2015 F1 Rookie Championship

RasputinLives

No passing through my dirty air please
Contributor
This was something I did back in 2013 and, with a quarter of the field being rookies now, I thought it would be good to revive for the 2015 season.

So what is the Rookie Championship? Well any driver who has competed in 5 races or less before the start of the 2015 season are eligible. That means we currently have 5 drivers eligible in Fellipe Nasr, Carlos Sainz Jr, Max Verstappen, Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi. Obviously if other drivers meeting the criteria come in at a later point they will be eligible too. In each qualifying session and race they will be ranked in their result order and allocated points. There will be a qualifying championship, a race championship and an overall championship with the title of Rookie Champion going to the overall winner.

Scoring wise we'll be using the good old 10-6-4-3-2-1 system. Importantly a driver has to be a classified finisher to score points in the race and set a time to score points in qualifying. So to give an example if in Australia the race finishes:

Sainz 10th;
Verstappen 12th,
Nasr 14th,
Merhi 18th
Stevens 19th

In the Rookie championship would be:

1st - Sainz - 10pts
2nd - Verstappen - 6pts
3rd - Nasr - 4pts
4th - Merhi - 3pts
5th - Stevens - 2pts

Now I realise there is a slight flaw in this on deciding who the best rookie is by the fact that due to different car performances they won't be even. I agree that the Manor boys don't really stand much of a chance but I guess thats just the way F1 is. I did discuss this last time with our resident maths wizz sushifiesta and a 'handicap' system was talked about but I couldn't decide on it in the end and just went for good old fashioned straight fight. For what its worth I think Nasr, Sainz and Verstappen are on pretty equal footing this year so it will be interesting.

So I'll be doing this all season and welcome comment, encouragement, criticism etc. If I had to bet on this one I think I'd probably put my money on Sainz as the winner. Anyone else want to try a prediction?
 
The TR's and the Saubers will be in an interesting scrap this year. I wouldn't want to call it either way.

I wish I could think of some way of working out rookie driver performance in relation to their cars but there is no obvious answer. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I still have my doubts about Verstappen.
 
Well the rookie championship is looking severely dented in Australia with the probability of the Manor boys not getting on track and Nasr maybe not being in the Sauber. We still have the Torro Rosso boys though.

Just to clarify. If either of the Manor drivers set a time in Quali they will be eligible for points. They do not have to be within the 107% rule.
 
I didn't want to make a choice until after I'd seen them in quali, but now that I have, I think I'm going to take an unpopular pick in Verstappen. I like Sainz Jr. too, the both of them seem mature beyond their years, very balanced, level-headed guys. Drivers like that tend to do well.
 
Might as well do the results for this whilst I'm up waiting for the race -

1st - Sainz - 10pts

2nd - Nasr - 6pts

3rd - Verstappen - 4pts.

First blood to Carlos Sainz and Nasr shows he is going to be a factor in this and get between the Torro Rosso boys. Maybe in Malaysia we'll get to see the Manor boys on track!
 
So real signs this is going to be an interesting one this year. Nasr storms to victory and we have a race result as follows:

1st - Nasr - 10pts

2nd - Sainz - 6pts

DNF - Verstappen.

Which leaves us with an overall championship table of:

1st - Nasr - 16pts*

2nd - Sainz - 16pts

3rd - Verstappen - 4pts

Level pegging for Nasr and Sainz with all the plaudits being taken by Verstappen whose DNF means he's 14pts adrift already. This one is gonna be hard to call and with the possible prospect of a rookie in a Williams for a one off time in Malaysia could get even more interesting.

* = in case of tied points it is decided on number of races wins, then quali wins, then race 2nds, then quali 2nds etc etc
 
Ok so the 3rd part of the Rookie Championship gives us our 3rd winner in Max Verstappen. Sainz will be a bit gutted though as in the dry I think he looked quicker but he does take over the lead of the quali and overall championship.

