Team-mate % Stats

RasputinLives

No passing through my dirty air please
Contributor
So just before we go into the last GP I thought I'd hit you with a few team-mate stats I've just done the maths on. To try and make a fair chart of how well someone has done compared to their team mate I decided to calculate what percentage of points the losing driver has scored to the winning driver(rounding up and down has been done where appropriate). I know a lot of these could change but actually its thrown up some interesting stuff - I'm going to rank them in order of closeness.

Kamui Kobayashi has score 88% of the points Sergio Perez has in a Sauber
Paul Di Resta has scored 87% of the points Nico Hulkenberg has in a Force India
Jenson Button has scored 86% of the points Lewis Hamilton has in a Mclaren
Danial Ricciardo has scored 83% of the points Jean Eric Vergne has in Torro Rosso
Bruno Senna has scored 69% of the points Pastor Maldonado has in a Williams
Mark Webber has scored 61% of the points Sebastian Vetttel has in a Red Bull
Romain Grosjean has scored 46% of the points that Kimi Raikonnen has in a Lotus
Michael Schumacher has scored 46% of the points Nico Rosberg has in a Mercedes
Fellipe Massa has scored 41% of the points Fernando Alonso has in a Ferrari.

So Felipe is still adrift at the bottom but might close the gap a bit before season has done and I don't think its nearly as big as his early form suggested it was. Its fair to say Grosjean and Schumacher have been thrashed this season but I guess as a rookie up against a world champion and someone who announced his retirement mid season it might have been expected.

The big surprise for me is the gap between Webber and Vettel because last year Webber scored 65% of the points Vettel did which actually means he's performed worse compared to him than he did last year. I'm sure Lewis and Jenson will get discussed but its still very close and all I'm going to comment is that last year Lewis scored 84% of the points Jenson did so its pretty even the opposite way round now.

Closest pairing are Kobi and Perez - explain to me again why one is off to a big team and the other might not get a drive because I'm really confused on that one.

I'm still trying to figure out a way of applying this stat to the 3 back end teams and if I come up with something I'll update it - and I might update after Brazil as well.

Any of these stats shock anyone at all? Thought some drivers were doing better or worse than they were?
 
Paul Di Resta has scored 100% of the points Nico Hulkenberg has in a Force India
Kimi Raikonnen has scored 98% of the points that Romain Grosjean has in a Lotus
Nico Rosberg has scored 84% of the points Michael Schumacher has in a Mercedes
Mark Webber has scored 82% of the points Sebastian Vetttel has in a Red Bull
Sergio Perez has score 79% of the points Kamui Kobayashi has in a Sauber
Jenson Button has scored 57% of the points Lewis Hamilton has in a Mclaren
Felipe Massa has scored 44% of the points Fernando Alonso has in a Ferrari.
Bruno Senna has scored 02% of the points Pastor Maldonado has in a Williams
Jean Eric Vergne has scored 00% of the points Daniel Ricciardo has in Torro Rosso
 
Interesting, and we still have one race to go of course. I do think that the race percentages are too sensitive to bad luck r.e. retirements etc. (Schumacher and Hamilton spring to mind), whereas the qualifying results don't reflect driver errors in the races (e.g. Grosjean) and drivers who have performed better in races than in qualifying (e.g. Senna, Vergne).

Perhaps the simplest way to get something that might be a bit closer to the true picture is to take the average of the two:

Di Resta 94% of Hulkenberg (Force India)
Perez 93% of Kobayashi (Sauber)
Schumacher 83% of Rosberg (Mercedes)
Grosjean 74% of Raikkonen (Lotus)
Webber 72% of Vettel (Red Bull)
Button 72% of Hamilton (McLaren)
Vergne 60% of Ricciardo (Toro Rosso)
Massa 43% of Alonso (Ferrari)
Senna 36% of Maldonado (Williams)

To get a really correct picture you have to analyse all the races and try to exclude those where drivers had issues from no fault of their own, but I think this is maybe getting closer to the correct picture. However, I think it flatters Grosjean and Maldonado somewhat.
 
Great stats tooncheese and interesting to see the difference in the two. Just reminds me of what I always say that they don't hand out tropheys for qualifying.

