The most dominant cars in F1

[TR]

The season there has been plenty of media hyperbole about the red bull being the "most dominant car ever" (or similar statements). This got me thinking, can we quantify this notion? Of course, one can simply count the number of wins or the number of points scored in a season as a measure. However, I don't think this quite captures the oppressive feeling of dominance exerted by the current Red Bull, the 2014 Mercedes, or the early 2000s Ferrari. It isn't just that these cars win a lot, but how they win. Instead lets look the margin by which they win. I will look at two measures that I will refer to as the "qualifying advantage" and "race advantage".

The obtain the qualifying advantage, for each race we obtain the fastest qualifying times for the WCC of that year and the fastest competitor (in that session), and take median difference over the entire season. Taking the median will reduce the sensitivity to outliers, e.g. caused by crashing out in qualifying.

The race advantage is similar but takes the finishing times. Double DNFs essentially count as -infinity, but will have minimal impact due to taking the median.

I obtained data for the races and qualifying from this dataset (Formula 1 World Championship (1950 - 2023)) from Kaggle. Unfortunately their qualifying data is incomplete pre-2003, so there is no data in this table from before that season. The table below shows the 10 most dominant cars for qualifying:

Year	WCC	Qualifying advantage
2015	Mercedes	0.719 s
2014	Mercedes	0.545 s
2020	Mercedes	0.538 s
2016	Mercedes	0.531 s
2004	Ferrari	0.370 s
2011	Red Bull	0.265 s
2023*	Red Bull	0.239 s
2017	Mercedes	0.213 s
2010	Red Bull	0.181 s
2018	Mercedes	0.093 s

*Date up to and including Austin 2023.

The qualifying advantage is dominated by the V6 turbo hybrid era Mercedes cars, which probably doesn't surprise anyone. This year's Red Bull shows up only in 7th place, and isn't even the most dominant Red Bull.

For the race results the dataset goes back much further. I decided to only consider data from 1980 onward. F1 prior to that was simply too different from modern F1.

Year	WCC	Race advantage
1988	McLaren	41.828 s
2014	Mercedes	23.604 s
1984	McLaren	21.784 s
2002	Ferrari	17.730 s
1992	Williams	17.579 s
1986	Williams	16.283 s
1996	Williams	15.607 s
2023*	Red Bull	15.290 s
2015	Mercedes	14.592 s
1987	Williams	12.016 s

*Date up to and including Austin 2023.

We now see some of the true beasts of F1 history show up like the McLaren MP4/4 and the 2002 Ferrari. This year's Red Bull now takes 8th, but is second only to the 2014 Mercedes of the cars considered for qualifying.

So, while this year's Red Bull is certainly "upper there" with some of the most dominant cars in F1 history, it cannot really by called the "most dominant". At least not based on these measures.

 

[Dartman]

With the advance of aero from the 80's to the present day driver input is less to to the cars dominance, previously the dominant car had exceptional drivers. Dominant drivers today tend to be verging on the dangerous rather than pure skill

 

[TR]

Updated data for the end of the 2023 season.

The 2023 Red Bull's qualifying advantage has dropped slightly to 0.196 s, dropping it one spot in the rankings (since 2003).

Year	WCC	Qualifying advantage
2015	Mercedes	0.719 s
2014	Mercedes	0.545 s
2020	Mercedes	0.538 s
2016	Mercedes	0.531 s
2004	Ferrari	0.370 s
2011	Red Bull	0.265 s
2017	Mercedes	0.213 s
2023	Red Bull	0.196 s
2010	Red Bull	0.181 s
2018	Mercedes	0.093 s

The race advantage has also dropped to 12.534 s, again dropping the 2023 Red Bull one spot.

Year	WCC	Race advantage
1988	McLaren	41.828 s
2014	Mercedes	23.604 s
1984	McLaren	21.784 s
2002	Ferrari	17.730 s
1992	Williams	17.579 s
1986	Williams	16.283 s
1996	Williams	15.607 s
2015	Mercedes	14.592 s
2023	Red Bull	12.534 s
1987	Williams	12.016 s

Note that at the summer break the 2023 Red Bull's qualy advantage was 0.239 s (putting it in 7th on the ranking), and its race advantage was a whooping 22.654 s, placing it 3rd overall.

 

[Johnny Carwash]

Does having Sergio Perez as a driver, make the Red Bull of 2023 seem less dominant than other cars of years gone by. Also the Williams of 1986, is sixth on that list of race advantage,yet niether driver won the drivers championship that year.

 

[Brogan]

It's guaranteed that Verstappen was cruising at the front, doing only what he needed to do to maintain a comfortable lead, so the real advantage of the RB over a race distance was never known.

 

[TR]

Does having Sergio Perez as a driver, make the Red Bull of 2023 seem less dominant than other cars of years gone by. Also the Williams of 1986, is sixth on that list of race advantage,yet niether driver won the drivers championship that year.

To the first, as far as these numbers go, only indirectly. The numbers themselves are insesntive to whatever the second car is doing. However, without a team mate breathing down his neck Verstappen was, of course, more free to temper his pace.

Regarding the second point: I think that points to how good a job Prost did that year, winning the championship while going up against a dominant car.

 

[TR]

It's guaranteed that Verstappen was cruising at the front, doing only what he needed to do to maintain a comfortable lead, so the real advantage of the RB over a race distance was never known.

This is a general issue with the race advantage. On the other hand it has been true for many of the very dominant cars.

The qualification advantage suffers much less from this issue (but points are awarded on a Sunday not a Saturday).

 

[Brogan]

On the other hand it has been true for many of the very dominant cars.

Indeed.

The difference with the Mercedes though is the team mates were challenging each other, so they were pushing the car all the time, unlike Verstappen in the RB.

So in my opinion, the RB is much higher up the ladder than the data would suggest.