As we reach the halfway point of the 2019 FIA Gran Turismo Championship World Tour, it’s time to take a closer look at the top drivers.
The big names like Fraga, Hizal, Latkovski, Mangano, Lopez, and Rubilar are all becoming familiar by now, but how do they actually measure up when you compare their records at World Tour events?
Sure, there are ways to rank drivers with GT Sport’s metrics, but competing in a World Tour event is nothing like playing at home. Long international flights, jet-lag, hotel food (and drinks!), unfamiliar driving rigs, the crowds, and cameras in your face all day can take a toll on anyone.
To track competitors’ performances in this pressure-cooker environment, we recorded every driver’s result in every World Tour Nations Cup race of the 2019 season. These results were then used to calculate an overall score from which we rank the drivers.
It is important to acknowledge that Nations Cup drivers have a limited degree of control over their performance at World Tours due to the fact they are randomly assigned cars in the semi-final and repechage races. It takes both luck and skill to win an FIA GTC World Tour event: this ranking is a way to see which drivers have been able to find both, consistently, and it will allow us to see how that changes throughout the season.
Without further ado, let’s get to our top-ranked drivers before we leave for New York:
#1: Igor Fraga 🇧🇷 (IOF_RACING)
- Avg. Finishing Position: 3rd
- Race Wins: 3
- Best Result: 1st (Nurburgring Final)
- Worst Result: 7th (Paris Final)
The reigning 2018 World Champion sits on top of our rankings. Although he stumbled at the season opener, Fraga’s 7th-place finish in the Paris finals was the result of an accidental button press in the pits, not poor driving.
Since then, Fraga has not lost a race, recording unprecedented back-to-back victories at the Nurburgring to secure a spot in the World Finals. He is the only driver who has won multiple races this year and appears to be in top form heading into the second half of the 2019 season.
#2: Cody N. Latkovski 🇦🇺 (Nik_Makozi)
- Avg. Finishing Position: 4th
- Race Wins: 1
- Best Result: 1st (Nurburgring Semi-Final)
- Worst Result: 9th (Paris Final)
At the Nurburgring World Tour event, Cody Latkovski was driving like a man possessed. He has improved since his third-place finish at the World Finals in Monaco last year and has the speed to keep up with Fraga, but has yet to beat him.
If he can keep up this pace, he could put himself in a position to become our top-ranked driver later in the season and has a legitimate shot at becoming World Champion in November.
#3: Giorgio Mangano 🇮🇹 (Giorgio_57)
- Avg. Finishing Position: 4th
- Race Wins: 0
- Best Result: 2nd (Nurburgring Semi-Final)
- Worst Result: 5th (Paris Final)
Mangano has yet to win a race in 2019, but he has been consistently faster than many other competitors. He’s never even had to compete in a repechage race this year — an impressive accomplishment that neither Fraga or Latkovski can claim!
He has finished no worse than 5th place in the final in Paris, and just missed the podium at the Nurburgring. With a bit more speed, he can race for outright victories in the future.
#4: Jonathan Wong 🇭🇰 (saika159-)
- Avg. Finishing Position: 4th
- Race Wins: 1
- Best Result: 1st (Paris Semi-Final)
- Worst Result: 8th (Nurburgring Final)
Jonathan Wong’s best results were in Paris, where he started out with victory in his first race and stood on the podium after the final. Things didn’t go quite so well at the Nurburgring, where he finished the final in 8th, his worst result of the year.
Wong has told us in interviews that he knows he’s not the fastest driver in the World Tour, but he strives for consistency. It appears to be working out just fine, earning him 4th place in our rankings.
#5: Nicolas Rubilar 🇨🇱 (FT_NicoR)
- Avg. Finishing Position: 4th
- Race Wins: 1
- Best Result: 1st (Paris Final)
- Worst Result: 7th (Nurburgring Final)
After his amazing performance in Paris — coming in 2nd in his first race and winning the final — it might be surprising to see 2019’s first World Tour champion ranked 5th.
However, a rough start at the Nurburgring put him into the repechage race, where things went from bad to worse. He missed a breaking point, took out another competitor, and did not qualify for the final, allowing others to overtake him in our rankings.
#6: Patrik Blazsan 🇭🇺 (Williams_Fuvaros)
- Avg. Finishing Position: 5th
- Race Wins: 0
- Best Result: 3rd (Paris Semi-Final)
- Worst Result: 6th (Nurburgring Semi-Final)
Like Mangano and Wong, Blazsan has been remarkably consistent. He just hasn’t been as fast, finishing no better than 3rd but no worse than 6th.
