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For some to succeed, others must naturally fail and that's true in both life and motorsport. While some drivers consistently thrilled us with their performances, others made fools of themselves on a regular basis.
It seems somewhat harsh to single out five of the twenty best drivers in the world and negatively label them throughout an article, but that's exactly what I'm going to do. Like in the Top 5 best performers list, always difficult to compare drivers from different teams, so their performances compared with their team-mates will, of course, be considered in this ranking.
From a whitewashed Belgian to the pay driver who couldn't beat the pay driver, this is not a list a professional racing driver will want to appear on. This will definitely annoy the fans of those unlucky men, but here we go!
#5 Lance Stroll
Williams had an awful 2018 and that was in part due to their dismal driver line-up. Lance Stroll was the de facto leader of the team after Felipe Massa had retired from the sport (again) and is an experienced veteran of a whole season with the Grove outfit in 2017.
Aside from a fluke eighth-placed finish at Baku (not too dissimilar to his podium to the year before), it took until the 14th round at the Italian Grand Prix for him to score a point this year. And that was all she wrote, no more top 10 finishes in 2018.
Yes, at 20-years-old he's extremely young for an F1 driver and has plenty of time to improve, and yes, the car was a dog to drive, but the fact remains that he probably shouldn't be in the sport.
Even in poor cars, good drivers shine on occasions, Stroll simply hasn't done that, in part to him not being ready for Formula 1 yet, but it's also due to his poor attitude, at times he simply didn't appear to care about Williams' struggle.
And what's his punishment for another lacklustre season? A promotion to Force India. With his Dad being the new chairman, perhaps that's why he wasn't concerned at regularly running at the back of the field.
#4 Valtteri Bottas
Here's a controversial one, but let me explain.
Being Lewis Hamilton's team-mate is an unenviable task because the bar is set so astronomically high that most drivers could put in the performance of their lives but still fail to match the five-time world champion.
In 2017, nobody expected Bottas to come close to Hamilton, but the Finn did put in some impressive performances, including picking up his first F1 win in Russia. However, 2018 was a poor campaign from the Finn, suffering from bad luck and producing some below-par drives.
The season got off to a rocky start for Valtteri, spinning at the opening qualifying session in Australia and starting 15th after a gearbox penalty. He made progress in the race, but dealing with traffic proved to be a difficult affair, crossing the line in 8th place.
Bottas was the only driver from the top 3 teams to not win a race and on two occasions bad luck cost him the first place. Picking up a puncture with just a few laps to go in Baku and being told to move over by his team while in the lead of the Russian Grand Prix, although the latter was due to Bottas being out of the championship picture.
He was generally behind Hamilton for most of the races and finished a whopping 161 points behind the Brit in the driver's championship.
Bottas has himself recognised this was his worst season in the pinnacle of motorsport, and he'll have to have a good 2019 if he's to remain at Mercedes, especially with Esteban Ocon waiting in the wings.
#3 Sergey Sirotkin
Williams had without a doubt the worst driver line-up on the 2018 grid and Sergey Sirotkin completed their desperate duo. Some (most notably Will Buxton) would object to having the Russian on this list, but the fact remains that he finished below his team-mate Lance Stroll in the driver's standings and didn't show any real flashes of brilliance.
Sirotkin finished bottom of the championship, with a single point that was only earned after Romain Grosjean's disqualification in Italy. In terms of finishing position, it's pretty close between Stroll and Sirotkin with the Canadian edging it 9-7 when both have finished. With a record like that, it's no wonder Williams chose against retaining his services for 2019.
It's not all bad for Williams, though, with Formula 2 champion George Russell joining and Robert Kubica being promoted from his reserve driver role, the Grove outfit have a much better chance of challenging the midfield, but they must improve their car.
#2 Brendon Hartley
Brendon Hartley was brought in as an experienced replacement for the struggling Daniil Kvyat at Toro Rosso towards the end of 2017 and now the Russian is going to replace the Kiwi for the 2019 season, what a funny world the Formula 1 driver market is. How did this farcical situation arise in the first place?
Hartley had a mixed start to his time in F1, failing to score a point in his four 2017 races due to mechanical failures and the Toro Rosso's poor pace. Expectations for the New Zealander in his first full season weren't particularly high, but a solid if not unspectacular campaign was the minimum we envisaged.
However, partly due to Pierre Gasly's flashes of brilliance, he was thoroughly outshone by his younger teammate. The only points he scored were down to that crazy race in Baku, due to a double disqualification in the USA and the only ones on pure merit were earned in tricky conditions at the Hockenheimring.
It's not as though he didn't suffer from poor reliability, retiring 4 times due to mechanical failures, but he also got himself caught in 3 incidents that potentially cost him top 10 finishes.
You simply can't make mistakes like that when you're in the midfield melee. There really isn't much else to write home about for Hartley, he'll probably go back to WEC and enjoy more success there, it's very hard to see a team plucking for the 29-year-old unless it's a last-minute replacement.
#1 Stoffel Vandoorne
No real surprises here, it's Stoffel the Waffle who tops this dishonourable list. The Belgian promised much in Formula 1 after his brief cameo in 2016, but 2017 was difficult with an awful McLaren being produced at Woking.
While this year's entry was equally bad towards the end of the year, it started as a solid midfield runner, challenging the Haas' and Renaults in the first half of the campaign. While Fernando Alonso scored points in all of the first 5 races, Vandoorne scored on only 3 occasions, even finishing behind Alonso despite the Spaniard's car having significant aerodynamic damage.
From there, McLaren's and Vandoorne's form plummeted, the Belgian failing to score after the Spanish Grand Prix until Mexico, a thirteen race pointless streak. Like Bottas, Vandoorne possibly suffered due to his world championship winning teammate, but Stoffel still had a poor year and deservedly finds himself racing in Formula E instead of Formula 1.
He could work his way back into the sport one day, but 2018 was definitely his annus horriblus and he'll do well to recover from it.
Do you agree with our list? Let us know in the comments below and if you want to check out the list of the best 5 drivers this season, it's right here.
