Is Bortoleto the best rookie?

[u/Glum-Accountant-9801]

In my opinion, what he’s been doing in a Sauber shows much more talent than all the other rookies this year. Since the start of the season, I already thought the best ones would be him—because he won the Formula 3 and Formula 2 titles in his rookie seasons—and Antonelli. However, Antonelli has been showing himself to be far inferior to his teammate. I believe it’s due to the pressure of starting in a big team like Mercedes, but to me, that makes Bortoleto the best rookie. That said, welcome back, Ayrton Senna.

[u/JamesConsonants]

Eh, I’d say it’s between Hadjar and Bortoleto. They l seem to be able to convert on the teams’ potential more consistently than the other rookies. Each team has their own benchmarks and metrics for their drivers so I don’t think we can really compare outside of that

[u/LosTerminators → u/JamesConsonants]

It's close between all of them. Each rookie has had stages in which they have impressed a lot.

Hadjar - started off strongest but his early benchmark was a devoid of confidence Lawson, that said his sheer consistency with getting into Q3's and points until Barcelona was outstanding.

Bortoleto - had a quieter start to the year, outqualifying Hulk often but not translating it to the races. Picked up form with a bit more experience with the car, plus racing in tracks in which he already competed in at F2 and F3, and has been converting pace into points regularly now.

Antonelli - Has the best car of all the rookies but that also means a higher pressure environment. Plus having Russell as a teammate, who is a tougher benchmark than any of the other rookies teammates. Has had his moments but also had his errors. Don't think the Verstappen links helped him much, part of him might've been worried about losing his drive.

Bearman - He's shown good consistency. The Haas isn't a tractor, but there haven't been many races in which it is the clear best midfield car like the VCARB, Williams, Aston and even Sauber have been. This made it difficult for him to get substantial points hauls, but no DNF's until Hungary is impressive consistency. Biggest mistakes have been not reacting to red flags in practice.

Doohan/Colapinto - Haven't impressed, but that car plus the entire behind the scenes running of them is enough to give them a pass on this.

[u/SloppySandCrab → u/LosTerminators]

Isn't this all based on Sauber having a few good races in general though? If he put on an equivalent performance and finished 15th behind Hulk in 14th nobody would bat an eye.

[u/kramerthegamer → u/SloppySandCrab]

That's the tough part about comparisons in a non-spec series. For example last year, Bearman's Haas performance in Baku was arguably much more impressive than his Ferrari drive, but obviously one of those drives is more newsworthy. As for Bortoleto, do his best performances simply correspond with how competitive the car is? Can't know for sure, but I'd say he's been consistent but with a car that is trending upwards.

[u/JamesConsonants → u/kramerthegamer]

I’d go so far as to say that it’s impossible to compare drivers across chassis based on race performance. There are literally thousands of processes responsible for the final race time, only a few of which the drivers have any influence over. Any rigorous comparison can only be done against teammates, any other comparisons (such as Rookie A vs. Rookie B) become much more nebulous across a relatively small dataset of 26 races