Castrol – in conjunction with Autosport have recently brought out a ranking tool which lists almost every racing driver and “ranks” them according to certain criteria and weighting theories which they have thought up. Watching the rankings over the last six months or so, I have to publicly state that they are a load of rubbish. Never before have I seen something which is packaged so professionally deliver something of such a biased and seemingly poor quality.
Firstly, there is no way to separate man and machine so that you can measure exactly what the performance is of each component, whether it’s flesh and blood or metal and carbon fibre. This brings me onto the first part of the rankings, which has all the top F1 teams near the top of the rankings, and as the teams performance worsens so do the rankings of a particular driver. Does this mean that moving to a top team automatically makes you one of the best, or if you haven’t really had an opportunity to drive equal machinery, does that mean you are a thousand times worse than some of your counterparts. For example, why is Steven Kane number eight hundred odd when he was Mclaren Autosport winner of the year, he’s an amazing driver in my opinion, however you just can’t compare these types of drivers with one another. According to the list and his talent, he should be placed at least as well as Gary Paffett who is a DTM champion and has won in year old machinery who is placed at number forty five! Or what about Timo Glock – is he really sixty four drivers worse than Mark Webber? How can you really tell even with complex theories and weighting systems. Michael Schumacher is only number two hundred – fifty places behind his brother Ralf whom was known to be better(!). Pffffttt.
The trouble with the ranking system is that it’s done by people who have opinions and preferences, and I’m sure the people compiling the data are probably not totally racing aware or as passionate as the editor of Autosport who has put his name to it.
You can’t compare drivers unless they are in equal machinery and certainly can’t even begin to contemplate comparing drivers across different formula. The data is meaningless and pure nonsense built on rules which have no foundation in reality. Sorry to flame you Autosport and Castol Rankings and I’ll probably be dismissed as an idiotic punter that knows nothing, however, anyone with an ounce of logic can see that this list is nothing but a popularity contest.
www.castroldriverrankings.com & www.autosport.com are the websites if you want to have a look yourself.
