. Alonso got a tune out of it regardless, as one of the most adaptable drivers of the last couple of decades.

From the archive

Alex Albon is operating at a consistently high level for Williams and formed a very tough barometer for the rookie Logan Sargeant who was nonetheless slightly closer than Nicholas Latifi managed there last year in what was his third season.

Sergio Perez went through a similar set of phases to Stroll in how sensitive his performances were to car balance – which just put him even further behind the unstoppable Max Verstappen, an all-time great driver at the absolute peak of his form.

Put Nico Hülkenberg in a Haas with an inherently oversteery balance and he will shine in qualifying. It’s absolutely the worst trait possible for Kevin Magnussen. “Nico manages the car’s shortcomings better than me,” said KMag at Zandvoort. “But I don’t see why I should try to imitate that rather than concentrating on making the car better. I’m totally convinced that gap would evaporate if we fixed the car.”

2023 Las Vegas GP Nico Hulkenberg Haas

Nico Hülkenberg is able to get lap time out of a flawed Haas, in contrast to his team-mate

Nyck de Vries faced a very tough gig as a rookie at AlphaTauri, even though he was generally highly experienced. Yuki Tsunoda is quick and his previous wildness has largely been tamed, but his reputation probably lags behind that reality. That likely played its part in de Vries’ terminated drive.

Lando Norris hustles a time from a tricky McLaren every time he gets in it. He’s one of the outright fastest and is repeatedly cited as such by Verstappen and Hamilton. That Oscar Piastri could come in as a rookie and on occasion match and even better that pace says his potential is enormous. The relatively big gap here is just about empty data banks in a rookie season bringing down the average. It’s the peaks which tell of the potential, not the average.

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Charles Leclerc might just be the fastest of all over a qualifying lap. He has a way of putting the Ferrari right on the edge and usually getting away with it. Carlos Sainz is a world-class F1 driver and when the car was briefly balanced the way he prefers it, he set two consecutive poles and a victory. The Japan floor meant that Sainz’s false understeer set-up was no longer needed to tame the car and Leclerc reverted to being quicker.

Valtteri Bottas is a quality driver, not a megastar but very quick when the mood takes him. If he’s to stay in F1 long-term Zhou Guanyu needs to show he can go head-to-head with a driver of this level, something he’s not managed yet.

Liam Lawson was thrown in at the deep end at AlphaTauri – and he swam impressively well. To be just 0.141sec off Tsunoda with no preparation demands he be given a full opportunity at some later time.

Daniel Ricciardo set that great P4 time in Mexico. But Tsunoda was taking an engine penalty and made no serious attempt at a fast lap, hence no comparison can be made. Taking that out the equation, Yuki was slightly quicker than a returning Daniel. It wasn’t the ringing endorsement Ricciardo needed in his bid to return to the senior Red Bull team. The team needs to see more.

2023 Abu Dhabi GP Esteban Ocon Alpine

Most slender margin separates Alpine drivers

The pattern between the Mercedes drivers was odd. One of them was usually a lot quicker than the other. But the identity of which was slower/faster changed regularly. There was no pattern. Which probably means it’s tyre temperature related. As an average over all those races, the difference was measured in the hundredths of a second.

The intensity of in-team competition at Alpine between former friends Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly – each at the same crucial stage of their careers, each with one career win – is reflected in that eight-thousandths of a second difference.

Statistics can be made to tell any story – so make of those what you will.

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