Not everyone will agree with that: is Kevin Magnussen really the better driver than Nico Hülkenberg, and is Lewis Hamilton only number 5 when it comes to speed?
(Motorsport-Total.com) – F1 23, the official video game for the 2023 Formula 1 season from EA Sports, will be released on June 16th. And the manufacturer of the game has already published the driver ratings, which cause discussions among fans and drivers every year.
EA Sports has announced the official driver ratings for F1 23 Zoom
According to this, Max Verstappen is currently the best driver in the field with an overall rating of 94 points. And also the fastest. Because the model is made up of four individual values plus a total value, and in the “speed” column, Verstappen is the sole leader with 95 points, ahead of Fernando Alonso with 93.
Exciting and quite controversial: EA Sports only sees Lewis Hamilton in fifth place in this column. With 90 points, the Mercedes superstar is aequo with Charles Leclerc, but behind his teammate George Russell and McLaren youngster Lando Norris, who are each rated with 91 speed points.
To calculate the ratings, EA Sports has compiled and analyzed the real results and performances of the drivers from the 2023 season up to and including Miami. With the help of Formula 1 experts like Anthony Davidson, the studio has updated its algorithm to go beyond just data and separate man and machine. (DISPLAY: Order EA Sports F1 23 online now!)
The ratings in the game F1 23 are divided into four columns: Experience based on the number of race starts a driver has completed over the course of his career. racing skill is a driver’s ability to work his way through the field and finish the race in a higher position than he started.
awareness describes a driver’s tendency to incur penalties. The less time a driver spends with the race stewards, the better. Real-world penalties will affect the score in this category.
And of course speed: Those who come closest to the fastest qualifying and race lap times will benefit here. A driver beating his teammate will also be counted. In the pillar In total all four previous ratings are combined. This standings will move up and down as the season progresses based on performance.
“This year we have worked closely with our panel of experts to find a better balance between experienced riders and riders who are early or mid-career, particularly in terms of their experience levels,” says John Merchant, F1 Brand Director at Codemasters.
In any case, the ratings on the day of publication are hotly debated among the drivers. From a German point of view, given the course of the season so far, it is hardly understandable that Kevin Magnussen is rated one point better than Nico Hülkenberg. “The EA guys are good to me,” he grins in a YouTube video.
In the video, the drivers have to estimate the values for colleagues before the real EA Sports values are revealed. This makes for a few laughs and semi-embarrassing situations in between. Hülkenberg, for example, says ironically in the video: “It has to be real, it has to be right if it’s here, right?”
Incidentally, with his overall rating of 80 points, according to EA Sports, the German is only number 16 among the Formula 1 drivers in 2023. Only Guanyu Zhou (78), Oscar Piastri (74), Nyck de Vries and Logan Sargeant (71) away. An order that will certainly cause a lot of discussion…
