Monza's Champion Curse

teabagyokel

#dejavu
Valued Member
Since 1991, only twice has the eventual World Drivers' Championship winner won the Italian Grand Prix.



It is weird that only Michael Schumacher in two of his less dominant years has broken this curse.

There are a few cases where the eventual WDC should have won at Monza - Mika Hakkinen's self-induced retirement from the lead in 1999 being an excellent example of this, as well as Michael Schumacher's near-lead collision with Damon Hill in 1995.

I think Monza produces few World Champions in the modern era because it demands a skill set from driver and car that is rarely seen across the other races of the calendar. Even the other supposedly unique challenge of Monaco does not produce this pattern:



So the question is, is this a freak set of results, or is it Monza itself that is the freak?
 

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It's just one of these strange stats in F1. It's an inverse of Australia, whoever wins that race tends to go on and win the championship with only a very few exceptions in the last 20 years. I remember doing an article on it a year or two ago, can't remember where though :thinking:
 
Boyle99 said:
It's just one of these strange stats in F1. It's an inverse of Australia, whoever wins that race tends to go on and win the championship with only a very few exceptions in the last 20 years. I remember doing an article on it a year or two ago, can't remember where though :thinking:

In that case shall we expect a late charge from Button to hold on to his title?
 
Chad Stewarthill said:
So are we down to four contenders now then - with both Ferrari drivers out of the picture? :s

Perhaps Lewis knew this statistic as well? :whistle:


Maybe he should have just tried for second then mate? ;)
 
On that other thread, d4mo85 said posted Mar 23, 2009

£10 on these stats meaning nothing this year!


Did you get the money? LOL LOL LOL
 
McLarenSupremo said:
On that other thread, d4mo85 said posted Mar 23, 2009

£10 on these stats meaning nothing this year!


Did you get the money? LOL LOL LOL

I never, actually. If I happen upon a tenner in the near future then I'll know it is just karma and well deserved! :D
 
Just to throw it in there, here's a chart listing all the races won by the World Champions since 1994. Any analysis would be fantastic! :embarrassed:
 

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teabagyokel said:
Just to throw it in there, here's a chart listing all the races won by the World Champions since 1994. Any analysis would be fantastic! :embarrassed:

Lewis won his WDC with the least wins - analyse that ;)
 
Nothing on Monza, but that table does throw up a couple of other obvious trends..

Apart from just four years in the last sixteen, the winner of the inaugural GP has gone on to win the season. you can go back to 89 to add a fifth driver i believe... ill wait to be corrected there however...

...and one for the superstitious, look at race 13! Only Schumacher, and only on two occasions in the last 16 has a win in the 13th race of the season led to the drivers championship...

Not looking good Lewis :no:
 
Speshal said:
teabagyokel said:
Just to throw it in there, here's a chart listing all the races won by the World Champions since 1994. Any analysis would be fantastic! :embarrassed:

Lewis won his WDC with the least wins - analyse that ;)

Lewis, unlike pretty much everyone else on this list bar Schumacher in 1994 and Raikkonen in 2007, was in a worse car than his competitor. He also won race 13 in Spa but was punished afterward (which is a good thing according to Grizzly!)

Notably no WDC has won #11, #12 or #13 since 2005 (which would rule out Alonso, Webber, Hamilton), but race 9 has been won by the WDC since 2004 except for 2005 (when it basically wasn't run) and last year. So Vettel!
 
teabagyokel said:
Lewis, unlike pretty much everyone else on this list bar Schumacher in 1994 and Raikkonen in 2007, was in a worse car than his competitor. He also won race 13 in Spa but was punished afterward (which is a good thing according to Grizzly!)

I'm not superstitious at all, but the stats speak for themselves. Hopefully he can break the trend...

Likewise with 94, with Schumacher on a two race ban, Hill took the 13th, and didn't take the championship...
 
Here is another chart showing which position in the Championship the winners of each numbered race finished since 1994.



I'm not totally convinced it shows anything, but it does seem to show a lot of '1's in the early season and freakish sequences [4-3-8 (1999), 8-5-5 (2008)] are more likely late season. Here's a few tidbits:
  • The lowest WDC position of a race winner since 1994 is 12 (Fisichella 2003).
  • In both 2002 and 2004 the 'best of the rest' after Ferrari did not win a race
  • There have been at least 4 different winners in every season since 1994 (merci beaucoup Olivier Panis) and at least 2 different constructors winning.
  • All but one of Rubens Barrichello's F1 wins have come after race 10.
  • In the last 4 years, all the Champions have stumbled between races 11-15, with Raikkonen the only winner!
 

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Interesting... There is more to drag out of this table, I need to stare at it some more without going cross eyed or hypnotising myself :D
 
teabagyokel said:
Its starting to become apparent that most champions don't win many races in the late-mid-season. Which I feel is very strange indeed.
If you like tby, I can pull all wins for all champions in their winning year from the Database?
 
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