Looking back at my stats its interesting to note that 4 of the top five teams have a clear number one driver with only Mclaren bucking the trend. Not really worked for them has it?
 
I think you are right sushifiesta that its not an exact science but I've always seen the championship table as the most accurate way of judging the season as things tend to even out in the long run and you drive yourself crazy if you play the woulda shoulda coulda game.

One thing I will say though is that if you look at the Red Bull pairing Vettel has had far more mechnical issues than Webber. Maybe 61% flatters Mark?
 
In theory most things average out over the season but in practice they don't always, but I agree that you can spend weeks and months trying to analyse it correctly.

If I subjectively look at the race stats then in my opinion:

Sauber: Probably about right. Perez pulls the odd stunner out the bag (but has been disappointing recently) and yet Kobayashi is never far behind.

Force India: Probably about right, considering Hulkenberg's recent performances.

McLaren: I think this flatters Button, I think he would only have beaten Hamilton at 3/20 races (Melbourne, Spa, Suzuka) if you exclude the numerous issues both have had (due to no fault of their own). And also Button went missing for a portion of the season, Montreal probably being the worst example,

Toro Rosso: Toro Rosso have been so absent that it's difficult to say. Vergne has certainly been stronger in races than in qualifying but whether he's been better than Ricciardo I'm not sure. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Williams: Maldonado has been the far quicker and more accident prone driver for most of the season, but Senna has brought the car home more often and found some form of late. I guess it's about right again.

Red Bull: I think Vettel has had three mechanical retirements to Webber's one (although Webber tends to get hit with KERS issues a lot), but also that for a significant part of the first half of the season Webber had the edge. 61% in Vettel's favour is probably fine for the last third of the season, but I think it's harsh on Webber across the season as a whole.

Lotus: This one is tricky because Grosjean clearly has pace but he has made far too many errors. When he keeps out of trouble I think this year he's had the pace to finish within a place or two of Kimi, and on occasion ahead. The fact he has got in to so many accidents probably means his percentage is harsh but fair.

Mercedes: Schumacher has been a match for Rosberg this season, I think. The only reason I would give Rosberg the slight edge is because of his victory and the couple of silly errors Michael has made. I think 46% is harsh on Michael.

Ferrari: Alonso decimated Massa for 2/3rds of the season, as expected. Now they're closer but the score is fair.

Having done that I guess I broadly agree with your OP. I think tooncheese's post gives a good idea of the ultimate pace of all the drivers (perhaps Williams/Toro Rosso excluded) and my post gives a good representation of the whole picture apart from cases where drivers have made a lot of mistakes in races.
 
You have got to love the stats don't you think... They always make interesting reading and yet never tell the true story which is unique in the world of factual information I believe....8-)
 
The one that stands out as being wrong - not you wrong RasputinLives but the system wrong - is Toro Rosso where for me Ricciardo has done way better than JEV. I know JEV has raced well enough but usually because he has had spare tyres after failing in Q1. I think JEV is lucky to have a drive next year.

I was going to do my own team mate review so will expand there when I have time!
 
I've heard of two methodologies for scoring performance beyond just using the WDC points. Both are based around completed laps - its not ideal as it doesn't take into account driver mistakes leading to retirement, but does take into account mechanical failures and other drivers faults causing you to retire. The other big problem is it doesn't account for more minor technical faults and accidents caused by other drivers that lead to being further back in the order, however as approximations they're not too bad.The argument in favour of the simplified approximation being that by their nature minor issues are more common so more likely to even out over the season and the impacts tend to be less.

