TOP 50 DRIVERS OF 2019
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DOWN 28
50 Pierre Gasly
7th in Formula 1 World Championship
This was a season of two dramatically different halves. Gasly struggled in his half-season alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull and too often couldn’t decisively rise clear of the midfield. But after a potentially career-breaking relegation back to Toro Rosso, he was a midfield standout in the second half of the year, culminating in that redemptive second place in the Brazilian GP. Gasly is fast, there’s no doubt it – his Toro Rosso form reminded us of that. But Red Bull exposed his limitations as he struggled to adapt his style and frustrated the team by heading down set-up rabbit holes.
RE-ENTRY
49 Dane Cameron
1st in IMSA SportsCar Championship (DPi)
When Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya secured the IMSA SportsCar Championship title, 49 it was understandable that superstar Montoya received the lion’s share of media attention. But it was the understated Cameron, who picked up a second title in the Prototype ranks to go with his 2016 success with Action Express Racing, who emerged as the outstanding driver in the Acura Team Penske ranks in 2019. IMSA is a series that rewards consistency, and in that regard Cameron and Montoya delivered in spades with an incredible run of seven podium finishes from Long Beach.
RE-ENTRY
48 Esteban Guerrieri
2nd in World Touring Car Cup
As a Formula Renault 3.5 driver, he won “many admirers” on his way to his only previous Top 50 spot in 2010. You’d be forgiven for thinking he’d been in a wilderness since – two runner-up finishes in Indy Lights failed to launch a single-seater career – but Guerrieri has reinvented himself in tin-tops, first in his native Argentina and, more recently, on the world stage. Last year’s third-place WTCR finisher has channelled the emotion that cost him the odd result, and this year emerged as a proper contender for a Munnich Motorsport Honda squad without the same depth of support as its Hyundai and Lynk & Co rivals.
DOWN 18
47 Kevin Harvick
3rd in NASCAR Cup
The only Ford driver to make it to the NASCAR Cup ‘Championship 4’ at Homestead, Harvick led the line for Stewart-Haas Racing, but NASCAR’s revised aero-package changes for 2019 hurt his team perhaps more than any other. It took until Loudon in July for Harvick to win a regular-season race, and by that time the Penske-run Ford team had already won five between them. Harvick would win three more, leading a dominant SHR 1-2-3 in Texas that put him in the final four at Homestead. But fourth place was all he could manage there, having gambled on a set-up that was only quick on short runs.
NEW ENTRY
46 Kenta Yamashita
1st in Super GT;
5th in Super Formula
The term ‘breakthrough season’ is often overused, but it really does apply to Yamashita’s 2019. Now a Super GT champion with the unfancied Team Le Mans Lexus, a Super Formula race winner, and with an LMP2 drive in the World Endurance Championship with the aim of preparing him for an international future, the 24-year-old Toyota protege could be on the path to endurance racing stardom. He’s since earned a test in Toyota’s TS050 HYBRID in Bahrain. If he continues to impress as he has done up to now, a race seat with the Japanese manufacturer’s hypercar programme seems a matter of when, not if.
NEW ENTRY
45 Robert Shwartzman
1st in FIA Formula 3 Championship
It was unclear who would be the favourite in the new FIA Formula 3 Championship this year. But in the end, it was this SMP Racing-backed Ferrari protege who wrapped up the title with a race to