Blazsan’s best results were in Paris, where he finished just off the podium in 4th place in the final. At the Nurburgring, he finished 5th in the repechage race and did not advance to the last round.
#7: Coque Lopez 🇪🇸 (Williams_Coque14)
- Avg. Finishing Position: 5th
- Race Wins: 0
- Best Result: 2nd (Nurburgring Semi-Final)
- Worst Result: 6th (Nurburgring Final)
Despite incredible speed, Lopez has suffered from a string of high-profile incidents and bad luck which hurts his ranking in this line-up.
After a good-but-not-great performance in Paris (4th and 6th), Lopez was just one corner away from standing atop the podium at the Nurburgring. However, he ran out of fuel and was hit by Latkovski in the final turns, ruining any chance of victory and knocking him back to 6th in the race and 7th in our rankings.
#8: Mikail Hizal 🍪 (TRL_LIGHTNING)
- Avg. Finishing Position: 5th
- Race Wins: 1
- Best Result: 1st (Paris Semi-Final)
- Worst Result: 10th (Nurburgring Repechage)
As with Rubilar, it might be surprising to see someone many consider to be Europe’s fastest driver in 8th on this list. He started out the year extremely strong, winning his semi-final, and was just one tiny error away from beating Rubilar to become the opening World Tour champion.
Unfortunately, however, the Nurburgring was a disaster for Hizal. After drawing a bad car in the semi-final, he suffered a penalty in the repechage, finishing 10th and placing him at 8th on our list.
#9: Rayan Derrouiche 🇫🇷 (RC_Miura)
- Avg. Finishing Position: 3rd
- Race Wins: 0
- Best Result: 3rd (Nurburgring Final)
- Worst Result: 3rd (Nurburgring Final)
The Frenchman did not compete in the Paris World Tour event and made his debut at the Nurburgring. And what a debut it was!
He finished third in both his semi-final and final race, standing on the podium in Germany alongside Fraga and Latkovski. It was an impressive result: Derrouiche put himself on the map and showed that he can race with the best, but can he keep that momentum going into another World Tour event?
#10: Tatsuya Sugawara 🇯🇵 (blackbeauty-79)
- Avg. Finishing Position: 4th
- Race Wins: 0
- Best Result: 3rd (Nurburgring Repechage)
- Worst Result: 5th (Nurburgring Final)
Like Derrouiche, Sugawara was not in Paris and has only attended the Nurburgring in 2019. Also like Derrouiche, he made the most out of his time in Germany with three consistent drives, finishing no worse than 5th.
If he can maintain that consistency while participating in more World Tours, his overall ranking will certainly rise.
The Top 25
Now that we’re through the top 10 drivers in the World Tour, it’s time to look a bit further down the list. 36 drivers in total have competed in the World Tour so far in 2019 (that number is about to rise to 42 after New York), but our rankings will only cover the top 25.
There are plenty of big names in there, including the highest-ranked UK driver, Adam Suswillo (11th), who just missed the cut. Other notable drivers include 2018 Asia-Oceania FIA GTC Regional Champion Ryota Kokubun (13th) and 2015 GT Academy champion Matt Simmons (18th).
So far, North Americans aren’t doing so well. Of the three which have competed, only one — Andrew Brooks (12th) from Canada — made it into our rankings.
To all of the drivers who did make it into our rankings, congratulations and good luck in New York!
- #11: Adam Suswillo – UK – (Aderrrm)
- #12: Andrew Brooks – CA – (Deafsun96)
- #13: Ryota Kokubun – JP – (Akagi_1942mi)
- #14: Yat Lam Law – HK – (NegiFISH_NaF)
- #15: Pierre Lenoir – FR – (RC_Snake91)
- #16: Carlos Salazar – PT – (pcm_stj)
- #17: Beauvois Baptiste – FR – (TRL_TSUTSU)
- #18: Matthew Simmons – AU – (MINT_GTR)
- #19: Fabian Portilla – CL – (FT_Mcqueen91)
- #20: Manuel Rodriguez – ES – (TRL_MANURODRY)
- #21: Anthony Duval – FR – (RC_Atho)
- #22: Markus Kononen – FI – (maatu79)
- #23: Tomoaki Yamanaka – JP – (yamado_racing38)
- #24: Adam Wilk – AU – (Adam_2167)
- #25: Benjamin Bader – HU – (ROH_Benito)
See more articles on FIA GTC Driver Rankings and World Tour.