Only one of the Manor boys got out on track and it was Roberto Merhi so he gets a 3 point march on his team mate in what is sure to be a personal battle all season (if Merhi is driving all season).

Result:

1 - Verstappen - 10pts
2 - Sainz - 6pts
3 - Nasr - 4pts
4 - Merhi - 3pts
DNF - Stevens

Quali Championship

1 - Sainz - 16pts
2 - Verstappen - 14pts
3 - Nasr - 10pts
4 - Merhi - 3pts

Overall championship:

1 - Sainz - 22pts
2 - Nasr - 20pts
3 - Verstappen - 14pts
4 - Merhi - 3pts
 
Well we had a close round 4 in the rookie championship with Verstappen pulling off a late move on Sainz for the win. Great move it was too. Nasr wasn't really at the races today, Merhi went the distance and poor old Stevens is still yet to get on track.

Sainz still leads the overall championship but its Nasr who has the lead in the race one. Verstappen's double win this weekend puts him back in it though:

Results:

1 - Verstappen - 10pts
2 - Sainz - 6pts
3 - Nasr - 4pts
4 - Merhi - 3pts
Stevens - DNS

Race Championship:

1 - Nasr - 14pts
2 - Sainz - 12pts
3 - Verstappen - 10pts
4 - Merhi - 3pts

Overall Championship:

1 - Sainz - 28pts
2 - Verstappen - 24pts
3 - Nasr - 24pts
4 - Merhi - 6pts
 
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Round 5 and we finally get all 5 drivers involved! Welcome to the Rookie Championship Will Stevens!

After not being at the races in Malaysia Nasr took a comfy win in China Quali which puts him top of both championships but only on number of wins in the quali champ with a 3 way tie at the top!

This is going to be close all year I think.

Round 5 result:

1 - Nasr - 10pts
2 - Verstappen - 6pts
3 - Sainz - 4pts
4 - Stevens - 3pts
5 - Merhi - 2pts

Quali Championship:

1 - Nasr - 20pts
2 - Verstappen - 20pts
3 - Sainz - 20pts
4 - Merhi - 5pts
5 - Stevens 3pts

Overall Championship:

1 - Nasr - 34pts
2 - Sainz - 32pts
3 - Verstappen - 30pts
4 - Merhi - 8pts
5 - Stevens - 3pts
 
Well if you were just watching the rookie championship you'd be in the edge of your seat with F1 at the min. Verstappen and Nasr fought all the way today only for Max to lose a victory with a blown engine at the end. So Nasr picks up a double win which puts him at the top of both the race and overall championship to go with the lead of the quali championship he took yesterday.

Sainz will feel lucky to keep in the running after a problem filled weekend and especially lucky to be in front of everyone's new favourite driver Max Verstappen who has two DNFs in the championship so far but is still in it.

Stevens finally gets into the fight and beats Merhi soundly and picks up a podium.

This is going to be close all year. Any thoughts on the rookies?


Race Result:

1 - Nasr - 10pts
2 - Sainz - 6pts
3 - Stevens - 4pts
4 - Merhi - 3pts

Race Championship:

1 - Nasr - 24pts
2 - Sainz - 18pts
3 - Verstappen - 10pts
4 - Merhi - 6pts
5 - Stevens - 4pts

Overall Championship:

1 - Nasr - 44pts
2 - Sainz - 38pts
3 - Verstappen - 30pts
4 - Merhi - 11pts
5 - Stevens - 7pts
 
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If it wasn't for failing Renault engines Verstappen would easily be top rookie and despite all the media hype over him you can't help but think he's the real deal. He is certainly top Red Bull driver already in the same way Vettel was when he came in at Toro Rosso.

Lets not underestimate how well Nasr has been doing so far though. He certainly seems to have got Sauber moving.
 
Verstappen was driving really well today but Brundle was laying it on thick. He compared Verstappen to Shumacher and Senna and said that he would be in a world championship winning car by the time he was 20.

I have discovered that humble pie tastes quite nice.
 
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