Method 1 - Average points per race lap.
(Simply WDC Points divided by the number of race laps completed)

Fernando Alonso 0.254
Sebastian Vettel 0.250
Lewis Hamilton 0.192
Kimi Raikkonen 0.184
Jenson Button 0.158
Mark Webber 0.158
Romain Grosjean 0.120
Felipe Massa 0.097
Nico Rosberg 0.096
Sergio Perez 0.071
Kamui Kobayashi 0.060
Nico Hulkenberg 0.053
Michael Schumacher 0.048
Pastor Maldonado 0.048
Paul di Resta 0.043
Bruno Senna 0.029
Jean-Eric Vergne 0.012
Daniel Ricciardo 0.009
Heikki Kovalainen 0.000
Timo Glock 0.000
Charles Pic 0.000
Vitaly Petrov 0.000
Pedro de la Rosa 0.000
Narain Karthikeyan 0.000
Jerome D’Ambrosio 0.000

Method 2 - Average Racing Position
(Number of laps completed at each position 1st,2nd,3rd,4th,5th etc multiplied by that position or sometimes weighted more strongly for top positions all divided by the number of racing laps completed)

Sebastian Vettel 3.635
Fernando Alonso 3.648
Lewis Hamilton 4.888
Kimi Raikkonen 5.882
Mark Webber 6.577
Jenson Button 6.841
Nico Rosberg 8.498
Romain Grosjean 8.640
Felipe Massa 8.877
Sergio Perez 10.119
Nico Hulkenberg 10.267
Pastor Maldonado 10.462
Paul di Resta 10.684
Michael Schumacher 10.935
Kamui Kobayashi 11.229
Bruno Senna 13.007
Daniel Ricciardo 13.233
Jean-Eric Vergne 13.718
Jerome D’Ambrosio 15.566
Heikki Kovalainen 16.769
Vitaly Petrov 17.565
Timo Glock 18.708
Charles Pic 19.245
Pedro de la Rosa 20.428
Narain Karthikeyan 21.252
 
Webbers retirement on Sunday was his first mechanical breakdown in 60 races. Vettels had at least 3 I can think of this season.

It would depend on what you define as mechanical breakdown. Webber has had less retirements this season but I’m sure he’s had to navigate more mechanical malfunctions.
 
I note that Webber has scored 61% of the points that Vettel has, and I also note that his seat is secure for next season.

Senna, on the other hand, has scored 69% of the points Maldonado has (as well as scoring points in 9 races as opposed to Maldonado scoring in only 3 - edit: it might be 10-4 now) yet it looks like Bruno will lose his drive.
 
Nice work pirateplunder, I think those two methods produce the figures least likely to deceive and provide a pretty accurate reflection of the drivers and their respective pit garages. Good stuff :thumbsup:

I wonder how we could go further to take into account machinery. Perhaps divergence from the mean of the values for paired team-mates in some type of function.
 
I'm wary of this method also, although it's nice work. Alonso ends up ahead of Vettel in average points/lap despite on the face of it having less issues than Vettel and Hamilton is still a decent chunk behind those two whereas you'd think he should be right in the mix were it not for the issues. It seem to be recreating the WDC pretty much, with one or two minor differences.
 
It basically gives (barring retirements) a picture of the performance of a driver in combination with their team and equipment, which I think is pretty fair. Given the obvious difference between the quality of the Ferrari versus the Red Bull this year, it shows just what an amazing job Fernando and his crew have done to be up there pretty much level-pegging with Vettel and his.
 
^^ Indeed, method 1 is only a slight moderation of the WDC table, so will largely follow it. It is just meant to allow some impact for retirements. It is far from perfect, it accounts much more strongly for retiring on lap 1 than on lap 51 for example. Just for information, Alonso has lost almost 100 laps out of a possible 1121 so far so getting on for 10%. Vettel has lost just 30. According to my data only Kimi has completed every race lap.

Personally I prefer method 2, it seems much more robust and tends to take some account of qualifying as your position in lap 1 is worth as much as in the final lap, although some would see that as a failing. There is another method I've seen used which provides a measure of point scoring efficiency - how well a driver converts race position into points, the feeling being that the team gets your in a position to score points and then the driver converts that position into points. However, I can't remember the methodology but believe its some modification of Method 2 with the actual WDC points. I don't think it was as simple as weighting the positions to the points (ie 1st - 25, 2nd - 18 etc) but more a moving average that took some account of the points available for position on each side of it. If that makes sense.
 
I'm still not convinced method 2 is that accurate a portrayal either.

It's been mentioned many times in the media that without the mechanical retirements and other issues, Hamilton would be right up there, if not ahead.

With method 2 he still seems to be a step behind.
 
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