Is Alonso the luckiest driver on the grid?

[ExtremeNinja]

Nope. The live timing showed Alonso and Hamilton at the same pace and Grosjean reeling Alonso in at the same pace that he was dropping Hamilton.

I think, as you said, the tyres would have played a role, too.

Half a "like" for you.

 

[Il_leone]

Wow an article about luck

Where have you been the last 15 years, hibernating?

I've never seen a more lucky driver in F1 than Michael Schumacher ..his run at Ferrari was unbelievable be it with other drivers retiring or involved in freak incidents or pitstop rig problems or running over a patch of oil to go along with all the other advantages he had


Although Schumacher's luck ran out Japan 2006 on course for the world title his engine blew and he has not had much since until yesterday

Now Button for one season inherited Schumacher's luck in 2009 when the opportunities kept being open to others to capitalise they did not

2010 I thought Webber had some serious luck surviving a few incidents with Hamilton and Vettel until he binned his car in Korea

2011 Vettel had some outrageous luck especially at Monaco when his bungled pit stop turned into the winning combination being on a different tyre when the red flag came out

Was Alonso lucky yesterday ...yes but he really did force the issue and that is why you never give him a sniff of victory or podium
but it has to be said being P11 it meant he had fresher tyres..so the argument about this with Pirelli will start

He did have the Sc to close up to the front otherwise i don;t think he would have won

 

[teabagyokel]

Same point as I made about Alonso stands for Schumacher, Il_leone, excluding the stuff about inferior equipment.

 

[Il_leone]

mind you for a car that was suppose to be a dog at the start of the season its quite incredible Alonso is leading the championship

No one predicted he would win Malaysia and ditto here

 

[Incubus]

ExtremeNinja yes But Alonso HAD got himself ahead, and since the thread is about luck on the basis of what did happen, assuming Grosjean would have re-passed him would amount to luck on the basis of what MIGHT have happened, which is kind of stretching the luck thing a bit. Theere'd be no end to it and we'd end up analysing the amount of luck enjoyed by the majority of races winners in the recent past and beyond.

I have to say I didn't take this thread all that seriously to begin with but I think it's an intersting subject and I might start a thread about luck in general, because I don't believe in it whatsoever and my opinion is that everything can b explained. It's just that we lack all the elements to know all the factors that come into play, and there are loads of them. Some will disagree with me, hence debate and we'll see what we al come up with. How fun.
Either that or no-one will be that bothered by then. Ah well.

 

[Foaad]

I will accept Alonso's great drive to get to 4th from 11 but that's where his progress would have ended. At that point he was 35s, ~15s and 5s behind Vettel, Grosjean and Hamilton, of those only Hamilton looks like a close call to be overtaken, anyone else claiming he would have done any better is kidding themselves. After SC and the the retirements he was not much quicker than Raikonnen and as things stood he would, driving in the same manner, have finished some 40 odd seconds behind Vettel. I wonder if all the plaudits would have come his way then. In my opinion if this is not luck then I dont know what is. Thats a swing of 32 points in favour of Alonso vs Vettel in 1 race alone, (assuming Alonso would have finished P2 i.e. with SC), as I said looks like 2010 all over again with Vettel suffering all kinds of misfortune and Alonso always benefitting from it.

 

[Bill Boddy]

The laps after the safety car for Alonso and Grosjean were:

Lap Alonso Grosjean
34 1:46.122 1:47.084
35 1:45.764 1:45.493
36 1:44.518 1:44.639
37 1:44.141 1:44.163
38 1:43.754 1:43.764
39 1:43.921 1:43.873
40 1:43.666 1:44.437

This is taken from the FIA official timing ( http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Pages/event-information.aspx )

 

[Foaad]

Thanks for the laptimes Bill, this proves that apart from lap 34 and lap 40 (the lap before retirement) the lap time difference was Alonso +0.3,-0.1,-0.02,-0.01,+0.1, so on average from L35-L39 he gained nothing, while gaining 15s over 30 laps is 0.5s which he clearly was not going to gain.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Some strange mathematics there Foaad. Not just your calculations, but also the sums that you have chosen to do.

 

[Foaad]

Could you elaborate further ExtremeNinja? For the 5 laps from 35-39 Alonso gained nothing while he would have needed to be going 0.5s quicker with SC to catch up to Grosjean (15s/30laps).

 

[ExtremeNinja]

I'm at work at the moment so don't have time to go into any length but I think we may be talking about different things. Either way I'm not clear of what point you are making and so perhaps that is why I don't understand how you are making it.

 

[Josh]

Alonso didn't have to catch up to Grosjean? Grosjean was the one who needed to catch up to Alonso. I've no idea what you're trying to say to be honest.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Josh

That's what I thought we were talking about.

 

[Foaad]

I am talking about the scenario without SC, refer to my post 66, perhaps I didnt imply clearly enough that the scenario was for a normal race, all the overtakes, but no SC to wipe out the deficit of 35s, 15s and 5s to Vettel, Grosjean and Hamilton respectively.

 

[Bill Boddy]

At the time you are talking about Grosjean was within 1 second of Alonso. This means that every one of those laps he had an artificial advantage. So in fact his true pace relative to Alonso was slower by however much advantage the DRS gave him.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Too simple again. If you are within 1 second of the driver in front then you are generally disadvantaged round the rest of the track by the hot dirty air. You only have to look at the Lewis vs Kimi battle to be aware of this. You have to look at all of the variables rather than singling out one in isolation.

 

[Antonio]

Canadian Grand Prix will answer your question.

 

[downforce]

I don't like this phrase "you make your own luck" that would imply that Vettel underperformed on a massive level.

He had by far the best car and he didn't score a single point. You'd have to wonder If he deserves his seat If that were the case.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Perfect downforce. This is why I hate it when people dismiss the concept of luck. I think it's because people struggle with the concept that not everything must be a quantifiable entity.

 

[soccerman17]

I wouldn't put Vettel's car down to bad luck, but its not an error from him its an error by Renault. It happened for a reason, so it wasn't unlucky.