Driver rating - pace

Hey @EA_Kent and @BarryBL i dont know which one of you is better suited for this so sorry for tagging both😅

I know you will likely have finished all the ratings already but just in case..

In case you already strayed from the principle of rating midfield drivers at 87 pace in contrast to 99 pace - ignore this. If not please take this into consideration:

This season shows again how close drivers actually are but only taking the representative results into account as wet weather and differing track conditions will distort it a lot!

Except for the obvious exception of Latifi (vs Albon) and Zhou (unexperienced and vs Bottas) the biggest gap is Norris to Ricciardo and the latter is struggling a lot to get on with McLaren. But the best example is Leclerc vs. Sainz. Last year the gap was even smaller and still its only 0.227s which would be about 5-6 less pace rating than Leclerc who is arguably the best qualifying driver at the moment. In 2021 Sainz was rated 87 compared to Verstappen with 99. a difference of ~0.48s.. You probably see the problem already, Leclerc and Sainz didnt magically get 3 tenths faster, but their car got much better.

This also leads to problems at lower teams, if you would get Hamilton and Russel in the Williams in 2021 Hamilton would wipe the floor with Russel where IRL.. They are fairly equal on pace. And for players its the same, completely outdriving backmarkers in worse machinery which never happens like that IRL only to not get close to Hamilton or Verstappen in a top team.

Same applies to F2 drivers who get massively underrated for what they are capable of. By the standards of 2019-2021 Piastri would get a 75 rating till he drives in F1 and when he performs as everybody in F1 expects he would get a magic boost to 88 or even higher depending on how good he can adapt to F1 cars.

In general F2 drivers (and F1 drivers) should be balanced by having a driver have low to very low focus after joining a new team. This would (as long as focus works properly) mimic real life behaviour. And in order for this to work F2 driver ratings would be required to look similar to this:

This table is closely based on what happened in the 2021 F2 season, based on amount of races driven, mistakes and penalties taken, average finishes etc. just a little bit adapted to fit into the game. Top drivers a bit lower than id have them but till they are in F1 its too vague and the worse drivers also not as bad as they were IRL (Deledda 3s slower on average would require him to have 13 pace maximum) but still representative enough to lead to fairly realistic results ingame and not Deledda qualifying on Pole... Some things cant be replicated like Lawsons badluck however.

I hope that we see A) closer ratings in F1 and from top F2 drivers to midfield F1 and B) qualifying pace and race pace ratings differentiated which makes a huge difference!