The fourth and final part of the 2022 mid-season Formula Virtual driver rankings. The five drivers have clearly been the class of the field so far, but who ranks the best at the mid way point? 5. Nathaniel PowersLeaving Downton was always going to be a tough task for Nathaniel Powers. You can only be the best in the business year after year with the right team around you, but despite the switch to Lucas, Powers has settled in very quickly. He immediately took up the mantle of best of the rest in qualifying at Fuji, and though he was led home by new team mate Maximilian Thunstrom in the race, this was largely down to the strategy advantage the Swede had. Since then, Powers has led Thunstrom in every competitive session, asserting the dominance that has seen him pick up five World Championships. In Australia, Powers went ever better - putting his Lucas third on the grid behind only the Mathershaw Porsche pair, and securing a hard fought second place with a late overtake on Enrique Ruiz. This was arguably the high point of his season so far however, as since then Lucas have gradually slipped off the pace, being replaced as third fastest by Phoenix and missing a number of strategy deadlines, which has severely hampered the progress Powers has been able to make. Nonetheless, eight from 23rd in Malaysia was a strong run, but South Africa was never going to be an easy race from the back of the grid, though Powers seemed disinterested from the start. Since then, Lucas have fallen further back, but Powers has done his best to maintain the momentum. He is still consistently qualifying amongst the fastest runners behind the Mathershaw and Downton cars - even beating some of the latter on occasion - and scoring solid points to keep Lucas in the fight for third. His thorough hammering of Thunstrom goes some way to explaining why Powers is ranked the best qualifier at the mid point of the season, and while his average race finish has taken a hit after two starts from the back of the grid, his race rank is still an impressive fifth. Powers has lost none of his edge despite his switch away from a team right at the top, and will be doing what he can to ensure Lucas remain as close to the front as possible. 4. James VasquezIt's taken until his fifth Formula Virtual campaign, but James Vasquez has finally broken his winning duck, in a season where the Columbian has shown himself as a real leading light of FV moving forwards. It's been known for a few years that Vasquez was talented. He's pulled out some exceptional performances and put his Ingram in places it's had no right in being - especially last season - but finally this year with a decent car underneath him, he's been able to really stretch his legs. Whilst - like Lucas - Ingram have slightly tailed off in the battle for third, Vasquez has frequently been around the best of the rest position behind the top two teams, resulting in him being perfectly placed in Malaysia to score that maiden victory with some exceptional tyre calls in the tricky conditions. To add to that, he's comfortably had the beating of Jean Mattson. The only time he's finished behind in a competitive session is when Mattson has had a tyre strategy advantage, but even then Vasquez has run his team mate close. Despite all the positives though, Vasquez has allowed a few lapses of concentration to slip in. Crashing out in South Africa the very race after his maiden win was a howler, and a clumsy error overtaking Hunter Ryan in France cost both him and his team mate any shot at points. Overall, Vasquez has delivered the season many suspected he was capable of, but those last few finishing touches need adding to his game if he's to cement himself amongst the FV elite. 3. Allar KangurSeparating Vasquez and Allar Kangur was arguably the second toughest call of this ranking, as both have pretty much been at the top of their game and the leading light in their respective teams. While Kangur comes in with more of a reputation and was therefore somewhat expected to do this well, he's also not made the mistakes that Vasquez has, which is what just gives him the nod. It wasn't the best of starts for the Estonian however, as despite outqualifying Taylor in Japan, he was led home by his rookie team mate, to the surprise of many around the paddock. Back-to-back mechanical failures could then have hugely unsettled Kangur's campaign - especially given he had to watch on as Taylor took Phoenix's maiden podium, a result which would have been his had his suspension not failed nine laps from home - but he didn't let his head drop, and instead bounced back to score five consecutive top six results since, culminating in two podiums in the last two races. In fact, Kangur has scored the joint third most points across the last five races, only eleven fewer than Klaas van Snelheid. It's only fair