The provisional FIA Driver rankings for 2022 have been published with those having been re-graded now having two weeks to appeal the FIA’s decision. A final categorisation list will be issued by 15 November.
An initial categorisation is based on the driver’s age and career record, which may be adjusted in subsequent seasons according to the recorded race pace and results of the series that are using the categorisation system.
Unsurprisingly after 202021’s changes were heavily restricted as a result of the reduced and confused calendars post COVID lockdowns, the number of changes for the coming year are high.
In particular, there are a number of significant changes to current Bronze and Silver rankings for major players in the LMP2 and LMP3 fields, most current top flight teams have had a driver provisionally re-graded, some teams have several drivers in the list.
Rob Wheldon, Martin Hippe, Rory Penttinen and Rino Mastronardi are amongst the provisional Silver rankings for 2022
Franco Colapinto, Waye Boyd, Philip Ellis, Jaxon Evans, Colin Noble, Tom Gamble, Garett Grist, Jan Heylen Trent Hindman, Laurents Hörr, Charles Milesi, Fabio Scherer and Yifei Ye.
The upper reaches of the GTE and GT3 racing world have not been ignored either with a number of drivers elevated to Gold ranking, including WRT’s double GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup Champion regular Charles Weerts, WRT team-mate Ryuichiro Tomita, AKKA ASP’s Jim Pla, Iron Dames stalwart Rahel Frey, and Aston Martin Junior Valentin Haase Clot, Dylan Pereira, Aaron Telitz, Alessio Rovera and Marcos Gomes.
There are seven new Platinum-ranked drivers, all via success and/ or factory status in GT racing: Ben Barnicoat Alberto Costa Balboa, Antonio Fuoco, Jules Gounon, Marco Mapelli, Luca Stolz and Dries Vanthoor.
And there are the regular crop of usually age-related down-gradings too: Andrea Bertolini and Jeff Gordon move from Platinum to Gold, 12 drivers move from Gold to Silver including Le Mans winners Eric Helary and JJ Lehto, plus Olivier Panis, Christian Pescatori and, poignantly Alex Zanardi as his recovery from injuries suffered in a road accident continues.
This list is published in the wake of SRO’s announcement that it will overlay their own process on the FIA Rankings with every expectation that the ACO/ LMEM are imminent to announce that they too will act to amend ranking for their competitions that they believe, on the basis of data collected, are incorrect.
Summary of changes
First Ranking at Silver
Josh Pierson
Bronze to Silver (Drivers of particular note to DSC in bold)
Garrett Adams
Ali Adam
Luca Arnold
Paul August
Ethan Bernard
Luca Bosco Mauro
Stefan Bostandjiev
Rick Bouthoorn
Franck Chappard
Etienne Cheli
Umberto D’Amato
Mathieu de Barbuat
Ricardo di Persia
Antoine Doquin
Gregory Faessel Curson
Alexander Filsinger
Steriyan Folev
Finn Gehrsitz
Vincent Gisy
Alexandre Gladstein
Alexander Hartvig
Martin Hippe
Dominic Jung
Darren Kelly
Tim Kohmann
Moritz Kranz
Manuel Lauck
Francesco Lopez
Marc Lopez Gutierrez
Nicolas Markiewicz
Ayrton Marquet
Rino Mastronardi
Nicolas Maulini
Lukas Mayer
Dylan Nerguti
Alban Nerguti
Gray Newell
Cedric Oltramare
Salman Owega
Matia Pasini
Matej Pavlíček
Rory Penttinen
Sandro Perissoutti
Louis Perrot
Leo Pichler
Mikaeel Pitamber
Dennis Richter
Hugo Roch
Adrian Sarkis
Thanathip Tanalapanan
Rory Van der steur
Filip Vava
Michael von Zabiensky
Stefan von Zabiensky
Rob Wheldon
Silver to Gold
Oliver Askew
Wayne Boyd
Oliver Caldwell
Eddie Cheever III
Austin Cindric
Franco Colapinto
Ugo de Wilde
David Droux
Phillip Ellis
Jaxon Evans
Ricardo Feller
Felipe Laser
Santino Ferrucci
Alex Fontana
Tommy Foster
Rahel Frey
Tom Gamble
Marcos Gomes
Garett Grist
Ayhancan Guven
Valentin Hasse-Clot
Dennis Hauger
Jan Heylen
Trent Hindman
Laurents Hörr
Arthur Leclerc
Dennis Marschall
Charles Milesi
Colin Noble
Patricio O’Ward
Alex Palou
Dylan Pereira
Alexander Peroni
Jim Pla
James Pull
Alessio Rovera
Fabio Scherer
Aaron Telitz
Ryuichiro Tomita
Richard Verschoor
Charles Weerts
Jeff Westphal
Yifei Ye
Gold to Platinum
Ben Barnicoat
Alberto Costa Balboa
Antonio Fuoco
Jules Gounon
Marco Mapelli
Luca Stolz
Dries Vanthoor
Platinum to Gold
Andrea Bertolini
Jeff Gordon
Gold to Silver
Craig Baird
Anthony Beltoise
Eric Helary
JJ Lehto
Berndt Mäylander
Morgan Moullin-Traffort
Matt Neal
Olivier Panis
Christian Pescatori
Vincenzo Sospiri
Nobuteru Taniguchi
Alex Zanardi
Silver to Bronze
Diego Alessi
Max Angelelli
Terry Borcheller
Frey Fidani
Naoki Hattori
Patrick Huisman
Tim Joosen
Jochen Krumbach
Donald Molenaar
Tasmin Jay Pepper
Naoryu Sakamoto
Massimiliano Tresoldi
Eric van de Poele
Sven Van Laere
