The F1 2024 drivers have voted on who they believe to have been the best driver on the grid this year, with an unsurprising winner emerging.

Following on from the F1 team bosses voting Max Verstappen as the best driver on the grid in F1 2024, the Dutch driver’s peers have voted in the same way.

Max Verstappen tops F1 driver’s poll

In the now-traditional end-of-year informal accolades awarded by the team bosses and drivers, 17 of the 20 drivers have voted Red Bull‘s Max Verstappen as driver of the year.

It’s the fourth year in a row Verstappen has received the top vote, coinciding with his four world championship victories.

Verstappen opened up a big lead in the Drivers’ Championship in the first quarter of the season, before spending the rest of the year attempting to keep the charge of McLaren’s Lando Norris at bay. With his RB20 no longer the class of the field, Verstappen made all the difference to secure wins in Canada, Spain, Brazil, and Qatar to clinch his fourth title.

In the annual vote, carried out by Formula 1’s official website, all the drivers are asked to rank their rivals – coaxing the drivers to open up in this way involves ensuring that the submissions are made completely secretively.

F1 has revealed that, even though the drivers can do so, very few voted for themselves. Just three drivers abstained from the vote – Verstappen himself, Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.

How the ranking works is by using the Formula 1 points system to create an overall top 10 by taking the scores from all the voting drivers.

This resulted in Verstappen coming out on top, by some margin, with championship rival Lando Norris climbing up the rankings to be rated runner-up ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc – also the order in which they finished the championship.

Perez fell out of the top 10 after a calamitous season that has resulted in the Mexican driver leaving Red Bull’s driver line-up, while Hamilton has slumped down to 10th overall from second last year. The seven-time F1 World Champion, while still usually great on race day, struggled for consistency and pace in F1 2024, particularly in qualifying, and could only manage seventh in the Drivers’ Championship.

Outside of the top three, George Russell secured fourth overall, while Oscar Piastri’s breakthrough year with McLaren – in which he scored wins in Hungary and Azerbaijan – has climbed three places to finish fifth.

Carlos Sainz’s final year at Ferrari netted him sixth, while Pierre Gasly’s brilliant end to the season meant he secured seventh place overall.

The top 10 was rounded out by Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso ahead of Hamilton.