to praise the Phoenix team for this upturn in results as well, as the car has clearly gained pace and is now firmly third fastest, with Kangur even finding himself amongst the top four on a good day. But while Kangur has used this extra pace to great effect, his team mate has been unable to keep pace as he did in the earlier part of the season. The Estonian has turned around a 3-2 qualifying deficit to a 5-3 lead and a 2-0 race loss to a 4-2 advantage, and has a cumulative qualifying gap of over 2.3 seconds, not bad for a driver who is famously not the best over a single lap. Arguably, Kangur should be plying his trade in the Mathershaw alongside Ruiz and contending for the Championship rather than the odd podium, but if nothing else he can consider himself fortunate his loan at Lopez ended when it did. With Phoenix only seemingly getting stronger and stronger, don't rule out Kangur to snatch a win from under the noses of the top two in the second half of this season, especially given the form he's on. 2. Enrique RuizIf splitting Vasquez and Kangur was tough, it was nothing compared to separating Enrique Ruiz and Klaas van Snelheid, the pair having clearly been in a league of their own to the mid-point of this season. Nonetheless, it had to be done, and by the absolute narrowest of margins, the new Championship leader has just been knocked into second place. With four wins in the last fives races and four consecutive pole positions, it's fair to argue this is the wrong call, but while Ruiz has been in a class of his own on his day, there have been a couple of occasions where he just should have done better. A spin from the lead in Japan was disappointing, but driving into his team mate was unforgivable, and cost both of them on a day when he was arguably the quickest driver and should have won - yet only finished fourth. In Australia too he allowed himself to get flustered in traffic and passed by Powers late on, but in contrast Malaysia was an exceptional run from the back of the grid that was unfairly rewarded with a late retirement. From there, both South Africa and France were the level we've come to expect from Ruiz, with more wins from pole in Germany and Czech Republic finally putting him to the top of the standings this season, but even those were punctuated by a sub-par performance at Silverstone, where he slipped from pole and was unable to keep up with the pace set by his team mate and Klaas van Snelheid, finishing a handful of seconds back in third. These are all minor blots on what has been an otherwise outstanding copy book so far in 2022 however, and if Ruiz keeps up recent form then a third title is surely heading the Brazilian's way. 1. Klaas van SnelheidAnd so that leaves us with the highest ranked driver at the mid-point of this season, and that is the man who has just been deposed as Championship leader by Ruiz. In purely statistical terms, there was nothing to split the pair - they came out at an absolutely equal tie for first - but applying the fact that Mathershaw have had the quickest car on average at 7 of the 8 races so far this season, the fact that van Snelheid held on at the top for as long as he did and put in some of the performances he has - coupled with less mistakes than Ruiz has made - just noses him ahead. Being beaten by his rookie team mate at the opening race in Japan would not have been the start van Snelheid was hoping for - especially after throwing away a chunk of time mimicking Ruiz's spin - but he's experienced enough to know that was primarily a strategy based result, and bounced back at the very next race to recover from a disappointing fourth on the grid to win his first race of the season. Time lost in the pits in Malaysia cost him a better result in the rain, though it was a rare weekend where he just couldn't match Zetticci, and for the next four races he took home the runners up trophy, despite the Mathershaw Porsche proving a quicker car. This set a new record for consecutive podium finishes, but it all came to an end in Brno with his most scrappy race so far as he became increasingly more frustrated at the difficulty of overtaking around the Czech Republic circuit. Eventually he'd retire with an engine failure, but fourth was going to be the maximum result possible anyway after being overcut by Will Taylor, and that was providing he didn't throw it off the road in a desperate attempt to win the place back. All in all, van Snelheid has just been the more consistent of the two leading Championship contenders, but only time will tell whether Brno was a blip or whether it's the start of his season unravelling. If van Snelheid really wants to win that first title, he needs to start turning some of these consistent results into wins and eat into the advantage Ruiz has now taken.
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