Max Verstappen was voted by his peers as the best driver for the second year in a row. This follows hot on the heels of F1's team bosses also naming Verstappen as the top driver, also for the second year in a row.

The Drivers' Driver of the Year is an annual anonymous voting process and is now in its fifth year. The FIA's official F1 website asked all full-time drivers to rate their rivals' performances. These votes remain completely anonymous for obvious reasons, and the scoring system works a lot like the points awarded during a race. Drivers awarded their top driver with 25 points, and from there, it's a sliding scale down to tenth place and one point.

Drivers were allowed to vote for themselves, but according to F1, not all chose to do so.

The drivers who took part in this exciting poll include Alex Albon, Fernando Alonso, Valtteri Bottas, Pierre Gasly, Nicholas Latifi, Charles Leclerc, Kevin Magnussen, Lando Norris, Esteban Ocon, Sergio Perez, Daniel Ricciardo, George Russell, Carlos Sainz, Mick Schumacher, Lance Stroll, Yuki Tsunoda, Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, and Zhou Guanyu.

As you might have noticed, Lewis Hamilton's name is not on the list. He opted out of the voting for whatever reason, and we won't speculate what that is.

In any case, Verstappen won, which was essentially a given. Sir Verstappen claimed his second world champion title early at the Japanese Grand Prix and, along with Sergio Perez, delivered Red Bull the Constructors' title two weeks later. Despite the controversy surrounding Red Bull, his peers still saw fit to award him this esteemed accolade.

As with the F1 bosses' ranking, Charles Leclerc finished second, matching his spot on the actual Drivers' Championship. From there, it doesn't match at all. Sergio Perez came third, but his peers only ranked him eighth.

Third place was given to Lewis Hamilton, which might be a bit contentious as he failed to secure a single victory during the 2022 season, which was an unfortunate first for the GOAT contender. The drivers ranked his teammate, George Russell, right alongside Hamilton in third. According to the drivers, the two could not be separated. Both were consistent, and Hamilton drove a terrible car well beyond its means. Meanwhile, Russell secured his maiden win this year and will hopefully be upgraded from the Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe he uses as a company car.

Sixth place went to Fernando Alonso, and seventh was claimed by Carlos Sainz Jr., who also won his first F1 race during the 2022 season.

Sergio Perez and Sebastian Vettel share eighth place with Alex Albon, who makes a surprise entry on this list. We do understand his inclusion, however. Like Hamilton, Albon also drove his Williams well beyond what it was supposedly capable of on numerous occasions.

We purposely left out fifth place because the drivers scored Lando Norris higher than two veterans and two drivers in top-tier cars. Norris was the only driver who put a midfield car on the podium this year, and the F1 bosses also ranked him higher than his actual results. For the record, Lando Norris is the best of the rest and the only midfield driver to score more than 100 points in the actual championship.

Many will regard this poll as a silly publicity stunt, but being voted the best by your peers is a great honor. Only 20 people know precisely what an F1 driver goes through in a year, making it particularly relevant and insightful.