Top 10 drivers of the season

Another way of looking at it; top-10 drivers that give the best value for their salaries

Code: 
Driver     Salary (€)     Points     € per point
1. Max Verstappen     250,000     49     5,102
2. Felipe Nasr     200,000     27     7,407
3. Daniil Kvyat     750,000     95     7,895
4. Carlos Sainz Jr.     250,000     18     13,889
5. Valtteri Bottas     2,000,000     136     14,706
6. Daniel Ricciardo     1,500,000     92     16,304
7. Marcus Ericsson     200,000     9     22,222
8. Felipe Massa     4,000,000     121     33,058
9. Nico Rosberg     13,500,000     322     41,925
10. Sergio Perez     4,000,000     78     51,282
 
The Artist..... said:
What utter garbage! The pace between the two was almost identical. There was only one race where Alonso had a significant pace advantage, which was Spa, when Button was driving without electrical power for most of the race.
Click to expand
I haven't done any sot of detailed pace analysis, but in races where neither driver suffered a mechanical DNF Alonso finished ahead of Button 6 - 4. Unless someone does such an analysis I think the race tally will have to do, as the time gaps we are talking about here are pretty much impossible to accurately gauge just by eye; even the gap between such a miss-matched pairing as Vettel and Raikkonen was only about a quarter of a second per lap.

To compare this tally to the other teams we can look at how often the losing driver finished ahead of the winning one as a percentage. In this case Button finished ahead of Alonso 4 times out of 10, so 40% of the time. This is how this compares to the other teams (I'm bad at tables, sorry):

KR7DAvo.png


However, the McLaren car suffered from so many reliability problems in qualifying and races that a simple race results tally could be miss-leading, meaning we probably need to do a race-by-race analysis of who performed better. Thankfully F1Metrics already did one, and made a better table than me too:

mcl_notes2.png

Source.

A 6-3 tally would put the McLaren pair level with Sauber (Button being the better performer only 33% of the time), although it is only fair to note that we are no longer comparing apples to apples ("Who finished ahead most in races where neither driver had a mechanical DNF" and "Who was the better performer in most of the races" are not the same thing).

It was this 6-3 tally that I was referring to when I said Alonso had a fairly large advantage over Button.
 
Spinodontosaurus
The fact that F1Fanatic have flipped it round the other way with Button ahead of Alonso should be enough to point out that there was nothing between the two.

2015 F1 driver rankings #13: Jenson Button · F1 Fanatic

The "Analysis" above seems bizarre, given that it states things like in Italy that "Alonso was on target to pass button"... All I can say is that he was behind all weekend, and was on target to fail to pass Button...

In fact, a better analysis might be that of the 8 races that both Button and Alonso were classified, Button was ahead in 5.

Of the 587 laps that both were running, Button was ahead for 318.

Qualifying was rated 8:7 to Alonso for the 15 races they both managed to run...

To say that Alonso was clearly ahead of Button is absolute bollocks.
 
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I don't see how that proves anything, it's merely someone else's completely subjective ranking. The race finish statistic in that article is also miss-leading, as it includes Italy where Alonso retired with mechanical problems but was still 'classified'. Italy was also not counted in the analysis I posted above by the way, so I don't know why you are taking issue with that part of it.

A race-by-race analysis will always be superior to simply looking at who finished ahead most often (especially if you fail to exclude mechanical non-finishes and fail to include non-finishes due to accidents), and that is especially true in this instance due to the myriad of mechanical problems the McLaren drivers faced.

Note that the model in the article I linked to awards fractional points extending right down to last place, which enables it to differentiate between drivers even when they finish outside of the actual points paying positions, which is an inarguably superior method albeit an impractical one to employ in real life (if you wanted to avoid using decimals entirely you would have to award several thousand points to first place instead). The author mentions in the comments that the raw points total for each driver is 2.68 for Alonso and 2.21 for Button, despite Alonso only having 11 'counting' races and Button 14 of them. This means, by this points system, Button scored 82% of Alonso's points - moderately close but a clear advantage to Alonso (for reference Rosberg scored 85% of Hamilton's points in 2015). On a points-per-race basis Button scored just 65% of Alonso's points; for reference consider that Vettel actually scored 70% of Ricciardo's points in 2014, or that Webber scored 64% of Vettel's points in 2012 (60% on a points-per-race basis).
 
Personally, I don't think that any analysis of Alonso v Button can be anything other than purely subjective, as with the reliability of the Honda engine, and the variability of the updates and who got them, it is impossible to say which drivers were hindered and when, I am fairly sure that we only get a small part of the truth out in the big wide world

Most of the opinions that I have seen seem to relate more to how people perceive certain drivers based on previous performances, and lets be honest, whichever way you want to go, there is a plethora of information that could be used to back up either position.

I do not think that either of the drivers would see last season as anything other than a frustrating development process, and neither will be particularly worried by relative performances, nor the points at the end of the season, as they both had so few points that it was scarcely worth worrying about.

Therefore, the published opinions on these 2 drivers will likely be more diverse than on any of the others, as they were nowhere near where they have been in the past, for obvious reasons, and it serves to open up the debate if one is placed above the other at any point.

Besides, you have to stick them somewhere, right?
 
Spinodontosaurus said:
A race-by-race analysis will always be superior to simply looking at who finished ahead most often (especially if you fail to exclude mechanical non-finishes and fail to include non-finishes due to accidents), and that is especially true in this instance due to the myriad of mechanical problems the McLaren drivers faced.
Click to expand

Blah blah blah...

The "race by race" analysis in F1Metrics was just as subjective; since different methods put either driver ahead suggests that it was even!

Frankly, anyone who actually watched the races could tell that Alonso was not a long way ahead of Button; nor do in-depth analyses of their overall performance.

RE Italy; one could just as easily state that Button beat Alonso (and that's one extra for Button). Similarly, one could say that China was a race that Button was ahead of Alonso all weekend, and but for a moment of brain fade would have been significantly ahead... You see, all of this "race by race" analysis is just as subjective! Statistics do not tell you everything (or anything sometimes). - the choice of what to include is just as important as how to include it.

(By the way, I'm actually a professional statistican) - and there are many problems with the methodology used on that site...
 
There were some sparks at Ferrari until Massa was told to take the back seat. With Raikkonen relationship was almost non-existent. I can't say relationship with Hamilton was the best. At the beginning there was a rift at Renault with Fisico. Piquet was let go in part due to disagreements with management to play second field. With Marquez I accept, the relationship was amicable.
 
The Artist..... said:
Similarly, one could say that China was a race that Button was ahead of Alonso all weekend, and but for a moment of brain fade would have been significantly ahead...
Click to expand
So Alonso was ahead because Button crashed into somebody? How can you do anything but award that to Alonso?

I think you are miss-remembering how big the gap between them in China was too. Alonso had been reeling Button in on an alternate strategy, and had just latched onto the back of the Button-Maldonado battle about a lap prior to when Button had his "brain-fade". You can see this in the footage:
 
Olivier said:
..... Piquet was let go in part due to disagreements with management to play second field...
Click to expand

Piquet Jnr said that Alonso was always very helpful and that they got on well. That was before Singapore. At the end of the race at Hockenheim Alonso's in lap wasn't far off his fastest of the day, he congratulated Piquet on getting the second place. A bit like Hamilton and Rosberg.:no:
 

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